Of Recognition, Facts and Strategies: A Letter to the Editor after UTAA’s demonstration

Dear Editor,

I write this letter to you to thank you for your front page editorial on the issue of this newspaper dated seventeenth December 2009. In placing the editorial on the front page you have in many eyes; not just mine alone, reprieved the local media from a morass that many of us fear that it is headed into. News is not about the ‘neutral’ reporting of random (and increasingly irrelevant) facts alone, but as you have so strikingly indicated, about creating issues for the larger public and fostering positive politics. But your editorial did more than just set standards for media, it also helped refocus the priorities of the people of Goa, who, it appears, seem to by and large operate in blissful ignorance of the scheduled caste and scheduled tribe members of our society.

In the opening of your editorial, you quoted Bayard Rustin, an American civil rights activist who argued that “When an individual is protesting society’s refusal to acknowledge his dignity as a human being, his very act of protest confers dignity on him.” In so quoting, you brought the debate to the heart of the matter, allowing us to counter all of the irrelevant criticisms that have subsequently been leveled against the protest that occurred on the sixteenth of December.

Acknowledging the dignity of a human being requires also that we acknowledge the existence of an individual. As already argued, we in Goa do not even acknowledge the existence of the scheduled groups and their needs. You pointed out that the protestors brought the ‘upper-caste Digambar Kamat-led government to its needs’, but the fault is not just this particular government, but the manner in which the entire society conspires in constructing Goa as an upper-caste almost paradise. All of the issues that we have been arguing for the past few months, those of the destruction being done to Goa etc, while critical and relevant, have failed to take into consideration this segment of the population, and argue the issues with their perspective in mind. Had they done so, our strategies and indeed, our achievements would today perhaps have been radically different.

It is for this reason then, because the protestors addressed the basic issue of recognition, in not one, but two different and associated forms, that they have cut for us, in their action on the sixteenth, a path that should have been trudged ages ago.

Associated with one of the groups fighting the big-capital take over of Goa via the Regional Plan, I was witness to the farce of representations to the Chief Minister and his government. No matter how logically argued or passionately represented, these written statements received no response from a silent and non-committal state. We were constantly asked to rely on the word of the Chief Minister, who would assure us that he would ‘try his best’. Our representations were like the flailings of an attention-deprived child, before an emotionally unmoved, and punishingly silent parent. We were faced with the toughest and most insurmountable barrier of all; Silence.

In the face of this silence, I had on numerous occasions, argued with a number of groups that it is this silence that we need to break. In the face of this silence, we need to up the level of civil disobedience, lay siege to the State secretariat, until our rightful demands are met. The silence of the Government rests on the sure knowledge that we will not challenge the daily rhythm of life, and until we hamper this carefree rhythm, until we get the silent to recognize us, we will, unfortunately not be listened to. The United Tribal Association Alliance (UTAA), on the sixteenth broke that compact, and they managed to draw the Chief Minister into dialogue. Viva!

They did more than draw him into dialogue however. This Chief Minister, like others, has often engaged in the farce of dialogue. Words, are cheap, it is actions that count. And on this latter front, despite its verbal assurances, this government has failed to act. UTAA to its credit broke through this sham and demanded a ‘written assurance’. We must remember that the modern State and its bureaucracy operate through the action of writing. When we represent in writing therefore, we deserve a response in writing. Else once more we flail pointlessly before a false Baal. Two successes therefore, and two lessons for the Goan activist to learn from. First, this government will not listen until you lay siege to it, prevent ‘business as usual’, and to paraphrase you, ‘drag it to its knees’. Second, no success until and unless you get a response (i.e. recognition) from the State, in writing.

I have not seen the written assurance of the Chief Minister and so do not know the form and content of its assurance. However I do know that a mere line indicating “I will get so-and-so done, by such-and-such date” is pointless. Our demands are valid because of a sound reasoning that lies behind it. A written response from the government must necessarily respond to these demands, point by point, acknowledging in writing the validity of our claims, and acknowledging in print its failure to do so. Only then do we move governance, from the scam it currently is, towards a democratic respect for justice and due process.

What was critical in the protest by UTAA was the fact that it operated in the best traditions of civil disobedience. No property was harmed, but what was placed in harms way was the body of the protestor. It also demanded that imperial forms of governance, that place a veil between the governor and the governed are cast aside, to allow for direct contact. We would carry this tradition further if we linked it to this recognition of responsible writing.

Very often we resort to the cliché that when the interests of the most marginalized are addressed the whole system sets itself in order. UTAA’s actions on the sixteenth, that have addressed two lacunae in the operation of our democracy, seem to have pointed to the validity of the cliché. I will end this letter, reinforced once more with thanks, with the knowledge that perhaps while all is not well with the state of Goa, there is as yet, still hope!

(Published in the Gomantak Times 23 Dec 2009)

A Kunbi Devi and a Secular Republic: Learnings from the Peoples’ Tribunal – III

At the concluding ceremony of the Peoples’ Tribunal, like all grateful organizers, GAKUVED presented the members of the jury and the expert panel with mementos. In this case, a classically-styled image of the Goddess Bhagvati Chimbelkarin as Mahishasura Mardini. That single moment threw into sharp focus the possible options that GAKUVED – the organizers of the Tribunal- have before them in their continuing quest for justice for Goa’s tribal people.

The presentation of the image of the Goddess was hugely problematic not only because it was the image of a Hindu goddess being presented to people who don’t necessarily share that faith. The first problem with the image of the goddess was her representation as Durga Mahishasura Mardini. As Durga, the demon slayer, what GAKUVED presented us was the image of a brahmanical goddess, killing the demon in the shape of buffalo. A number of Dalit activists, and other scholars have often pointed out that brahmanical myths operate to justify the subjugation of non-brahmanical groups, represented in these stories as asuras and demons. This story should be familiar to the organizers of GAKUVED who see the brahmanical myth of the advent of Parashuram as the story of their enslavement by brahmanical groups; an enslavement that eventually left them without control over land or their temples. It is for this reason that the presentation of a Brahmanical image of the Goddess was surprising and even troubling.

The brahmanical representation of the Goddess, as fair-skinned, tall and supple, with sharp northern (Aryan!) features is just one of many ways to represent the Goddess. A scholar friend who was researching the temples in the New Conquests, once recounted the visit of the Goddess to her in a dream. Not one to dismiss such visitations as nonsense, I asked her what the Goddess looked like, having in my own mind, the image of a fair, light-eyed woman, decked in gold and green. Imagine my surprise when with the deepest of conviction this researcher should indicate that the Goddess had appeared as a Kunbi woman!

This appearance of the Goddess in this form should not startle us, since it was the Kunbis who first discovered and recognized the presence of the Goddess in our lands. The original rocks and ant-hills, that were the primal mark of her presence, were worshipped for long without the brahmanical imagery that we today associate with her. In fact, this brahmanical imagery exists in a very interesting manner to the actual object that is held to be the deity. The images of the deities that we see today, are only coverings (masks) placed over the objects held to be the deity. These objects are either rough, misshapen rocks or ant-hills. The brahmanical decorations therefore, reject this original appearance, mask it, and present their own image as the acceptable image of the Goddess. At multiple levels therefore, the brahmanical image is a rejection of the tribal element of Goan culture and the tribal roots of our Goan-Hindu deities.

GAKUVED would do well to recognize this fact, and realize that the liberation of the servitude that Goan tribals find themselves hinges also on the creation of a counter-culture and an aesthetic that shuns the brahmanical and privileges the non-brahmanical. On receiving the image of the Goddess I inquired from a friend, why they would think that the image of Durga was appropriate as a memento. He explained to me that Chimbel was an area that was reputed to have the largest number of tribals and hence they were presenting an image of Bhagwati Chimbelkarin. Even more so therefore, the need for an image of the Goddess as a kunbi woman. To fashion the Goddess in this manner, would unleash a huge amount of self-respect within the community.

GAKUVED would also do well to take a leaf out of the history of the Bahujan samaj both in Goa and Maharashtra. By not challenging Brahmanism itself, but only fighting the Brahmins, they continue to be caught in the brahmanical trap, unable to get the respect they originally started out for, on the contrary, getting trapped as the foot-soldiers of Hindutva’s attack against the minorities of this country.

On this note, we can see how the presentation of the image of the Goddess (and use of other paraphernalia such as the ‘traditional lamp’ at the inauguration) stands to divide the tribal population of Goa, rather than unite them. Goa’s tribal population includes Catholics, and both groups would do well to combine to fight for their rights together rather than separately. The use of religious symbols however definitely acts as a deterrent to this unity.

Brahmanical seduction is however not the only barrier to tribal unity in Goa; the law does it fair share too, pointing to the brahmanical bias of the Indian state. GAKUVED is the association of Gawdas (GA), Kunbis (Ku), Velips (VE) and Dhangars (D). These groups stand to benefit from their mobilization, primarily because they are recognized by the State as Scheduled Tribes. This privilege is available only to Hindus, the non-Hindus among the tribals unable to benefit from State recognition. Until such time as this State-incentive to not renounce Hinduism is removed, it is difficult to see a collaborative demand for the correction of the systemic injustices that the tribal segments of our population encounter. Given that we work in a system where numbers count, it stands to reason that until such a time as tribals from all faiths come together, their demand will be that much easier to dismiss.

This legal obstacle toward the unity of the tribal demand, is one more evidence of the manner in which both State and society in India conspire to consolidate the existence of a Hindu community in brahmanical mould. Starting the Tribunal with the lighting of the lamp, and ending it with the presentation of an image of the Goddess, created the tribunal of a Hindu movement. Unless GAKUVED reflects carefully on the manner in which it mobilizes, it risks becoming the unwitting foot-soldier for the Hindutva movement. The challenging of Hindutva does not necessarily mean a conversion to Islam, Catholicism, or Buddhism. Neither should it be assumed to be a call to secular atheism. On the contrary, all that it calls for is a conscious articulation of a tribal identity that throws off the Brahmanical mask that stifles it. Recast the image of the Goddess as a Kunbi woman. Discard the brahmanical rituals that are seen as the only possible ritual. Rediscover, reinvent even, rituals and a religiosity that comes directly from the tribal experience. Babasaheb Ambedkar pointed out that “For a successful revolution it is not enough that there is discontent. What is required is a profound and thorough conviction of the justice, necessity and importance of political and social rights”. Such a thorough conviction of justice and the necessity and importance of political and social rights, would ensure that GAKUVED fights for the rights not only of those who have been recognized as Scheduled Tribes by the State, but also for the recognition of those who the State unjustifiably prevents from obtaining rights that they ought to have.

I wish you luck and strength my friends.

(Published in the Gomantak Times 1t July 2009)