Learning from Egypt II :Picking out the greys from the black and white

Last week, when attempting to draw lessons for Goa from the Egyptian revolution, this column pointed out that the problems with Goa’s socio-political activism lay in the compromises effected by the elite leadership of these movements. Presented as an example, were the appeals by the Convenor of PINC to not vote for the panel proposed by Babush Monserrate. What was also stressed however, was that the attempt was not to demonise the elite/middle class leadership. On the contrary, the attempt was merely to raise a cautionary voice, so that we can benefit from the sensitivity they bring, but also know when to move on.

Another opportunity to follow this train of thought was presented in a recent essay penned by the Convenor of PINC, Dr. Oscar Rebello, no doubt in personal capacity, in the Herald under the title, ‘Meeting up with G.H.A.N.T.I.’ The essay highlights the manner in which this particular social segment of Goa has much to offer socio-political change but also the limitations of its imagination.

Dr. Rebello wrote movingly of the manner in which the ghanti is ostracized and blamed for situations that are in fact the product of Goa’s internal problems. There is much to learn from this argument that, to his credit, Dr. Rebello has unceasingly articulated at every possible moment in his public role. However, we should spare a thought to an uncomfortable fact. Being a member of Goa’s cosmopolitan classes, the fears of cultural difference that the migrant (of whichever economic hue) wave brings to Goa is less of a threat to De. Rebello, than to the Goan whose social universe is largely rooted in the structures of ‘traditional’ life. This ‘traditional’ life may perhaps be a bigoted existence that deserves to change, and this migrant the best option for it. Indeed, the threat of the ghanti is very often raised by another segment of the leadership of Goan social-political movements. Small time village bosses, made significant through the fruits of working overseas, the ghanti is a symbol of the local changes that threatens to void their years of hard labour. While not sympathising with their attempts at rabble rousing, we need to recognize that the process of change is not easy for persons without the substantial cultural capital that Dr. Rebello is lucky to have. The question before us, persons like Dr. Rebello (and self?) is how do we intervene in the process to make it easier and understandable?

Dr. Rebello’s essay could perhaps be one part of his personal efforts, and in doing so, he opens the door for a discussion that may otherwise have not commenced. There would be no discussion however, if we only agreed with what he had to say. Disagreement with his position, or indeed that of any other, does not imply that he is wrong, and the response to his positions correct. Such clear options are only theoretically available to us. However, the responses could point to the problems inherent in the suggestions made.

Before disagreeing with aspects of Dr. Rebello’s argument however, we need to point out the other spaces where we agree with him. Dr. Rebello is spot on when he says that ‘The youth in the slums unlike their parents are rebelling for being treated like toys without dignity.’ The migrant will remain a threat to the Goan order only as long as they are in a position where they are forced to operate as a vote bank. Aiding their access to better conditions of labour, educational and employment options for their children works to the interest of the niz Goencar. For the children of these migrants, Goa, and its diverse cultures, are the only home they know, and culture they are intimate with.

The first of my problems with Dr. Rebello’s formulations stems for this understanding above, that of a Goan culture that while it can be contained with the box called Goa, is in fact plural and diverse. If Dr. Rebello has often asked us to not target the ghanti, he is also typically elite in his urging us toward ‘unity’. This unity that Dr. Rebello urges us toward however, seems to be not so much unity as uniformity. Unity lies in deciding to stick together while recognizing our differences and agreeing to respect these. Uniformity on the other hand rests on the rejection of difference. Take for example the manner in which in the course of the GBA’s mobilisations, those persons who sought to raise the issue of Romi Konkani were told to shush up. The GBA leadership at the time told them in no uncertain terms that the Roman script issue was not to be part of the GBA’s agenda. As the fantastic turn out at the rally demanding Government aid to English medium schools indicates, the hegemony of Devanagari Konkani is a singular part of the problems impacting Goa and Goans, regardless of caste or religion, or indeed ghantiness or otherwise. Discussing our problems with Konkani, or anything else, requires that we recognize our differences and stop trying to suffocate these out of existence.

Perhaps these ideas stem from the larger group that Dr. Rebello associates with, ersons whose names figure in PINC, and were part of the GBA leadership at the time. These figures seek to create a Goan nationalism, a single Goan national community. Such nationalists are incapable to tolerating internal difference. To these nationalists I ask, why do you not want to recognize that there are different groups in Goa? Groups who may respond to the term Goan, but do not necessarily see themselves as part of the same community. Or are only grudgingly together? Creating a national community of Goans, will not resolve Goa’s problems. Addressing the larger demands of these groups, building a community that recognizes each others differences probably will.

The second disagreement with Dr. Rebello is the suggestion that it is private profits that are responsible for Goa’s ills. This is only a part of the problem. Undoubtedly some groups, like the real estate lobby, and the politicians that harvest this greed make private profit. However, both these groups are able to exploit a larger need of the Goan peoples which is the need for capital to transition to the new economy. The tragedy is that the money they make does not seem to be resulting in the collective and social institutions that can support them in this transition but the further breaking up of collective infrastructure. This may sound like a quibble, but it is imperative that we recognize that genuine need fuels much of the silence and support for the politicians who enable the privateering that is destroying Goa. If we can recognize this need, we may in fact open up more doors for understanding the nature of the challenge that Goa faces.

To conclude let me reiterate once more. The elite groups of Goa have something to contribute to socio-political change in our society, however their thinking stems from their sometimes narrow agendas and is the result of their social location. We need to work with them when we can, and disagree vehemently when their positions block equitable social change rather than support it. It is not a case of black or white, but selecting from our choice of greys.

(First published in the Gomantak Times 23 March 2011)

Opening the Third Eye: Goan History after Into the Diaspora Wilderness

This column last week challenged the notion of Goa Indica as being an incomplete cliché, incapable of capturing the nuances of Goa’s history. Because it sought to do battle with the idea of Goa Dourada, an idea promoted by Portuguese imperialism, the contours of Goa Indica are suffocatingly nationalistic. Manifesting in local rhetoric, Goa Indica had to deny the Portuguese impact, and look for an independent Goan identity prior to the Portuguese. As a result, it fell into the Indian nationalist trap of looking at history from a brahmanical point of view. This ignored, almost entirely, the history and experience of the non-dominant sections of Goan society, especially those Catholic groups that were the non-dominant (or subaltern). To be sure this was not a malicious overlooking, but the result of the position from which this history was being written. Where the Catholic faith was seen as a Portuguese injection into Goa, how could anything that these groups possessed, be capable of yielding a ‘pre-Portuguese’?

This forgetting of the subaltern Catholic is however, gradually being redressed, and thank goodness for it. The movement for the recognition of the Roman script and the cultural productions associated with it, the celebration of Cantaram with the recent Konkani Rocks concert, are moves that seem to be slowly addressing this grave lacuna in the crafting of the Goan identity. To this happy move, was recently added Into the Diaspora Wilderness, a book written by Selma Carvalho about the Goan ‘diaspora’ in the British Empire.

Carvalho’s book is a must read because it shifts the focus in the telling of Goa’s story in many ways. Already in the ‘Short Introduction’ she indicates a few changes in the way in which she looks at Goa. She is critical of “[A] miniscule section of the Goan population (who) sat indolently in the grandeur of chandeliered reception halls”. This book is not about their story. This is a story of those who moved away. Those who could not see the otherwise much celebrated “quiet eloquence of rural Goa: the peace, tranquility, self-sustaining village life in which one seeks solitude”. This is the story of those who could not bear the 'desultory, isolation of the vaddo...the eerie silence of the night...The empty, hollow sense that nothing could germinate in the village which could take one beyond its boundary”. And it is because it is a story of those who moved away, it is not a story that is tied to Goan land and histories of gãocarial connections to land. It is a story that is forged by the traveler, in particular the otherwise-mocked tarvotti, the sneered-at Gulfie, whose travels “have profoundly shaped our cultural mores.” These stories take us across the seas, into Africa and are twined with British Africa, and the Anglo-Saxon world. Carvalho is fully aware of these shifts she is making, evident when she says; “Very often, when the story of the Goan migration is told, it is done from the vantage point of Goa. It is as if Goans went to these countries but somehow remained unaffected by what transpired in these distant lands, as if they existed in a political and cultural vacuum. The reality is, there were transformations taking place every step of the journey, transformations which have inevitably affected the collective Goan psyche.” This story then, makes the profound point that has to be made again and again, and again before it becomes part of Goan commonsense; the Goan psyche was profoundly influenced by experiences outside of Goa, and these Goans were subaltern folk, who left Goan shores in search of financial sustenance, often to escape the suffocation of a caste-ridden, hierarchical and unimaginative society. There is a third shift she effects. She speaks of Goan times, under Portuguese sovereignty, but there is barely a reference to the Portuguese. In doing so, she prompts us to ask if when looking at the histories of the Goan subaltern, the Portuguese were perhaps not the main referent? Perhaps this obsession with the pre-Portuguese past is just a red-herring that disappears when we start looking at the histories of the subaltern Goan? In other words, the crafting of a Goan identity need not centre (as Goa Indica also does) around the Portuguese. They were merely one small, if significant, chapter in a larger Goan story.

Carvalho rescues the stories of a number of persons for the telling of Goan history; the otherwise uncelebrated Caitans and Joãos, who no doubt went to their grave thinking they were nobodies. But Selma also tells these stories twined with her own. Like Maria Aurora Couto before her, Selma too tells a daughter’s story. This positioning of both these Goan raconteurs within the bosom of family is perhaps not coincidental. Like Selma points out, Goan migration was often pioneering, going into uncharted waters. For these groups, subaltern in the larger global hierarchy, security and upward mobility came not from State or Company, but via the support from family and the connections generated through creating familial relationships with each other.

One wishes though, her narrative had dealt with caste a little more critically than it does. By virtue of telling the stories she has, she is forced to mention caste. But having done so, she falls into the old Goan Catholic trap of not discussing caste in public. We pretend innocence about it. As a result, she mentions caste, but fails to attempt a critical discussion of it. This failing is nowhere as obvious as when she discusses its presence among the Goan communities in Africa. Thus for example in the case of the relationships that Goans in Kenya had with the future of a postcolonial Goa she refers to the fact of the two sides (pro-India led by J.M. Nazareth and pro-Portuguese faction led by Dr. A.C.L. de Souza) being motivated by caste battles. Having done so, she refuses to elaborate on the name of these castes or elaborate on these divisions.

But perhaps this silence is also because through her writing what Carvalho is also attempting is a rescuing of the dignity of the groups she writes about, from the humiliation they normally experience. The discussion of caste could perhaps wait another day, when we are more secure in, and less apologetic about our identities. Carvalho however, also seems to uncritically accept other hierarchies, for example that of the white (Anglo-Saxon) man who crafted the British Empire. While acknowledging the role of the Goan in lending vital support to this Empire, she does not seem to be critical of the manner in which it moulded the Goan psyche. Did being the Imperial overseer create racial prejudices that we do not acknowledge? Where there are possibilities to take this forward, she unhappily lets these threads fall. At times, one could not help in wondering, whether the twining of the Goan story with that of Empire, does not make the Goan somewhat nostalgic for this time of Empire.

Finally, even though it is a wonderful read and a critical contribution to Goan historiography and literature, the stories that Carvalho narrates are often snapshots strung together from disparate settings. There is none of the thickness of description that is the demand of the ethnographer. Very often, the story has only begun when it very frustratingly ends. One wonders therefore, if her book would not have been better served through more focused elaborations of selected theaters of Goan migration. But then on the other hand, this is perhaps only the first of more productions that will fully elaborate the untold stories of the subaltern Goan abroad? It would be a shame if Selma Carvalho, with her charming prose, resolute voice, and unflinching gaze stops at just one book.

(First published in the Gomantak Times 1 Sept 2010)

O Que É O Racismo, Afinal?: What Exactly Is Racism At The End Of The Day?

Perhaps you have shared this experience when visiting the ‘western world’? The persons of South Asian descent there have an uncanny way of locating you in the crowd and staring, if even for a moment, at you. Finding these looks rather disconcerting, I complained to a friend some time ago that I had no idea how to respond to these, at times searching, glances. I had no idea what these glances were supposed to mean. How was I to respond to them?

The route to response was suggested sometime yesterday at a seminar that bore the title of this column. Speaking at the seminar, Brackette Williams, an anthropologist based in the United States, drawing from the experience of coloured persons in the United States, suggested that those glances were in fact glances looking for acknowledgement. A racist society, or a society that discriminates against certain kinds of persons, has the effect of negating the existence of that person. Perhaps this society doesn’t even have to be consciously discriminatory. The mere fact of being a minority results in a situation where one does not feel that one’s being, one’s existence is acknowledged sufficiently. When one coloured person looks at another, especially in contexts where they are the minority, these glances then, are glances that are looking for acknowledgement. To not acknowledge these glances, Williams elaborated, was to participate in racism. Williams pushed the concept a little further, when she argued that it didn’t matter if we were too busy thinking about our failing finances, if we were lost in our own world. When we failed to acknowledge that glance, we were engaging in racist behaviour.

Sitting in the audience, recognizing the truth of Williams' observation, I sank somewhat into my seat, feeling like Judas at the Last Supper. When we do see those glances and choose to look away, or not acknowledge them, what we are doing is refusing to acknowledge a relationship between ourselves and that person. What we are trying to do is to distance ourselves from ‘those people’. We can justify this distancing to ourselves. Invariably, it is one created by or justified by class. And yet, after Williams' observation, how can we not acknowledge that at the end of the day, it is about race?

Williams' observations, forced a recollection of Kiran Desai’s observations in her book The Inheritance of Loss. Observing on the antics of South Asians as they queue up before the U.S. Embassy, to apply for a visa, she points out how those from the upper rungs of this society, distinguish themselves from the socio-economic ‘lower orders’ of their society. This distinguishing is achieved through the looks of scorn for the ‘lower orders’ lack of English, manners or some other civilizing feature. It is achieved through our dress, or it is achieved best of all, through the rich, cultivated tones of our ‘posh’ accents. Desai perhaps captures it best in the phrase where she describes how Biju struggles to get a visa to the U.S. After successfully pushing himself forward “he dusted himself off, presenting himself with the exquisite manners of a cat. I'm civilized, sir, ready for the U.S., I'm civilized, ma’am. Biju noticed that his eyes, so alive to the foreigners, looked back at his own countrymen and women, immediately glazed over, and went dead”.

Class is such a cunning way in which we mask our own racism. And we often do not have to traverse to foreign climes to practice this racism. Read Rochelle Pinto’s book, Between Empires for a discussion on how the nineteenth century elite Goans in Bombay sought to distinguish themselves from their more vernacular brethren who populated the Coors in that city. These elite Goans, westernized to an extent of being able to justifiably see themselves as ‘European’, marked themselves out from the other Goans in the city. We continue those inherited practices today, when we turn our nose up at the Tiatr, at the language and the literature produced by those who write Konkani in the Roman script, and when we shut our ears to Cantaram.

Social scientists claim that Racism is a particularly difficult concept to elaborate because one can never pin it down. This is perhaps because race and racism is one of the foundational concepts of the international order that structures our national and local existence as well. It is the systemic logic that manifests itself in even the smallest actions we undertake. These contemplations apart however, we do now have an explanation for the, until yesterday inexplicable, glances shared between coloured persons as they pass each other in the streets of the ‘western’world.

Therefore, for the times that we have erred in not acknowledging our brethren in the street; mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

(A version of this essay was first published in the Gomantak Times on March 10 2010)

The Gift of the Magi: The Goan Catholic, Romi Konkani and the Edge of Faith

On the second of January, Literati a rather charming bookstore in Candolim hosted the release of ‘Edge of Faith’. A collection of photographic images by the eminent fashion photographer Prabuddha Dasgupta, ‘Edge of Faith’ captures images from the lives of Goan Catholics. He photographs them in their drawing rooms, their inner chambers, at church, their homes and their shrines. While some of the photographs in the compilation speak to the continuing vitality of the Goan Catholic, the work and the artist are both troubled by the specter of the impending, and slowly unfolding, disappearance into history of the Goan Catholic.

If the overwhelming sense at the release of ‘Edge of Faith’ was that the requiem was being sung for the Goan Catholic, there was another event where the sense could not have been more different. Earlier that same evening, the Black Box in the Kala Academy hosted the commemoration of the birth of Lucasinho Ribeiro. It was the result of Lucasinho’s innovations in Bombay in 1892, that resulted in the Tiatr, a dramatic art form that would (and continues to, if we look at the Dogui Bodmas Colva episode!) shake the Goan cultural world.

Organized by the newly formed Tiatr Academy of Goa, this event was perhaps the first official commemoration of Lucasinho’s birthday by a government-sponsored body. This commemoration should be seen as a part of a series of events that have been organized by a group of activists, led by the redoubtable Tomazinho Cardozo, to gain official recognition and respect for what is called Romi-Konkani and the literary and cultural forms it has produced.

Since at least the year 2005, this group of cultural activists has been demanding that the official recognition of Konkani be extended to that written in the Roman script, and not restricted Konkani written in the Nagari script alone. It has been their argument that with the official recognition of the Devanagari script alone, the cultural productions that stem from those who write Konkani in the Roman script; Cantar, Tiatr, the novels written in Roman script, have been actively spurned by the State. Since 2005 this movement has gone from strength to strength. It has managed to rally a constituency for this variant of Konkani and secured official recognition for its art forms.

Despite the charge of deliberate erasure that this linguistic group asserts, almost every event they organize is marked by a huge amount of vitality and determination. They recognise that they are being kicked while they are down, and yet convinced of the vibrancy of their cultural productions, are willing to fight it out, and garner the recognition they believe they deserve. The commemoration of the birth anniversary of Lucasinho Ribeiro was no different. It was filled with the piquancy of political satire, of the joy that comes from cultural creativity, and the recognition of the continuing relevance of cultural traditions.

If both these events stem from the cultural experience of the Goan Catholic, and both recognize a threat to cultural existence, how do we make sense of the radical difference in the emotional states of the two gatherings?

Perhaps the key to unlocking this mystery lies in the explorations of connections. In the first case, it appears as if the people that Prabuddha photographed saw themselves as objects produced solely by colonialism, unconnected to the land, and with colonialism’s demise, dying a slow death. In the face of the suffocating embrace of Indian nationalism, and bereft of a vibrant argument, they must necessarily wait for their time in the sun to pass. This seems absolutely not the case with the Romi activists. While largely Catholic, these activists, refuse to have their movement labeled as that of Goan Catholics alone, their alliance composed of Hindus and Muslims. Their argument is that what they have to offer is a popular culture that can, and is in fact embraced by all Goans.

Rather than stress separateness, the Romi activist stresses connection. In the course of their activism the Romi activists are forging a new public culture. It is contemporary, it is political, and it exudes the aroma of a living Goa. It is not one that excludes all of the established practices of new-Goan culture established by the post-integration State. It adopts these and adds to it; continuing practices, manners and language that may have been abolished by State practices, but otherwise resonates with the people. There is the recognition of threat here, but no fear of death, there is hope and there is faith.

Interestingly enough, it was faith that was on

display at both the events that evening. At the chronologically prior Tiatr Academy event, faith (as opposed to religion) was unselfconsciously introduced to popular culture in the manner in which God was invoked to shower blessings on the audience that had gathered as one family. This faith was made manifest in the example of conduct of right action that the Cantarists sang about as they critiqued contemporary society and politics. In the images that Prabuddha displayed later that evening, once more it was faith that came shining through. And this was not because a number of his images are located within the precincts of churches. The subjects of the images exuded a quiet determination that Prabuddha remarked on. There was a sense that ‘this too shall pass’.

The image that closed the display of Prabuddha’s photographs that evening was of a freshly white-washed cross, somewhere in the Goan country, emerging, from a pile of roughly hewn stones, almost swayambhu from the ground. The image is polyphonic. One can read it as a symbol of the foreign, or one can see it as a faith, rooted solidly in home-soil. There are those among the Goan Catholics, who see Christianity, not primarily as faith, but as religion. With this materialist understanding, they see a foreign history, unconnected to the soil and are unable to reconcile that with the present. For these people, it is true, the final pages of the Goan Catholic are being written. For others however, this faith, is an unselfconscious part of their being. It is not merely an identity. For these people, rooted solidly to the ground, the past is a rock on which they stand in the present, and from which they look toward their future. For these people, the story of their evolution is only now being written, and there is a lot more to look forward to!

(First published in the Gomantak Times, 6 Jan 2009)

Can Islam be Secular: On how the question predetermines your answer

A week ago, I had the opportunity of being present at the lecture of a friend in the Dutch university town of Nijmegen. Shahrukh Alam, one of the founder-members of The Patna Collective, had been invited to the Soeterbeeck lecture series to present her views as to whether Islam can be secular. Like me, Shahrukh Alam has her reservations about the theory and practice of the political ideal of secularism, both in India and internationally, and I looked forward to what she would have to say on this occasion.

Rather interestingly, but perhaps not surprisingly, what Shahrukh did was to invert the question. She pointed out that our answers are always structured by the logic of the question. The answer must necessarily conform to the logic of the question, for if it does not, the answer tends to be viewed as nonsensical. But this is not to say that the issues that are being raised are necessarily nonsensical. They become nonsensical only within the context of the question. The question in this case, is being asked from a location of power that perhaps refuses to get off its pedestal and engage equally with the concerns that result in the question being raised in the first place.

Thus Shahrukh reformulated the question to ask, if it was not the case that there was something wrong with the idea and practice of secularism in the first place? Rather than isolate the idea and practice of secularism from other practices of the national and international order, Shahrukh chose, quite sensibly in my opinion, to pose the question about secularism in the context of development. Like the questions that are being raised against secularism, there are questions being raised about the model of development that is followed by the Indian nation-state. The reasons for the opposition to both secularism and development she argued, is because they are both based on a similar position. Both secularism and development are based on the recognition of a certain standard of the ‘good life’. Certain socio-economic and political conditions are determined as the best possible conditions for life and are they imposed almost unilaterally on all. There is no choice to develop an alternative conception and practice of the good life. You just have to march to the tune that has been developed for you.

But the issue is not only about the manner in which this ideal is formulated. The problem lies also with the manner in which it is implemented. Thus, while secularism suggests that members of all religious groups will be treated equally, this is not at all the case. Take the example of the Netherlands for example, where national holidays are almost universally linked to the history and religion of white Dutch Christians. Despite their long association with South East Asian cultures, the long presence of the Turks and Moroccans, Muslim or South-east Asian feasts do not appear in the calendar of holidays. The promise of secularism falls short therefore.

Those of us who follow the histories of developmental projects similarly know that the promises of the good life that were to follow from the realization of these projects have not materialized. Those displaced by these projects have been pushed deeper into poverty. Where projects were meant to benefit the rural, we see the harnessing of these resources for the dreams and aspirations of India’s urban elite. There is thus a problem both with the manner of the formulation of the ideal, as well as the implementation of the ideal that results in the opposition to both these centralizing projects.

Having made the connection between secularism and development, indicating both to be manifestations of the intolerance of the state to its preferred ideals, Shahrukh was now able to point out that the problem with secularism is not about Muslims alone. There are plenty of people who oppose these unilateral, exclusive visions of the State. There are Muslims, there are tribals, dalits, marginal farmers, the list is potentially endless. What these people are asking for is not separation, but inclusion. Where the State excludes them in practice, their demand, maybe oftentimes plea, is for inclusion. It is then the stubborn commitment to exclusion by the State and its associated elites that is at the root of the problem.

Shahrukh did not however end by letting the Islamicists off the hook. She pointed out that when Islam is mobilized politically, to support claims of inclusion, very often the Islamicists use Islam in precisely the same reason as the secularists use religion, as an empty tool to advance political arguments and gains. There is thus not too much of a difference between the two. Given that I would like to explore this issue in some detail, I’ll leave this for another column. The central point that is worth emphasizing however is once more we are being encouraged to see beyond the divisions that liberalism encourages us to make in our real lives. Once we see the underlying similarity between secularism and development, we see that the problem is not about Muslims, but about many other groups that have been shut out of the operations of the State. A fantastic local example would be the partisans of the demand for recognition for Romi-Konkani. Despite their making a fairly simple claim for recognition and inclusion, their claim is constantly brushed aside and they are asked to be ‘secular’. Brush off a group, and caricature them long enough and you can be assured that they will emerge as the demon you accuse them of being. To return to Shahrukh’s argument however, the problems with secularism, are not those only of Muslims, but of any sensible person who wishes to lead a whole and complete life. The argument is not one that comes for a disrespect of difference, but a demand for the recognition and valuing of difference.

(Published in the Gomantak Times, 18 Nov 2009)

Cosmopolitanism and Culture: Should the Goan be ashamed of being Cosmopolitan?

It is the events at the Goa Konkani Academy’s commemoration of the adoption of the Official Language Act, on the 4th of February that provides the meat for this week’s ramblings.

The key speaker at the event was Advocate Uday Bhembre who spoke on the Official Language Act in the context of Culture (Asmitai). In the course of his lecture Adv. Bhembre made a rather stunning observation. He referred to an event in Margao sometime ago, when Goans were referred to as being cosmopolitan. Uday baab smiled. The word cosmopolitan at first blush sounds very nice he said. But if you go to look at it, what it really means, is that you have no authentic culture or identity that you can demonstrate to the world as being uniquely your own.

It was now my turn to smile. Clearly the venerable Bhembre had been plucking his fruit from the wrong tree. Most cultural theorists, philosophers and political thinkers would be hard pressed to agree with his understanding of cosmopolitanism. Cosmopolitanism for most of the world means the ability to appreciate the culture of others and relate in a positive manner to these cultures, taking, imbibing adding on to it, enriching one’s own cultural position. In doing so, one’s own cultural position definitely gets changed, but this, it is the firm belief of cosmopolitans, is only a positive accretion, as one moves from being the frog in the well (the Sanskritic kaupamanduk) to being a citizen of the world.

If there is a large global opinion that runs counter to Bhembre’s understanding of the word, why does Bhembre position cosmopolitanism in this manner? The possible answer is that he is probably collapsing the word cosmopolitan with the (British)Indian understanding of Goan culture. For the British-Indian, Goan culture is but the culture of the Goan (Portuguese Indian) natives who took everything they have from the Portuguese. They are therefore cosmopolitan in all that they do, because they don’t really have their own culture.

This British-Indian position is without doubt a violent position that denies the Goan cultural agency. However what is disturbing is that rather than fight this British-Indian (im)position on our own (Goan) terms, Bhembre tries to fight it on British-Indian terms, by rejecting the hybridity of Goan culture (rather than embracing it) and accepting the nationalistic British-Indian position that stresses and celebrates authentic regional cultures, that are united primarily in their derivation from some common Sanskritic mould.

To meet this goal, he reduces the Goan identity to just one feature; Konkani, nothing more, nothing less. Unfortunately however, Goan identity is much more than Konkani, and the definition of Konkani is an extremely contested one. In stressing Konkani, and doing so on British-Indian terms (that recognize primarily brahmanical, Sanskritised forms) what he is doing is rejecting the existing hybrid and cosmopolitan bases of Goan-ness. What we should be very clear about though, is that what this rejection does, is to lay the foundations for conflict and discord in Goan society, one such extant conflict being that spawned by the lack of recognition to Konkani in the Roman script and the dialects associated with it.

It is tragic that Bhembre chooses the more regressive of the British-Indian traditions. Within the modern Indian tradition, we have at least two exemplars of cosmopolitanism, Gandhi and Tagore. Gandhi was clearly uncomfortable with the parochialism that marked the building of a nationalist culture. Tagore was similarly uncomfortable with the building of cultural barriers and the celebration of authenticity that guarded itself from contamination. Bhembre has definitely chosen the winning team though, given that both Gandhi and Tagore are something of anomalies in contemporary India.

Bhembre is a suave and sophisticated speaker and if you weren’t listening closely you would miss the violence that is necessarily a part of his rejection of cosmopolitanism. The violence of this project however was clearly sketched out by the side show that Naguesh Karmali put up when invited to speak at the event. Karmali opined that we are a shameless people. The Portuguese came to our land, mangled the names of our villages to such an extent that today we don’t recognize them in Konkani. And yet, so many years after their departure, we have till date not returned them to their original forms.

Original, Mr. Karmali? For me my village is Sancoale, Cuncolim and Divar, there are other names for these villages, but I prefer to use these, since these are the names I use on a daily basis and the names as used by my family. Are you suggesting that my knowledge and the identity from it is wrong? Am I, my self, my being and my life wrong? Can the one life that a human being has, when not causing harm to another, be wrong?

Karmali didn’t just stop there; i.e. in branding a good portion of Goans as ‘wrong’. He went on to suggest that we should emulate places like Karnataka and Gujarat and other places where the names of places have been reverted to their ‘original’ forms. I will not elaborate on the fact that what these changes have done is to legalize intolerance. Only one name is legally permitted for a place, there is no space for a cosmopolitan identity for these places. Thus the beauty of a Bombay in English, Bombaim in Konkani and Mumbai in Marathi, when spoken by the same person is no longer legally permissible. But the violence of the legal world is not the only kind we should be afraid of, since Mr. Karmali seemed to have more corporeal violence in mind. Can we celebrate examples drawn from Gujarat and Karnataka without also knowing that these same changes have laid the foundations for the shocking anti-minority violences in both States? In Gujarat it was the Muslims that bore (and continue to bear) the brunt of this parochialism; in Karnataka, anyone who does not speak Kannada, or looks non-Kannadiga bears the brunt of this politics of authenticity. But then we should not be surprised by Karmali’s statements and proclivities. This is the same man who was at the forefront of the attacks on ‘Portuguese’ street names in Fontainhos a few years ago, and he runs free despite it.

Cosmopolitanism is a welcome cultural marker. It stands against the sectarian visions of nationalism. Those who actively seek to work against it, only lay the foundation for the destruction of our social order.

(Published in the Gomantak Times, 11th Feb 2009)