Lembrando Prof. Dr. Teotónio de Souza

Vim para enterrar César, não para louvá-lo.

O bem que se faz é enterrado com os nossos ossos,

que seja assim com César.

William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, Acto III, cena 2.

Devo começar por dizer que estou bastante escandalizado com a recente tendência que notei, especialmente depois da morte do Manohar Parrikar, ex-Chefe Ministro de Goa, de elogiar sem reservas as figuras públicas e não refletir sobre alguns aspetos mais negativos do seu carácter ou sobre as suas intervenções na sociedade. A falta de reflexão aspetos menos atraentes da sua personalidade é uma indicação dos tempos perturbados em que vivemos, onde a crítica é vista como criticismo e desrespeito, não sendo sequer tolerada.

Gostaria de acrescentar que a crítica é a reflecção desapaixonada ou imparcial, que deve examinar ambos aspetos, positivos e negativos e refletir também sobre as razões mais profundas para estas qualidades. Por tanto, hoje, gostaria de começar com uma reflecção desapaixonada sobre alguns aspetos da vida de Teotónio. Preferia começar com o elefante na sala, com o facto de Teotónio ter sido uma pessoa difícil, especialmente em contextos profissionais.

Teotónio era uma pessoa rabugenta, ficava ofendido facilmente e frequentemente maldisposto em ter que reconhecer o trabalho de jovens acadêmicos, especialmente se estes não vinham ao beija-mão. Ai deles que o contradissessem, pois era certo que se montaria de imediato uma cena pública que destruísse o seu trabalho.

Seria fácil atribuir estas características claramente negativas só a Teotónio. As suas fraquezas, enquanto suas, foram também produto de um certo contexto social e Goês. Contexto este onde ele nasceu e dentro do qual trabalhou e contribuiu. 

É uma crítica constante que faço à comunidade Goesa, seja em Goa ou na diáspora, o não reconhecimento dos esforços dos seus filhos. Se não pertencem a uma família ou casta poderosa é quase garantido que a pessoa que desenvolve qualquer trabalho interessante até importante irá trabalhar sozinho, sem aplauso do resto da comunidade. O facto que qualquer reconhecimento, se vem, vem muito tarde, quando estes já estiverem mortos, implica que pessoas que se esforçam por articular novas perspetivas e criar novas iniciativas trabalham sem qualquer consolação. O caso de Teotónio é um exemplo perfeito. Conheço apenas um reconhecimento de Teotónio enquanto académico, o festschrift intitulado Metahistory. History Questioning History. Festschrift in Honour of Teotonio R. De Souza, tenho certeza que não foi uma iniciativa de alguma instituição Goês.

É um facto que trabalhar solitariamente sem reconhecimento pode ter um impacto corrosivo na alma. Torna-nos amargos, com tendência a que nos gabemos sobre os nossos sucessos e sem vontade de reconhecer o trabalho dos demais. A final, se ninguém reconhecer o meu trabalho, tenho que ser eu a faze-lo, verdade?

Isto não é apenas o caso do Teotónio, mas o caso de vários outros Goêses ilustres que tive a oportunidade de conhecer e é um facto que me deixa muito triste. Para re-enfatizar o que distingue as comunidades Goêsas no mundo não é somente a falta de institucionalização, mas também a falta de investimento na sua vida intelectual. Há já vários anos que tem havido um crescente interesse académico em Goa. Enquanto este acontecimento é bem-vindo, há também um perigo porque Goa esta a ser definida por académicos não Goeses e serão, consequentemente as suas agendas, ou seja, as suas preocupações, que irão determinar a representação dos Goêses. Creio que Teotónio percebeu este problema. Ele quis articular uma identidade Goêsa diferente do que dos Portugueses e ficou rabugento porque percebeu que era a única voz a desenvolver esta tarefa. Isto não sugere que concordo com a sua posição. Separadas por gerações, a minha perspectiva sobre a identidade Goesa é substancialmente diferente. Enquanto a posição de Teotónio era a do nacionalismo Indiano, a minha é influenciada pela necessidade de combatê-la. Mas acho que poderíamos concordar que tem que haver mais investimento Goes na sua propria representação.

Creio que grande parte da sua antipatia surgiu também da sua posição social. Bramane, mas não tanto.  Percebi essa peculiaridade depois de ler a introdução do seu livro Goa To Me (1994). Fiquei muito comovido pelos detalhes que partilhou sobre a sua vida íntima e pareceu-me um acto de coragem e honestidade. Este texto mostra de fato a crueldade do sistema de castas entre Goeses e demonstra o fato pelo qual somos incapazes de criar uma saudável e vibrante identidade Goêsa. Na nossa sociedade enfatizamos sempre a nossa posição social, e portanto diferença em vez de enfatizar semelhanças e criar um sentido de comunidade. Tenho uma história para partilhar convosco a este respeito. A minha primeira experiência de Lisboa quando cheguei para participar na reunião de Goeses pelo mundo, organizada pela Casa de Goa alguns anos atras (talvez 2007?). Fui nessa altura a Coimbra por um mês e utilizei esta oportunidade para almoçar com Teotónio antes da reunião. Durante o almoço, Teotónio partilhou comigo a sua leitura das políticas entre as comunidades Goesas em Lisboa, apontando os conflitos entre castas e como naquela altura a Casa de Goa era dominado por brâmanes.

Cheguei à Casa de Goa equipado com esta informação. Foi cumprimentado por uma pessoa e foi-me dirigida aquela muito antiga questão Goesa “De onde és em Goa?” Atenção que a pergunta não funciona como quebra-gelo numa conversa, mas para localizar a posição na hierarquia das castas da pessoa a quem é dirigida a pergunta. Normalmente não participo neste jogo, sempre indico que cresci em Pangim ou que moro em Dona Paula, mas deste vez indiquei que as minhas origens na Ilha de Divar. “ah!” respondeu a mesma pessoa, adicionando, “somos de Margão!”, demonstrando a sua posição superior na scala bramanica. Prometi a mim mesmo   que nunca mais participaria neste jogo. Não é minha intenção sugerir aqui que este é o caso na Casa de Goa, mas esta é uma atitude com a qual temos que lidar firmamente. 

Acho que vou deixar as minhas reflecções por aqui, porque suspeito que ja tenha gasto mais do que o tempo que me foi alotado. Agradeço a vossa atenção, e a Casa de Goa pelo convite. Desejo descanso eterno a Teotónio e agradeço o trabalho por ele desenvolvido.

(Apresentação proferida na Conferencia sobre a vida do Prof. Teotónio de Souza Casa de Goa, Lisboa – 22 March 2019)

Remembering Dr. Teotónio de Souza

I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.

The evil that men do lives after them;

The good is oft interred with their bones;

So let it be with Caesar.

William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, Act III, Scene 2.

I should begin by saying that I am quite shocked by a recent trend that I have noticed, especially in evidence following the death of Manohar Parrikar, former Chief Minister of Goa, to unreservedly praise public figures and not reflect on the negative aspects of their characters or interventions in society. The failure to reflect on the less appealing aspects of their personality is an indication of the troubled times we live in, where critique is seen as criticism, and disrespect, and not tolerated in the least.

Critique, I would like to point out, is dispassionate reflection, examining both the positive and the negative, and reflecting on the larger reasons for these traits. Therefore, today I would like to dispassionately reflect on some aspects of Teotónio’s life. I would like to begin by tackling the elephant in the room: the difficult person that Teotónio was, especially in professional contexts. 

Teotónio was a cantankerous person, quick to take offense, often unwilling to graciously acknowledge the work of younger scholars, especially if they didn’t bow before him. Woe to the person who contradicted him, he would often mount a tirade against them publicly pulling their work apart.  

It would be easy to attribute these clearly negative features to Teotónio alone. His flaws, though his own, were flaws born of the larger social, and particularly Goan, context into which he was born, and within which he worked and contributed

It is my consistent argument that the Goan community, whether in Goa, or spread through the diaspora does not recognize the work of its children. Any one doing interesting work, and not belonging to a powerful family or caste group, essentially works alone to no applause from the rest of the community. Any recognition from the community comes too late in the day, once they are dead, offering as a result no comfort to persons who struggle substantially to articulate new perspectives and embark on new initiatives. One could take Teotónio’s case as a perfect example. I know of only one recognition of Teotónio as a scholar, the festschrift titled Metahistory. History Questioning History. Festschrift in Honour of Teotonio R. De Souza and I am pretty certain that it was not initiated by any Goan institution.

Working single-handedly and not receiving any recognition, often has a corrosive impact on one’s soul. It makes one bitter, makes one constantly beat one’s own drum and unwilling to acknowledge the work of others. After all, the logic goes that if no one is going to recognize my work, then I must do so myself, right?

This is not merely in the case of Teotónio, but in the case of a number of Goan trail-blazers that I have had the opportunity to witness, and this pains me. To re-emphasize, what marks Goan communities is not only a lack of institutionalization, but also a failure to take academic investment seriously. Over the past few years there has been a growing international scholarly interest in Goa. As wonderful as this may be, this is also a danger because Goa is being defined by those who are not Goan, and it is their agendas, that will determine the representation of Goans. I believe that Teotónio was aware of this problem. He sought to articulate a Goan identity that was different from the Portuguese, and because he sensed that he was a lone voice making this argument, it contributed to his cantankerousness. This is not to say that I agreed with his position. Born into a different generation, my perspective of Goan identities is substantially different. While Teotónio’s position was fairly Indian nationalist and nativist, my own attempt is to combat Indian nationalism. But I think we would agree that there has to be a greater investment by Goans in representing themselves.

A good amount of Teotónio´s unpleasantness, I believe, emerged also from the peculiar social location that he occupied. Brahmin, but not quite. I was made aware of this when reading the Introduction to his book, Goa To Me (1994). I was struck by the amount of personal history that he revealed and personally found it a very brave and honest text. This text demonstrates the viciousness of the caste system among Goans, where we are unable to create a vibrant healthy Goan identity because we are forever caught up in emphasizing rank, and therefore difference, rather than building community and emphasizing similarity. I have an anecdote of my own to offer. My first experience in Lisbon was to attend the meeting of Goans from across the world organized by the Casa de Goa some years ago (2007?). I was in Coimbra for a month at the time and took the opportunity to have lunch with Teotónio prior to the meeting. At our lunch Teotónio filled me in on his appraisal of the Goan communities in Lisbon, pointing to inter-caste conflicts and how at the time the Casa da Goa was dominated by brahmins.
Arriving at the Casa de Goa armed with this knowledge, I was greeting by an individual who asked me that ancient Goan question, “where in Goa are you from?” a question designed not so much to open a conversation, but to locate you in the caste hierarchy. While I do not normally play this game, offering that I grew up in Pangim, or in Dona Paula, this time round I slipped indicating my roots in Divar. “Ah!” responded this individual “We are from Margão!”, putting me firmly in my place. Never again, I promised to myself, would I play this game. It is not my intention to suggest that this is currently the case with the Casa de Goa, but this is an attitude that we need to deal with, and firmly.
I will end these reflections here, I suspect I have already taken up well more than my fair share of the allotted time. I thank you for your attention, Casa de Goa for this invitation, and wish eternal rest to Teotónio, and thank him for the work he has done. 

(Text of the presentation made in Portuguese at the Memorial meeting for Dr. Teotónio de Souza, Casa de Goa, Lisbon – 23 March 2019)

Sneezing at the Brahmanical: Polemics at the Global Goans Convention

Responding to earlier columns, a friend recently asked for a definition of the word ‘brahmanical’. While perhaps a definition of the term will not be forthcoming, at least not in this column, perhaps examples of brahmanical thought, in this case history-writing, could be provided. A rather interesting example of the same was provided in the course of the first sessions of the Global Goans’ Convention held in London over July 22- 24.

The most striking example of brahmanical history-writing was provided by Dr. Damodar R. SarDesai, who is Professor Emeritus at the University of California in Los Angeles. That he is a historian is a somewhat tragic indicator of the manner in which brahmanical polemics, such as displayed in his presentation, are so often accepted as the acceptable basis of social science. Conversely however it is precisely because he is a historian, that we can see the manner in which polemics is converted to history.

For Dr. SarDessai, reflecting on 50 years of ‘Liberation’, the period of Portuguese sovereignty in Goa was one long and dark period of trial, tribulation and lack of development. He was able to say this however because he was speaking from the position of the brahmanised dominant castes of Goa. He did not recognize the fact that the initial period of Portuguese sovereignty allowed to the oppressed castes in the region, the possibility of conversion to Catholicism and thus social mobility. In later periods of Portuguese sovereignty, it allowed non-dominant Hindu caste groups similar options of social mobility, especially after the Novas Conquistas were added to the Catholic territories of the Velhas Conquistas. This acquisition, allowed for these caste groups, to not only change residence, and hence escape persecution of their ‘upper’ caste feudal overlords, but it also allowed them to represent themselves in the process of the shift, as a different caste group entirely, increasing in this process their social standing. Much later, the Portuguese State offered any options, especially to the Gomantak Maratha Samaj, for education and social mobility.

These facts are inconvenient to a brahmanical history, that because they see the pre-colonial period from the point of view of the dominant castes, see this period as a happy conflict-free time. The other side of this happy story however is that this pre-colonial time was an unhappy time for suppressed groups and for all its faults, colonialism also provided space for the partial liberation of these non-dominant groups. Brahmanical polemics do not necessarily see the post-colonial period as a necessarily happy one either. Until the post colonial order works to the benefit of the dominant castes, the brahmanical will not be appeased. Thus in Dr. SarDessai's polemic, it was not sufficient that the Portuguese were ejected from Goa, the first, and confirmedly anti-brahmanical Chief Minister of Goa, was mentioned but once, and in so flippant a manner, it left the audience wondering as to the man's ultimate worth.

A column of this length cannot do justice to the absolute horror that was the presentation of Dr. SarDessai. What should for the moment suffice to demonstrate its horror was the response of Dr. Teotónio R. De Souza. Dr. De Souza is recognized within the field of Goan and ‘Indo-Portuguese’ history as an authority. What is often not openly stated, by whispered and smiled at is the fact that Dr. De Souza does not normally spare a kind word for the period of Portuguese sovereignty. Dr. De Souza was forced however, by Dr. SarDessai’s polemic, to abandon his (no-doubt carefully crafted) text, and ad-lib a response to Dr. SarDessai. In a muted manner, perhaps owing to the presence of Indian government officials and non-academics in the room, Dr. De Souza sought to tone down Dr. SarDessai’s assertions.

Perhaps the rebuttal comes to late however, because Dr. De Souza has himself many occasions built his version of Indian nationalist history of Goa on brahmanical lines. An example of this foundational presence of brahmanical thinking was obvious when he argued that the specificity of Goa (as with any other place) was contributed to through the presence of the minorities in Goa. This assertion is brahmanical because it accepts the brahmanical assertion that Hindus across the subcontinent are the same, they are one single and indivisible community. Such assertions while patently untrue, are necessary to ensure the domination of the brahmanised groups (and the supremacy of brahmanical thought) that control the destinies of post colonial India. We should at the same time recognize however, that Dr. De Souza seems to have been forced into this position of speaking of the Catholic, because it was obvious in the course of Dr. SarDessai’s presentation, that his intense disparaging (bordering on hatred even) of the Portuguese formed an ideal basis on which to denigrate the cultural condition of the Goan Catholic. It should be pointed out simultaneously, that more recently, especially when he argues of the presence of 'many liberations', Dr. De Souza seems to be moving toward a more complex understanding of the moment of the integration of Goa into the Union of India. In doing so he seems to be recognizing the limiting frames that nationalism and especially brahmanical nationalism present to the study of Goa, colonialism, and the post-colonial. One suspects that it is the rise of right-wing Hindu nationalismto this rethinking, that spurs Dr. De Souza since Dr. De Souza persists in (rightly) calling out instances of Portuguese superciliousness in the academy. Dr. De Souza further betrayed the brahmanical influences on his thought when he responded to Dr. SarDessai, that the success of the Portuguese lay in the fact that they also managed to convert one-third of the population to Catholicism. Dr. De Souza made another error here, where he clearly (if unconsciously) buys into the generally accepted idea that it is only the Catholics that were ‘tainted’ by the Portuguese, while the ‘Hindus’ retain their cultural purity and authenticity. Once more, nothing could be further away from the truth. In the course of their working with the Portuguese State, as well as in the course of everyday market relations, the brahmanised groups in Goa were, and are, also children of the Portuguese (and other Catholic and European) cultural influences. This impress exists on their food, their language, their dress and every other cultural institution they may seek to present as authentic and untouched. Why then, assume that the Goan Catholics alone are the mark of Portuguese success? One does so, because of the brahmanical assertion that it not only in upper caste practice, but more specifically in Hindu practice that authentic ‘Indian-ness’ is captured

What was perhaps most striking about Dr. SarDessai’s address however was the fact that he found it necessary to humiliate and insult the Portuguese (and their lack of effective colonization) in order to retrieve the honour and prestige of the brahmanised groups he spoke for. Those who have reflected on the workings of caste will know that humiliation – whether verbal, when we point to someone’s birth in a ‘lower’ caste, invariably to ‘put them in their place’, or physical, through the practices of untouchability – is the most significant strategy of casteist and hence the brahmanical order. Interestingly however, when one humiliates the Portuguese for ineffective colonization (or development), one is praising the British style of colonization and development. This move then, demonstrates that close ties that the brahmanical makes with the colonial. In this move we realize that brahmanical thinking, is not necessarily an ancient framework that necessarily returns us to a moment of pre-colonial innocence, but in fact a contemporary development that gains its power from colonial (and especially British) intellectual frameworks. Through this lineage, the brahmanical is connected to the racist and other exploitative frameworks that held sway in the nineteenth century.

What should be mentioned in conclusion, is that it isn’t poor Dr. SarDessai alone who should be blamed. That he is the carrier of an infectious brahmanical thought process is true. However, his pronouncements were by and large accepted silently by the audience, because Dr. SarDessai was able to quote from a stock of knowledge that has gained credibility over time. Merely because it has gained credibility over time however does not make it right, it only makes the task of dealing with it, and the sneaky manner in which it secretes itself into our work, that much more difficult.

Jai Bhim!

(Comments are welcome at www.dervishnotes.blogspot.com)