Opening up or Ushering in?: The Panchayati Raj amendments, Activists, and Public participation

Over the 25th and the 26th of July I was in Pondicherry, to participate in a workshop around the theme of public consultation and citizen participation in urban governance. ‘Opening Up or Ushering In’ was the rather enigmatic name for the workshop that mystified most of the participants. It was only later that we got an inkling into this framing of the workshop. Given that public consultation and citizen participation that have become rather fashionable catchwords; are these processes being used to open up spaces for citizens to participate in the articulation of plans and projects in their cities and neighbourhoods, or usher in technocrats and their consultancies under the guise of public consultation and participation? You have to admit with me that the organizers were more than clever in their framing of the workshop title, as well as placing on the agenda, an interesting issue for debate.

I would like to reflect on this idea within the Goan context, returning in the process, to a theme that I have not taken up for some time, that of the frustrated moment of the Goan revolution. What has not ceased to amaze is the manner in which, despite constantly brandishing the issue of public participation and decentralization, most of the groups in the fray have been singularly unable to actually realize the objective. All of this despite the fact that the GBA, at that time the more powerful among these groups, held the trumps at a crucial moment in the struggle.

Trying to understand why they failed to seize the moment, two options emerged. One, because of the conviction by some of the more prominent Margao activists that decentralization was a bad thing, the average citizen would make a mess of the powers they were given. The second, because for the architects and urban planners involved in the movement, participation and consultation began and ended when they were ushered into the planning process. In their well-intentioned estimation, this was also participation and consultation, so at least they were taking the process somewhere. As the recent ‘stepping down’ of Edgar Rebeiro has shown us, this assumption was not just terribly naïve, but eventually impotent as well. Participation is not achieved until the entire body of citizenry is enabled to participate in planning. The question that needs to be seriously posed is if this association with the State executive, right from the time the GBA joined the Task Force, an association entirely outside of a legal process, was useful or not.

The reason for distinguishing between the two reasons stated above, is because I would like to distinguish between a conscious option to prevent genuine and large-scale participation (in the first case), and a misunderstanding as to what participation and consultation actually means. In the second case, the error is possibly unconscious, the result of a blinkered vision engendered by one’s professional training. It is a different matter that this professional training is rooted in the same fear of the ‘ignorant masses’ held by our Margao activists. When imbibed through education however, it gets internalized unconsciously. That these professionals belong to a class that in any case has a tendency against mass participation and towards a surprisingly firm belief in its own capacities does not help them in thinking out these biases that are educated into them.

To be sure, these biases have a longer history, as displayed in the history of the anti-colonial struggle in British-India. The early forms of the ‘national struggle’, in particular the demands of the liberals and Swarajists, was not for ‘freedom’. Whenever this potentially explosive term was used, it was in fact rather ambivalently articulated. Their aspiration was in fact for a greater ‘share’ in the governance of the country, as reflected in the demands for greater opportunities in participation in central and provincial legislatures and executive councils. There was no contemplation of universal participation for all Indians, the attempt was to only share the pie of governance with the white man. It was only later, in the event of the failed expectations of the Indian National Congress on most offers of constitutional ‘reforms’ that the discourse and practice got radicalized to lead to the situation of a robust non-cooperation against the British Raj. Popular support was garnered through the eventually unrealized promise to the unwashed masses of their having a say in the future, in matters of governance.

What we must not forget is that there existed right from the very beginning a tension between the freedom struggle led by Gandhi, to whom we can trace this liberative notion of local self governance, and the representative ‘consultative’ democracy that eventually triumphed. This latter form took for its inspiration the structures of the colonial State, and this is why today, we experience nothing less than a colonial violence, as demonstrated by the recent changes effected to the Goa Panchayati Raj Act by the representatives in the legislative house. The fight in Goa, for greater transparency and more participation in governance is in fact a continuation of this unresolved fight against colonialism, and one can see uncanny resemblances. The State apparatus in Goa is that inherited from the Raj, the GBA-mobilization was led by elites for whom sharing of power is sufficient.

It now looks as if this earlier history from British-India is repeating itself. The failed expectations of the leadership of the GBA are prompting queries if we should not now push forward into more radical measures against the Government. As suggested on numerous occasions, that may not be such a bad idea. However, this radical action CANNOT be the goal of the movement. Any action (radical or otherwise) has to necessarily acknowledge that the goal of the movement is nothing less than a legally recognized system of meaningful consultation with the citizens in their wards, and an effective system of participation in village-level and city-level meetings. It is because of our longer history, where colonial institutions and logics have prevailed over the genuinely participatory logics that we have to make sure that in the next mobilization that seems to be imminent, we ensure that the lessons from the history of both the Indian anti-colonial struggle (popularly called the freedom struggle) and the ‘Save Goa’ campaign are not forgotten.

What we need is an opening up, not an ushering in.

(Published in the Gomantak Times, 12 Aug 2009)

Taking Caste Seriously: Why the Goan Fitna needs a rigorous caste-based analysis

Subsequent to the conclusion of the public meeting held on the 13th of March at the Clube National against the Ordinance amending the Land Acquisition Act, a little group gathered to catch up with each other and throw around a few ideas. In the midst of this camaraderie, one of the colleagues, no doubt charged with emotion after the meeting, proposed a route to mobilizing against the Ordinance. “Why don’t we mobilize on the basis of caste” she said. “The situation on hand is clearly about caste” she continued. “The Ordinance benefits hotels (Marriot and Cidade) owned by the Saraswats, while on the other hand the fisherfolk loosing their homes to the CRZ, the village groups to mining are all clearly from ‘lower’ caste backgrounds.” If there was any levity in the group it all melted away with that statement. They looked at her in shocked silence for a while, and then threw up their hands! “Oh no! We don’t believe in caste! We can’t do that!”

Now I don’t as yet want to explore the possibilities as to whether there is in fact a Saraswat versus the rest divide in our society that is at the root of the troubles that Goa is facing. What I would like to take up however is the response of the group to this suggestion. “We don’t believe in caste” and therefore we cannot mobilize on the basis of caste. One very often runs into this sort of response, especially when it is so clearly evident that the battles that are being fought are in fact being fought by ‘lower caste’ groups struggling for recognition, livelihood or access to justice. The very simple question that I would like to ask these touch-me-nots therefore is the following. Does the acknowledgement of racial discrimination make us racist?

It shouldn’t be difficult for Indians to answer this question. Most Indians who have gone abroad, and more recently almost any Indian, after such fiascos as Harbhajan’s “Teri maa ki/ you monkey’ escapade, will vociferously claim that they are racially discriminated against by white people. If they then recognize that they are being racially discriminated against, does this now mean that all of us Indians are racist? Clearly not! If therefore we can admit the fact that the mere recognition of discrimination on the basis of race does not make us racist; then similarly the recognition of discrimination on the basis of caste does not make us casteist. To what then can we attribute our hesitation to discuss caste based discrimination?


In 1932 in the course of the Second Round Table, Dr. Ambedkar raised the issue of separate electorates for the Untouchables. The concept of separate electorates had already been extended to other minority groups, including the Sikhs and the Muslims. Gandhi however would have none of this. Arguing that this would result in the disintegration of the Hindu community, he took to his favourite method of protest, the fast. As his health worsened, Ambedkar was forced to give up his demand for separate electorates and settled for reservations, while the Untouchables were included, against their will, into a combined Hindu electorate.

I raise this fact of history to argue that the suppression of caste questions has been a fundamental feature of Indian political mobilization, especially that of the national struggle. The issue of caste-based discrimination was just not seen to be as important as that of the larger objectives of independence. Since the questions of upper-caste dominance were not effectively addressed prior to Independence, the departure of the British resulted in the upper-caste dominance of the country that we are witness to today.

It is my belief, that no issue of justice in this country can be effectively addressed, unless we also seriously address the issue of caste-based discrimination. Our failure to do so is ultimately based on our own membership within dominant caste groups that benefit from the status-quo that result from not addressing caste-based inequalities. Our discomfort with discussing the inequalities born of caste is not because we don’t believe in caste. On the contrary, it is because we know that once we open that Pandora’s box, the benefits that have accrued to us, and not to others will become so blatantly obvious.

We may not believe in caste, and yet we practice it on a daily basis, through the minor inflections of our speech, by how seriously we take people, by what we consider beautiful and what ugly. We practice caste-based discrimination when we recognize that some people have fallen on bad times, and other people are just poor, when we recognize some people as coming from ‘old families’ and others as having ‘no culture’.

Taking caste seriously would allow us to rupture the communal divides of Catholic, Muslim and Hindu along which we tend to break society down into. Inquire into caste, and you will see how groups mobilize not necessarily across religious lines, but definitely along caste lines. When they do mobilize along religious lines, it would be interesting to see whose interests are being served by this mobilization. Is it merely that of the upper-caste groups within the religious fold, or is it the interests of all of the caste-groups? Surprisingly, it is an emphasis on caste in such states as Bihar that has curbed the growth of both Hindutva, as well as Muslim fundamentalism. It is in light of these arguments that I am personally convinced that an emphasis on caste would in fact help the ongoing Goan upheaval (fitna) take up the essential justice questions that must be addressed if the so-called ‘Goan negativity’ has to end.

Having said so, there is a need for us to subsequently articulate the learning from caste-based analysis sensitively. Our caste locations provide us with a predilection for certain positions. These positions may not be shared by all persons, based on their own caste locations. It is true that not everyone within a dominant caste will give up their unequal privileges without a fight. However there will be those from such a caste, who will see the point, and lend support to the fight for equality. To argue that one’s mere location in a caste makes one anti-egalitarian is to fall right back into the casteist trap. Thus what one will eventually fight are the monsters of Brahmanism, rather than Brahmins themselves. Having said this however, alliances need to necessarily be forged among the Dalit groups in the Goa. There is really no alternative before us. Such an alliance will help us curb the evils that Brahmanism has bred in our State and country; that of Hindutva, the accompanying ills of minority (Muslim, Sikh, Christian) fundamentalisms in the country, as well as the orgy of consumerism that is pushing many in this country and also in Goa, into the arms of a slow, shameful and miserable death.

(Published in the Gomantak Times, 17 March 2009)

Celebrating Republic Day: Rejecting Indian nationalism for Indian constitutionalism

For some time now I have tended to avoid the ‘celebration’ of national events. These days, like ‘Liberation’ day, Independence day, do not represent an unequivocal moment of joy and liberation. They mark the formal inauguration of a State based on upper-caste (Hindu, though this could well contain upper-caste members of other religions) majoritarianism. The national provides almost no scope for the liberation and the development of the multiple groups in India, who do not identify, or share the same interests as the upper caste groups in this country.

It was with some amount of irritation therefore, that I approached Republic Day this year. Two episodes however, beat home the point that Republic Day does not necessarily have to represent the national vision. It can, must, and does represent an entirely different route for participation in the Indian political community.

The first of these episodes that allowed for revelation were the rather disturbing reports surrounding the charge sheet filed by the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) in the Malegaon bomb-blasts case. The reports indicated that Lt Col Prasad Purohit, the accused in the case, and the group he was associated with, had no faith in the Indian Constitution. They seek to create a new Constitution, one that lays the foundation for a Hindu nation in this country.

It was on reading this report that the emotional penny finally dropped regarding the value and the significance of the Indian Constitution. Intellectually, I had been exposed to arguments that suggested the significance of the Constitution. I intellectually knew that even though the Constitution had its limitations, clauses that we had minor and sometimes major disagreements with, it was the document that provided us with the sovereign, secular, socialist and democratic republic. Were it not for the clear and striking declarations of the Constitution, it is quite possible that the political architecture of this country would have been quite radically and troubling different. For sometime now, I have heard Dalit leaders go on and on about the value of the Constitution and the provision of rights it enabled. I could never understand what I then thought to be, their obsession. It was only with this report on the statements by Prasad Purohit therefore that the penny finally dropped, and I was able to appreciate the value of Indian constitution.

The Republic Day of India I realized offers us at least two ways of commemoration. The first is to throw ourselves into blind nationalistic celebration, and the other is to reiterate our commitment not to the nation, but to the values of the Constitution adopted on the 26^th of January and the socio-political order that it has given us. I chose this Republic Day to honour the latter option.

This choice that we all have was made obvious to me by the second of the two episodes I referred to above. This second episode was a short article penned by Sandeep Heble that appeared on the front page of the Gomantak Times, on Republic Day. The web-version of this essay was titled Republic Day thoughts. Rather than contemplate the values of the Constitution though, in pushing a nationalist position, Heble wound up unwittingly (?) deriding the secular principle enshrined in the Constitution. Why do some Indians oppose the singing of Vande Mataram he questioned, arguing that there was nothing objectionable to the demand that Vande Mataram be compulsorily sung in schools. This is the stock explanation that is dished out when dealing with the opposition to Vande Mataram. The GT however, perhaps unintentionally hit the nail bang on the head, with its titling of the essay ‘Vande Mataram’ has strong cultural & nationalist roots. To supplement the title and the essay, they inserted an image of the ‘Mother’ in question. The Mother was represented through the image that the RSS uses for their representation of the Hindu Rashtra. Leaning on a lion, holding a saffron flag, dressed as a Hindu goddess. This then is the cultural and the national connotation of Vande Mataram and this is why, despite its beauty – the Des raag based hymn is a personal favorite, one I will sing privately (and constantly), but never politically – the song is opposed.

In the earlier part of his essay Heble displayed his undoubtedly secular convictions, when he castigated the recently held meet organized by the Akhil Mandir Surakhsha Samiti in Campal. Rather than pit the majority against the minority, the occasion could have been better served he argued by making ‘a strong statement against caste orthodoxy, superstitious practices and discriminations against dalits and women’. If he is a secular person, how then does he go on to take an un-secular, and (constitutionally) un-Indian position?

The clue to this diversion lies in a flaw in understanding what the secular project of the Indian constitution ought to be. Recent scholarship has reflected that much of the effort of the Parliament subsequent to Independence was exactly the kind of progressive agenda that Heble recommends; gender issues, caste discrimination etc. Unfortunately though, what was being unwittingly pursued was the secularization of Hinduism so that it could become the national (and secular) culture for the Indian nation. It is for this reason that Heble is at a loss to understand why Vande Mataram is resented, even though the lyrical references to Devi are removed. The hymn may have been secularised, but it is a secularized Hindu hymn. In that sense, it is just as problematic as Euro-American culture, that claims to be secular but remains biased towards Christianity.

How then are we to move out of this conundrum that we seem to find ourselves in? The route perhaps lies in Ambedkar’s vision as opposed to Gandhian reformism. Ambedkar recommended procedural equality, rather than the Gandhian penitence that focused on social reform. A focus on the procedural (without in the process fetishising procedure) would see the secular as respectful of the student who wishes to not sing the Vande Mataram. The renewed republican project of the Indian Constitution would value freedom enough to recognize that even a student has the right not to be coerced into a position she feels uncomfortable with. It would take socialism seriously to reduce the growing gap between the haves and the have-nots in India. In Goa, this respect for socialism would transform into a respect for the people’s movements that recognize the environment to be the property and livelihood base of all, not a commodity to be parceled out for private profit of a few. It would understand sovereignty not as the petty posturing of national elites in the international sphere, but the right of the nation to take positions that benefit the sovereign decisions taken by the most marginal among us. Inspired by Amartya Sen, it would allow the most marginal to be sovereign! This project would look to realize democracy as the institution that applies the law equally to all, rather than skip it for those with deep pockets, the right connections, and the right background.

It is this republican tradition and Constitutional project (initiated on the 26^th of January 1951) that we are better off celebrating and committing ourselves to, while rejecting the culturally biased nationalism that is currently suffocating the life out of our republic.

(Published in the Gomantak Times 28th Jan 2009)

A Violated Christmas: Of armed soldiers in Churches and the spirit of Christmas

Christmas eve midnight services in Churches across Goa this year were marked by the presence of police, armed soldiers, commandos and other paraphernalia suggesting a state of heightened security. What would a Christian response to the security arrangements have been and what were the options open to us?

Yearly we are reminded by the elders of our faith that the bulk of the word Christmas is formed by the alphabets spelling Christ. It is Christ and his message that must form the bedrock of our Christmas celebrations, and temper the physical and material aspects of the festival. It is then to this Christ, his message and the traditions of his Church that we must turn to when attempting to uncover a Christian response to this most uncommon of events.

If we regard the scene of the nativity in Bethlehem, two millennia ago, what we behold is a scene of stark vulnerability. God is born; not as man, but as a child, dependent on his impoverished parents, in a stable that relies as much on animal heat as it does on straw for warmth. This is a child born not in a time of peace and security but under the threat of death. And yet despite his options, Christ chose to be born not in a palace that would afford him the security of arms and soldiers, but in manger surrounded by human bonds that are the true foundation for the peace that he came to establish on earth. The presence of weapons and soldiers at the midnight services then, should be seen as an unwelcome and defiling presence to a moment necessarily dedicated to peace born from brotherhood and a voluntary adoption of vulnerability.

It was this conscious adoption of vulnerability again, and the conscious choice for death that motivated Christ to accept death on a cross. If Christmas is a time for spiritual renewal and the honing of the virtues of vulnerability and self-sacrifice, then once again, the presence of soldiers worked contrary to this spiritual exercise. Let us assume for a moment, that there was a genuine threat of attack on Christian congregations across Goa. Our presence, unarmed and without security would have been a conscious act of readiness for martyrdom, underlining the spirit of self-sacrifice which the Nativity was only the prelude to. Gandhi, though not Christian, is perhaps among the foremost of political Christians, offering a political agenda suffused with Christian ideals. The path of the satyagrahi, is the act of non-violent and conscious offering of our bodies to the aggressor; an act that simultaneously shames and converts the aggressor into the path of dialogue and permanent peace. It is the act of the Christian willing to be martyr, in imitation of Christ.

This Christian and satyagrahi option, in fact opens up a wide avenue to deal with the terrorism that is the scourge of our times. It offers a committed and non-comprising response to political and social violence. No matter how hard you try, no matter how much blood you are willing to shed, we will offer it up, unprotesting, without converse recourse to weaponry until you realize the futility of terror and violence. This option, that shuns automatic and explosive weaponry, opens up the path for dialogue and the breaking down of social barriers that at the end of the day cause the forms of terror that we have been witness to in recent times.

For a religion that encourages people to accept the crown of martyrdom, the presence of soldiers to prevent the possibility of that martyrdom was an abomination and an option for spiritual education sadly lost. The elders of the faith had a wonderful opportunity to offer the faithful the choice between the world (and its notion of security) and the faith. We had the option of not attending the midnight service if we chose the softer option. The Church failed in its duty of preventing this armed intrusion. In not making a symbolic act of rejecting the offer of such illusory forms of security, the Catholic community of Goa has lost a golden opportunity. For this loss, the spiritual leaders of the Church must necessarily reflect on this, their failure. Even more unfortunate, is that this community has in this act become complicit in the charade of the State. A charade that offers meaningless, token gestures that offer only an illusion of security. This tamasha does not provide any real security it merely strengthens the hands of a state that seeks more and more power while refusing to address the basic needs and problems of the people. In the face of the continuing struggle of the Goan people alone, this militarized offer of security ought to have been politely declined.

Clearly, the logic I offer does not fall into what one would call ‘rational’ and ‘practical’. However, I offer the suggestion that there are multiple realities available, depending on the position one chooses to adopt. When Christ was resurrected he inaugurated a new dimension in time and space. Indeed, while on earth he clearly indicated that his kingdom was not of this earth. In being members of his flock, we are invited to appreciate the reality of this alternate dimension, participate in its logic, and alternatively structure the reality offered to us by the State (and market). Both Christ and the early Christian tradition were very clear about the extent of the Christian’s relationship with the material world presided over by the State, a position aptly summed up in the phrase “unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s’.

As the faithful proceeded to service at Don Bosco’s in Panjim, they silently fell into line in front of the lone metal detector. As they crossed that metal detector without complaint, into the grounds where a sacred service was to be held, they entered not the realm of space and time inaugurated by Christ, but the realm of fear, produced by the State. In this space security and liberation from fear came not from the path of Christ and the faith of his Church, but from the barrel of the gun. This Christmas then, our moral universe itself shifted over from the right hand of God, to the Right.

And yet, even if it would have liked to, would the Church have been able to say “No, thank you” to this offer of ‘security’ from the State?

It is likely that had the elders of the Church in fact taken this stand, it would have still been possible for the State to override the rejection arguing that this security must be put in place for the larger security of the State. This overriding would have resulted in the inability of the Church and Christians to spiritually engage, in the forms outlined in the arguments above, with the multiple forms of terror that are faced by society today. What this effectively translates to is the emptying out of our spiritual universe as a result of the actions of the State preventing a meaningfully engagement with a spiritual tradition. In such a scenario, as was played out this Christmas, the Christian tradition is severed from its spiritual realm and forced into merely a ritual and superficial performance of religiosity. Thus the Christian is produced not as a mystic, but as a member of a group that performs certain rituals, dress in a particular manner and who have certain common holidays. It is when religion is pushed into this secular and non-mystical form, that the trouble really begins to start, once more making a case against the Christmas tamasha that we were forced to be both actors of and audience to.

A Christian response to the ‘security’ arrangements in Churches this Christmas eve would have been to reject them in one voice. The alternative would have been to commit to the non-violent path toward dialogue and establishing the foundations for a society purged of social and political violence. Should our refusal have been over-ridden, it would have been incumbent on the preachers in every Church to denounce this unchristian act and urge a greater suspicion of the false promises of security offered to us by a State that seeks to induct us into its own notion of reality.

(Published in the Gomantak Times 31 Dec 2008)