Reading Angelo: Art and the Goan

I have to confess that until recently I was not a great fan of Angelo da Fonseca, an artist who has been substantially feted in recent times. Indeed, mention his name and the project that spurred his work and I would experience more than mild irritation. A good amount of this response changed not too long ago after visiting the ongoing exhibition of his works held at the Xavier Centre of Historical Research (XCHR). This exhibition combines a large number of his works that were earlier exhibited in smaller groupings whose content was determined according to the Christian liturgical calendar. Thus where the contents of earlier exhibitions followed a Christmas or Lenten theme, this time round one saw the exhibition of a wider gamut of Fonseca’s works.

My earlier responses to Fonseca did not follow from a consideration of his work, but were largely a response to the project of inculturation he was committed to. Since even before the 1960s and the dramatic changes of the Vatican Council II, there had been a movement to depict Christ, his mother and the Saints in forms that were not restricted to Aryan stereotypes. There was a clamour in some sectors to depict the universal Christ in universal tones. People wanted to see Christ not merely as a blond blue eyed man, but in darker skin tones, outside of northern European locales. 

In itself this was not a bad idea. After all, Christ emerged from out of Palestine, the likelihood of his being blond and blue eyed are slim. The problem with the project of inculturation, however, was that in South Asia, this project became a project of brahmanising Christ. Christ and his story were depicted within forms that one can relate directly to brahmanical Hinduism. It is as if Christ lived within an entirely Hindu upper-caste milieu. Such a project has a number of problems, first it devalues the natal culture of many Christians. Born from the encounter of Europe with subcontinental South Asia, these Christians have internalised many European forms that have become local. Further, representing Christ in brahmanical forms perpetuates a casteism that is arguably not a part of the Christian message.

Viewing the art works on display at the XCHR my usual irritation was displaced by an amazement for the details I saw in Fonseca’s art. Take, for example, the little squiggle at the end of a line that he uses to represent the Holy Spirit in his representation of the Annunciation. Or the very realistic little lilies in another image.

It was obvious as one progressed along the exhibition that Fonseca was creating a style that drew as much from the European tradition, as well as from Mughal miniatures. Not all of his figures were brahmanical, rather the bearded and turbaned Saint Joseph often came across as Muslim, Mary, in a pheran and head scarf Kashmiri. This complexity is of course not surprising given his training under Abanindranath Tagore.

Even if one disliked the brahmanical references, one had to appreciate the clever way in which Fonseca interpreted these forms. For example, traditional European depictions of Saint Anne often have her seated while instructing her daughter Mary. Fonseca takes this form but instead uses the Shiva-Shakti model, where a miniature Shakti sits on the left thigh of Shiva. Brilliant!

One of the problems with Indian nationalism is that it casts the woman as the bearer of the national image. Thus, she is expected to be demure, always in a sari, and her pallu draped decorously over her head. Some of this odious nationalism emerges in Fonseca’s art. The grief of Mary as she wails either at the foot of the cross, or with her dead son in her arms is a spectacular feature in Western art. None of this sort of anguish is visible in many of Fonseca’s depictions of Mary at the scene of and after the crucifixion. And it is not as if real south Asian women do not make dramatic, heart-rending spectacles of their grief. The nationalist image of the woman, even when suffering, is of a demure little thing. This is where one regrets Fonseca’s nationalist inspiration.

Despite the luxurious display of so many of his art works, the exhibition is a little disappointing because it fails to offer blurbs that could allow the viewer to gain a deeper appreciation of the art works, the little details that the uninitiated might miss. Never mind non-Christians, a good number of Catholics are unfamiliar with traditional iconography, and with Fonseca one has the bewildering mixture of multiple styles. One would have imagined blurbs to be essential.

Similarly, there is a little bank of photographic images of Fonseca, sometimes with family. These are left marooned in a sea of his art works, leaving us no way in which to engage with them. These images could have been the subject of an independent exhibition, or juxtaposed to demonstrate, as an artist friend pointed out to me, how the face of Fonseca’s Madonna’s often resembles that of his wife.

Regardless of these small shortcomings, The ‘Angelo da Fonseca RETROSPECTIVE’ is an exhibition worth visiting. What is heartening is that the XCHR also provides prints of some of Fonseca’s works available for purchase. One wishes this little initiative well because it bears the seed of great promise, allowing Fonseca’s images to be spread wider afield, entering homes as objects of veneration, supplementing the existing bank of Aryan Christs that rule the roost today.

The ‘Angelo da Fonseca RETROSPECTIVE’ will be available for public viewing at the Xavier Centre of Historical Research, Alto-Porvorim from 13 November 2014 to 12 January 2015. The Exhibition will be open from Monday to Friday from 10 am to 5 pm.

(A version of this post was first published in the O Heraldo on 14 Nov 2014)

The African in Goa: Village Goa beyond the Gãocaria

Every month the Xavier Centre in Porvorim hosts History Hour, a platform for local (national and international) scholars to discuss their works. In doing so it provides happy stimulation for a diverse audience. Last Friday the Centre played host to the release of Beyond the Beach: The Village of Arossim, Goa, in Historical Perspective. The work of Dr. Themistocles D’Silva, the book is a history of the village of Arossim from which Dr. D’Silva hails from.

The work is clearly a labour of love from one of its native sons, perhaps born from the nostalgia that émigré sons feel for their motherland. Dr. D’Silva’s work however also continues a longer tradition, that initiated by his father, Justino da Silva. Justino da Silva, was an archivist of village history, having laboured over the genealogical charts of the prominent families of the village. In his presentation of the work at the Xavier Centre, Dr. D’Silva pointed out that he hoped that his book did not remain an isolated work. On the contrary, he pointed out that there was a need for greater numbers of us to put into writing the histories of our villages, increasing the documentation on the rich histories of Goa beyond the beach. Such histories also go beyond the Goan histories obsessed with the sixteenth century and the Portuguese governance of the territory. Indeed, in the course of the presentation Dr. D’Silva pointed to the urgency of the task given that many of the older generation and their memories are passing away, and that private archives fall victim to the ravages of insects and weather. On this front perhaps Dr. D’Silva was being kind to the custodians of these archives. Though Goan society has produced a number of luminaries, the same intellectual drive that powered these luminaries is not necessarily passed on to the next generation. Many archives have no doubt been discarded into dust heaps and kitchen back-yard fires.

What is most interesting in this book, is that Dr. D’Silva has written it by combining the various influences that have moulded him as an individual. In doing so, he brings to the fore a central problem in the manner in which we think about the Goan village, and thus Goan identity.

A member of the village elite of Arossim, his book locates the village gãocaria (or Comunidade) as one of the points of departure for his narrative. This is not entirely out of place; the Comunidade was a powerful institution in our history and to speak of a village history without delving into the history of the Comunidade would produce a dull, incomplete history. However to speak of the village from the point of view of the Comunidade alone does not exhaust the history of the Goan villages, since there were (and are) a number of people who while living in the village, were not gãocars of the village. What would the history of the Goan village look like if we were to write a village history from their point of view? The threads that Dr. D’Silva draws out gives us a hint into this possibility.

Dr. D’Silva points out in his book a fact that has by and large been left unsaid and unspoken in the public sphere about the Goan village. This fact is of the presence of African slaves within our village communities. The few voices that do mention the presence of the African are Dr. Savia Viegas, Adv. Valmiki Faleiro, and Margaret Mascarenhas in her novel Skin. While speaking of the presence of the African slave in Goa, Dr. D’Silva manages to point out to us that the Goan village was not an idyllic, happy setting for all. These slaves were ill-treated sufficiently to make them want to escape. And escape they did, into the jungles of British-India where slavery was abolished much earlier than it was in Portuguese-India. Dr. D’Silva made reference to the fact that the failure of their master’s to provide a nutritious diet to the slaves forced the latter to poach for fish from the village ponds at night. He also pointed to the fact that these African slaves and their descendants lived at the edges of the villages, pointing to their social marginalization.

When we speak of the African slave’s presence in Goa’s villages, we must recognize that their descendants married local men and women, or if they did not marry, in any case produced babies with local persons. This gives to a good amount of Goans, a history different from those of the gãocars – who in any case could not have been a majority of the population. When speaking of the Comunidade we often create – as did Dr. D’Silva - for the Goan, a Hindu pre-history. If we recognize the presence of the African’s as a part of the Goan village – by not being obsessed with gãocarial histories – we create a Goan with an African history. And what a different, richer and more exciting history that would lead us to!

The entire row over a proposed mosque close to the site of the former World Trade Centre resulted, among other things, in a couple of discoveries about US History. It was pointed out that by virtue of the presence of African slaves in early USA and the site of New Amsterdam (subsequently New York city), early American history includes the history of peoples who professed an Islamic faith. True many African slaves were baptized when they were brought to Goa, but as the Hindu-past obsessed histories tell us, mere baptism does not drive away former influences. In addition to these African slaves, Adv. Valmiki Faleiro has pointed out the presence of Chinese labourers (who worked the railway line that passes through Arossim) and of their marriage to local people. In addition, we have the presence in pre-Portuguese Goan history of the many Muslims who converted to Christianity to save their lives and properties.

All of these people contribute to the histories of Goan villages, which we, befuddled by Gandhian idiosyncrasies, often erroneously believe to be where the real Goa resides. To effectively write about these histories, or to even realize that they exist, we need to move beyond the framework of the Comunidade centered histories that we still take as the central focus of our local history writing. While largely within the frames of this traditional perspective, Dr D’Silva was possibly able to move beyond this traditional framework because of the fact that he is not trapped by traditional social-science ways of writing about Goan history. Or the fact that he has clearly spent a good amount of time in and interacted with the politically inclusive trends of thinking about society within the United States.

For his effort we must thank Dr. D’Silva, buy his book, and then go write our own village histories!

(A version of this post was first published in the Gomantak Times 12/ 11/ 2011)

Goa’s Fascist Future: The aesthetic objections of the Hindu Janajagruthi Samithi

This column is often-times critiqued on the basis that it offers too complex a fund of words for the average Goan to understand. ‘Simplify!’ is the advice offered in the course of such handing out of critique. I am however, not convinced as to the intellectual inabilities of the ‘average Goan’, who is in any case a much sinned against creature. If on the one hand the Chief Minister of the State perpetrates his shenanigans in the name of this beast, then on the other you have kindly Samaritans requesting their intellectual burdens placed on this animal to be lightened. What is however most amusing, is that the Samaritan purveyors of this advice, invariably indicate that they themselves are perfectly comfortable reading what this column hands out. It is not for themselves that they request simplification, but for the ‘simple-minded’ ‘average’ Goan reader.

But given that this charge has been laid, one must, dutifully and conscientiously seek to respond. In the course of a public meeting the term fascism was used numerous times by the respected Konkani activist Eric Ozario. He was using the term to refer to the claims of the Nagari activists, who sought to unite all Konkani speaking people under the slogan of “One language, one script, one people”. Such a slogan he argued, was fascist!

What is fascism however? And how does one understand it? Eric Ozario used the term in the context of the totalitarian imagery of the Nagari activists. Totalitarianism may have been a feature of the fascist leaderships of Europe between the Wars, but this term does not exhaust the meaning of concept of fascism. In the context of the attack of the Hindu Janajagruthi Samiti (HJS) on the Xavier Centre for Historical Research (XCHR) a couple of weeks ago, dwelling on the articulation of the meaning of fascism by Walter Benjamin was, I thought, a suitable choice for this week’s column.

Benjamin argues that “Fascism attempts to organize the newly created proletarian masses without affecting the property structure which the masses strive to eliminate. Fascism sees its salvation in giving these masses not their right, but instead a chance to express themselves. The masses have a right to change property relations; fascism seeks to give them expression while preserving property. The logical result of fascism is the introduction of aesthetics into political life”.

Benjamin locates fascism in the history of capitalism that converted peasants who were rooted to their land, into workers for industries. With their traditional life-style changed, and deprived of their property in land, the peasant became the proletarian worker. While the human being is not necessarily inclined to absolute equality, radical inequality, such as was present in the industrial towns of Europe, and indeed in India today, is offensive to the human being. This is especially true, when these proletarian workers continued to hold not-so-distant memories of their more secure past. Once we understand the weight of the term proletarian, the force of Benjamin’s elaboration of fascism strikes home. Fascism seeks to organize the proletarian masses, and provide stability to the new (capitalist) order that has been formed. Fascism definitely speaks to the hungry, angry and deprived masses and in doing so effectively manages them. But it does so, not by recognizing their right to change property relations. On the contrary it distracts them from the demand of this right by providing them with an aesthetic that they are told gives expression to their inner being.

Is the membership of the HJS composed essentially, or even largely, of proletarians in the classical sense? Of this I am neither sure nor certain. However, if one has a look at the website of the HJS, and has a look at the string of protests that they have been involved in, you begin to see that their attack is on the aesthetic. There have been attacks on Dr. Jose Pereira, Dr. Subodh Kerkar, and support for the hounding of M. F. Hussain. All of these three dared to depict India and Hinduism in a manner that they disapprove of. The HJS has disapproved of the popular celebrations of Ganesh Chathurti on the basis that it is not sattvic or pure enough. Similarly their website, presents ‘sattvic’ interpretations of the Hindu pantheon that they approve of as valid.

This obsession with the aesthetic I believe tells us something about the HJS and the manner in which they must be dealt with. It would be possible, even to be sympathetic to them. Sympathetic, because you realize that the support they get, is because the passion which fuels their membership is drawn from the upset with the nature of property relations, both in Goa and India. If a segment of the Goan Catholic protests real-estate development, a segment of the Goan Hindu joins the HJS. Both are protesting property relations, but doing so via the aesthetic.

A focus on the aesthetic, also indicates to us why the HJS must be effectively dealt with, and their victims supported and protected The Goa Police has thus far instructed HJS victims to follow the HJS line and take down the ‘offensive’ artworks. To keep doing this will be to suffocate entirely, creative production in the State, and destroy any meaningful understanding of the Freedom of Speech and Expression. Bear in mind that control over the aesthetic is what the HJS seems to be gunning for. And because the aesthetic itself is not what bothers them, but property relations, the attack of the aesthetic will continue, till property relations are eventually addressed. But this too, as we can clearly see, will not be done.

This then is what the fascist turn in Goan society will look like. An obsession with the aesthetic, even while unjust and inequitable property relations are not addressed. Unless this inequity is dealt with, this tendency towards the fascist will continue. And while banning the HJS may seem desirable, it will not work, until the equity issues underneath it all are effectively addressed.

(First published in the Gomantak Times 18 Aug 2010)

Portuguese in the Indian national interest: Expanding horizons beyond the English speaking world

To a small but vocal minority in Goa, Goa’s Portuguese heritage is something to be castigated and cast into the dust-bin of history. To this shortsighted group Portuguese evokes only the continental European country that speaks the language, and they fail to see the linkages that Goa has had, and can continue to have via this language, with a larger Portuguese speaking world that extends across the world.

On the 12th of this month, the Xavier Centre’s History Hour played host to Constantino Xavier who made an argument along similar lines. Constantino Xavier is currently a Fulbright-sponsored Ph.D. candidate in South Asian Studies at the School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University, in Washington DC and someone with a number of very interesting things to say. At the History Hour, his argument was that as India opens out to the world, there is space to carve out what he calls ‘diplomatic niches’ outside of New Delhi. Goa, he argued, can play a crucial role in facilitating India's burgeoning economic, political and cultural relations with the Community of Portuguese-speaking countries (CPLP) and the lusophone world. In line with Beijing's efforts to leverage Macau's potential, New Delhi could develop Goa into a strategic hub to foster relations with the emerging "Global South" and, in particular, with Brazil, Portugal, Angola, Mozambique, Macau, or East Timor. It need not be pointed out that Brazil and Angola are significant economic players in the emerging southern economies.

This column has on numerous occasions berated the point that economic capital is not the only capital that one has; rather one should also be alive to the cultural capital that we hold. For the Goan, this cultural capital of global worth includes the Portuguese language. Thanks to the machinations of this tiny group however, we are prevented from using or expanding on this capital.

A greater familiarity with Portuguese and the Portuguese-speaking world holds over benefits as well. This includes expanding our intellectual horizons. It was while reading Opus Dei, a book by John L. Allen Jr. about the Catholic organization of the same name that the truth struck home. Many of the prejudices and opinions that we often have of the world, are those moulded by the prejudices and opinions of the English-speaking world. Thanks to unfamiliarity with other dominant world languages, our opinions, perspectives, and options are in many ways restricted. Goa’s linguistic diversity ought to have been a route for us to introduce the larger Indian civil society space with different ideas from the larger Portuguese-speaking world. Happily, this route is not yet not closed to us.

An example of the manner in which familiarity with this non-English speaking world is useful was brought out by a recent essay by Vinod Vyasulu in the Economic and Political Weekly. Vyasulu who is the Director for the Centre of Budget and Policy Studies in Bangalore, has written a rather interesting essay on Brazil’s cash transfer systems that are a part of their strategy to reduce poverty and income inequality. Apparently the way the system works is that “Since poverty is lack of income, the federal government of Brazil transfers cash to families in poverty to help them meet basic needs, if the family agrees to send children to school and to get them vaccinated.” Similarly as part of the cash transfer system the “Fome Zero, or zero hunger” strategy has introduced the bolsa familia. The Bolsa Familia apparently is a family grant which is a direct income transfer to benefit families earning a monthly income of not more than Brazilian Real (R$) 120 per member per month in any municipality in Brazil. “The objective is to enable the poorest families to buy food and essentials and at the same time encourage these families to access health, education, and social welfare public services.”

Vyasulu reports that the cash transfer system has been largely successful in Brazil and “have not only served to reduce poverty, they have also contributed to a reduction in inequality”. He goes further to suggest that Brazil’s experience shows that when implemented properly, cash transfers, “are at best a necessary condition for poverty alleviation.” Vyasulu is clearly indicating that it would be worthwhile for India to follow a similar route.

It was not however merely this reference to the cash transfer system that caught my attention but the quotation extracted below;

“Inter-governmental Relations… is an area where India has a lot to learn from Brazil. In the 2009 elections to Parliament in India, many of the candidates seeking election to the Lok Sabha, fought on issues of garbage clearance, water supply and the like. These are municipal issues. The job of MPs is to legislate; this was one thing they were silent about. Members of the state assemblies also talk of transfers and local matters, when their job is to make policies for the state. Thus local representatives are denied their space; local government in India is a sham. And unless local government – which we denigrate by calling self-government – works, such policies which require higher level guidance and local integration cannot work. Many studies have shown that integration of programmes at the local level is the missing link in India’s development policy. Each level of government has its role and we must let it play that role. In this we need to find our way back to normalcy from where we are today.”

This observation would taste sweet for many of those in Goa who are fighting the battle for local governments to have greater autonomy in planning. Vyasulu in castigating the Indian practice of self government makes a striking point. In preventing the Goan panchayats from realizing the planning powers they are demanding, the MLA’s are not only wrongfully interfering in local issues, but they are not guilty of failing in their primary duty, i.e. legislating.

The anti-Portuguese lobby in Goa claims its opposition to things Portuguese on nationalist grounds. Both Xavier and Vyasulu however, seem to suggest that it is in fact a knowledge of Portuguese that could work to the Indian national interest. This point of view should give our right-wing nationalist friends some pause to think….let’s keep our fingers crossed!

(First published in the Gomantak Times 14 July 2010)