Goan problems with the Portuguese Left

On the 16th of February Susana Sardo, the Portuguese ethnomusicologist from the University of Aveiro, presented a paper focussed on Goan and Mando music at the symposium organised by the Ketevan World Sacred Music Festival in collaboration with the Goa University. 

A 20 minute documentary, titled Sons de Goa (Sounds of Goa) formed part of the presentation. The film was produced by Rui Pedro Pereira de Oliveira based on portions of Sardo’s doctoral thesis, as well as video footage that Sardo had gathered over the years.

Almost at the very start (3 mins, 33 seconds), the documentary makes an extraordinary claim, that passes quickly, but whose implications pervade the film and Sardo’s understanding of cultural politics in Goa. Sardo suggests that Portuguese domination over India was marked by a kind of double colonization, of economy and faith. I did a double-take when I heard this characterization. Sardo’s position was in fact not very different from that of the proponents of Hindutva, who argue for Gharwapsi or reconversion. Contemporary consensus, at least since the 1940s is that European colonization was unacceptable, and formal decolonization critical to freedom of colonized persons. By the same logic, if the conversion of groups of natives to Christianity is to be seen as spiritual colonization, then surely the calls spiritual decolonization is also in order?

This is not the only problem with Sardo’s characterization of practices of the early Portuguese state in India. Sardo makes it out that conversion to Christianity was entirely the result of force. As a result, there is no space to consider the possibility that perhaps locals welcomed the arrival of Christianity. There is substantial scholarship to suggest that this was in fact the case, both with Islam as well as Christianity, and not entirely the result of force, another favourite Hindutva claim.

It needs to be emphasized that Sardo is not the only scholar who makes such problematic assertions. Indeed, the problem is common among left-leaning Portuguese academics. Opposed to the excesses of the Estado Novo, the Portuguese authoritarian state that held sway from the 1930 until 1974, a number of these academics go out of their way to invert the assertions of this regime. Added to this, given their liberal location, the only role that the Catholic Church seems capable of playing is one of force. In their eyes, partly because of the role of some members of the Portuguese clergy during the Estado Novo, but also because of the anti-clerical tendencies of Southern European intellectuals since the 1800s, the Catholic church is seen as the original authoritarian agency and hence always and forever the villain of the piece.

As a result, a good amount of scholarship emerging from left-leaning Portuguese about Goa is held hostage to Portuguese domestic politics as scholars seek to battle the political Right in Portugal, and attempt to exorcise the ghost of the authoritarian regime. While one can recognize, even sympathise with the need for such battles, these cannot be at the cost of real lives in Goa or the territories that comprised the former Estado da India. In a case where Goan Catholics are painted as clones of the colonizers, the works of scholars such as Sardo effectively justifies, though this may not be her intention, the violence of the Hindutva.

Responding to situations such as these, in his book, Refiguring Goa (2013), the US based scholar Raghu Trichur suggests that there is a need for “serious theoretical and methodological  interventions within Goan historiography” (p. 30). I would respond that the key to such theoretical and methodological interventions lies in recognizing that the natives of early modern Goa were not merely driftwood being swept along in the current. Rather, as demonstrated by the work of Ângela Barreto Xavier, they were individuals and members of groups that made active choices within the circumstances at their disposal. More importantly, it is critical that the Portuguese are not allowed to hog the historical limelight. They and their contemporary descendants need to make space for other players as well.

To avoid misunderstanding it needs to be reaffirmed that this problematization of the Portuguese Left does not mean that the readings emerging from the Portuguese Right are to be embraced. If the Portuguese Left tends to deny agency to the native, and sees them largely as victims, then the Portuguese Right often swings to the other unwelcome extreme of seeing the Portuguese Indian as an image of the Portuguese original. Neither positions do justice to the history of the peoples of Goa, and the larger Estado da India. The need to call out the problems of the Left emerges primarily because not too many now take the arguments of the Right seriously. On the other hand, the Left, whether in Portugal or elsewhere, claims to speak for the cause of the colonized, and are recognized as such. As should be clear from the arguments above, this is a problematic claim since not only are members of the Portuguese Left in fact addressing their own issues, but in doing so they compound the problem by refusing to recognize the agency of the formerly colonized, and thrust us straight into the tridents of  Hindutva. 

(A version of this post was first published in the O Heraldo 19 Feb 2016)

Why What Happens In Goa Matters

Much opinion has already been generated of Tarun Tejpal’s alleged attempt to rape his junior colleague, and no doubt much more will be written. In addition to these diverse positions, it appears that it may be possible to also use this incident to gauge the nature of the Indian nation-state and its relationship  with the peoples and territories that constitute  its national peripheries.

This gauging can begin from what many commentators have dismissed as a “passing” statement from Tejpal himself. In 2011, on the eve of ThinkFest’s first edition, Tejpal had suggested to early birds at the event's plush venue: "Now you are in Goa, drink as much as you want, eat... sleep with whoever you think of, but get ready to arrive early at the event as we have a packed house."

Then, as much as today, the intense responses to this statement from Goans were seen by Indian commentators as akin to making a mountain of a mole hill. To these media pundits Tejpal’s statement was merely an off-the-cuff remark that should not be taken too seriously. Indeed, some have gone as far as to say that it should still not be taken too seriously, and in any case does not compare in severity with the crime that Tejpal has been accused of.

This article does not attempt to equate these two incidents involving Tejpal, but it would like to suggest that the relationship between them is much deeper than these national commentators would allow for.

To begin with, the very fact that there is a disagreement over how to view this statement suggests the widely divergent perspectives of Goans and the Indian elites who frame national news. This dismissal of the Goan response also manifests another way in which ‘mainstream’ India sees Goans as simple, emotional and not given to balanced thought. Further, it demonstrates how local contexts are not given enough importance in the mainstream’s evaluation of things.

This occlusion is typical of the way in which Indian secular nationalism has been argued to operate. Secular nationalism has consistently sought to look at issues from a purportedly objective position. However, this position is marked by the privileged perspective and interests of a nationalist elite that is largely North Indian, upper-caste, Hindu and male. It is the common-sense of this group that largely determines what matters in the republic and what doesn't. Perspectives from the margins, whether it is the south of the country, non-upper caste, non-Hindu, female, or, simply, positions that do not fit into the national imagination of what is appropriately Indian, are routinely ignored. Thus, if Goan anger in 2011 was overlooked, it was because these commentators also view Goa as a place of fun and frolic, much like Tejpal.

If there was a reason why many Goans reacted at all it is because of the systemic manner in which their state has been treated as a pleasure periphery of the nation. California-based scholar Raghuraman Trichur has proposed that it is through tourism, rather than politics, that Goa has been incorporated into the Indian imagination.  This small state on the country's Western coast is indeed seen as part of its pleasure periphery , India’s very own piece of locally available Europe.

The roots of this image of Goa can be traced back to colonial times. One of the primary sentiments motivating the British Indian native elites’ demand for freedom was their failure to upgrade their status from imperial subjects to that of imperial citizens. The latter would have allowed them parity with the metropolitan British not only in British India, but across the breadth of the Empire where Indians were a critical part of the imperial machinery. At the root of their freedom struggle, therefore, was the pique at not being considered equal to whites.

Procuring Goa subsequent to Indian independence, and framing it as a piece of Europe, provided added consolation. This was where British Indians could enjoy the privileges of Europe as first class citizens and masters. The active participation of the Goan state and the tourism industry only aided in cementing this notion. In the process, Goa has frequently been the subject of marketing campaigns  suggesting it is on holiday 365 days  a year, promising nothing short of surf, sand, and sex.

In many ways Tejpal’s personal association with Goa demonstrates all that is wrong with India's relationship with this state.  

Tejpal's 2011 statement clearly demonstrates what he thought of Goa: a place where rules don't matter and one can behave as one wishes. It would not be amiss to suggest that there is a hint of that infamous American idiom, “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas”. People who live in Goa will testify that all too often, the behaviour of tourists adheres to a similar belief. However, it is evident from the explosion of responses to the charge against Tejpal that this is not always true, that what happens in Goa, does not always stay in Goa.

And as if to prove he is not an exception but the rule, no sooner did the International Film Festival of India (IFFI) begin in Goa shortly after ThinkFest, that a festival official was charged with sexual harassment. In this particular incident, the official was accused by a female subordinate of suggesting that they could have drinks and then engage in “all other things (aur sab kuch)”. Where Indian culture is actively defined as a non-alcoholic one, arrival in Goa, with its more balanced response to the public and convivial consumption of alcohol, is seen as opening the doors for licence and licentiousness.

Another way in which Tejpal typifies the national elite’s colonial relationship with Goa is his ownership of a property in the village of Moira.

Those familiar with the Indian upper-middle classes will know that a second home in Goa is de rigueur. Ideally, it must be a building that goes under the erroneous name of a “Portuguese house”. That these properties are unlike anything in Portugal is hardly the point. Calling them Portuguese homes denies a unique Goan identity, and allows the Indian elites to produce the myth that they are in an Indian piece of Europe.

One way in which colonialism operates is to deny the local identity and assert only the national, while simultaneously exploiting the local for the benefits that it offers the colons. Possession of such homes mirrors the holiday-making of contemporary Northern Europeans, but also of English grandees from the nineteenth century. These grandees would own properties in southern Europe, host their friends , and use these locations to engage in romantic interludes and sexual practices that would have invited disapproval in their own countries.

Tejpal’s house in Goa fits neatly into this model, given that it is also rented out as a Portuguese villa when the Tejpals are away. It is not ironic that while this property is marketed as one offering a taste of the openness that marks Goan society, locals have criticised the Tejpals for erecting a 2-metre high boundary wall.

Once again, Tejpal's is not the only infraction; numerous similar properties violate the regulation capping the height of a boundary wall at 1.5 metres. What is striking is his response to a public statement that challenged his purported disregard of building regulations. After dismissing all the allegations as false, in a tone reminiscent of the white man’s burden, Tejpal suggested he was doing Goa a favour since “the house we bought was an old ruin in an inner village”.

The final nail in the coffin is how another one of Tejpal’s babies, ThinkFest, engages with Goa. This year, a number of local activists protested the event, drawing attention to the fact that the venue violated CRZ regulations, and that the event was supported by corporations that not only made their profits from mining but were known to have perpetrated significant human rights violations against indigenous groups that opposed them.

More horrifying are suggestions that the Tehelka editors procured financial support for ThinkFest by suppressing investigative reports on mining scams in Goa that would have implicated government officials. Most disturbing is that even as ThinkFest is held in Goa amidst dubious circumstances, it hardly engages with the locals. The passes for the event are priced beyond the reach of average middle class Goans, let alone those of lesser economic means. Once again, Goa is merely a location to be exploited for its scenic beauty, another spot that marks the exotic social calendar of the jet-set.

Debates in social media have charged that this focus on Goa as a space is meant to effectively turn the focus away from women and the alleged crime. A riposte to this would be to point out that rape, in addition to being about the violation of women’s bodies, is also about relations of power.

To limit the discussion that flows from Tejpal’s alleged actions to rape and women alone is to fall back into the trap of thinking along the agendas set by the national elite. As pointed out above, this is an elite that would prefer that we forget the particular and focus on apparently universal categories.

Looking at gender between the binaries of male and female alone is the very strategy through which the secular-liberal discourse ensures that the specificities of caste are forgotten, such that the rape of Dalit women and men by upper caste groups are often neatly left outside of national debates.

Focusing on location, as this article has attempted to do, seeks to situate the various kinds of locales within which women (and men) may be placed in a position where they are unable to refuse the sexual advances of those above them in social-political hierarchies. For example, does reducing the question in the present debate to just the aggrieved woman alone not deem irrelevant the harassment that all women in Goa, whether local or visiting, must face as a result of its construction as a lotus-eater’s paradise?

A focus on locale also allows us to see why certain kinds of behaviour are made to seem more acceptable in some locations, like hotels or tourist destinations, and not others. It could be argued then, that the scene for the crime that Tejpal has allegedly committed was set on the day his statement – which painted Goa as a place for sexual excess – was condoned by the national press. 

Furthermore, Tejpal’s initial response to the charge, where he smugly cast on himself the role of judge, can be read as an extension of the egotistical way in which the elite see themselves as entitled to bend regulations to their own advantage. The licence to bend rules seems to operate especially when these elites can justify their overall interventions in society as being in the public or national interest.

(A version of this post was first published online at DNAIndia.com on 4 Dec 2013)