The idyll that never was: Goa and the Indian elites

It was with anger and disbelief that I read Deepti Kapoor’s recent article in The Guardian titled “An idyll no more: why I’m leaving Goa”. While there is no denying that Goa is in fact facing a looming ecological and political crisis, what is galling is that Kapoor does not acknowledge her own role in the mess that Goans find themselves in. Kapoor is silent about the privilege that she enjoys – the privilege of the (largely North) Indian elites, who dominated British India, led the anti-colonial nationalist movement, and who now operate as the embodiment of colonial power in places like Goa. This is precisely the relationship that is to blame for the many ills that Kapoor documents, and that allows Kapoor to escape Goa with relatively no loss, while Goans are left not only with a ruined ecology and social fabric but a continuing brutal colonial relationship with India.

The relationship of the Indian elites to Goa is by no means innocent. For that matter, neither is the relationship of India to Goa. Rather, these relationships are built on the willful ignoring of history, to enable Indians to create Goa and Goans not only as property of the Indian empire but as a pleasure park where they can imagine themselves to be in their own little part of Europe. Take, for example, the way in which Kapoor chooses to label older houses in Goa “Portuguese villas” despite the fact that many Goans, including scholars, have pointed out that there is nothing Portuguese to these homes. Except for the fact that they were built by Goans, who were Portuguese citizens at the time, these were, and are, Goan homes. The reason for this stubborn insistence is linked to the fact that these houses are in high demand by the Indian elites who choose to own second homes in Goa. It is precisely in calling the built forms “Portuguese” that Goa and Goans are transformed into props that allow for the territory to be read as Europe in South Asia, as a seaside Riviera where Indian elites can play out their European fantasies.

This colonial relationship, it should be pointed out, is not unique to the relationship between Goa and India. In fact, it follows a longer colonial relationship enjoyed by the Northern European, and principally British elites, with the European South – namely, Italy, Spain, and Portugal. It was to these historically Catholic locations that the largely Protestant elites of the North fled to enjoy not just the sun but the pleasures of the flesh. The European South, and by extension the overseas colonies of these countries, were marked out as spaces for frolic and relaxation, and fabulous lifestyles afforded as a result of the poorer economies of the host locations. Additionally, these locations were identified as places for inspiration for artistes and writers. In post-colonial times, the elite British Indian has actively taken on the gaze and privilege of the British overlord, and looks at Goa precisely through the lenses that the British used to view the European South.  No wonder then that Kapoor, author of the novel A Bad Character (2014), also chose Goa as a place for future writing projects.

The continuation of this imperial gaze is also deeply rooted in colonial politics. As Sukanya Banerjee demonstrates in her book Becoming Imperial Citizens: Indians in the Late-Victorian Empire (2010), the end of empire and the creation of an independent nation-state was not the goal envisaged by early Indian nationalists. On the contrary, South Asian dominant caste elites were stakeholders in the empire rather than its opponents. Given this proximity to the imperial project, what they deeply desired was the status of Imperial British citizen and equality with the British overlord. Banerjee also demonstrates the way that Gandhi himself was invested in the pursuit of this status. The figure of Gandhi is critical here, because it was he who effectively created a mass movement by recruiting subaltern groups to make what had earlier been a largely elitist cause. This mass recruitment was necessary for the elites to be taken seriously by the British Crown. The Crown was convinced that while the Indians merited the status of subjects, they could not be imperial citizens and thereby claim equality with the British. The rallying of the masses forced a change in the nature of the movement to assume the character of a nationalist anti-colonial project. Independence was now the only answer.

Thus, the objective of the nationalist elites was, rather, parity with the British and participation in the imperial project. The continued desire for imperial prominence that motivated these caste elites ensured a number of features that have marked post-colonial India. By exerting various pressures on the princely states and acquiring, forcefully if necessary, the territories of other colonial powers, the nationalist elites put together an Indian empire that even the British Raj had not managed to. This new post-colonial empire was held in place by retaining most of the colonial laws, and an imperial perspective guided the relationship with the territories and peoples that were assimilated into post-colonial India. Thus, along with Goan houses being labeled “Portuguese”, Goans have been marked out as fun-loving, relaxed, and laid back, just as the southern Europeans and Latins. Further, just as the British elites travelled to the European South for sensorial excess, so too has Goa been marked out as a place for excess. Note that Kapoor’s narrative suggests that her brother had his mind blown – normally a reference to the effect of psychotropic drugs – when he saw his first nudist in Goa. The Kapoor family’s relationship with Goa seems to be marked by an excess that is unavailable in India. As R. Benedito Ferrão points out, Kapoor suggests her own sensorial relationship with Goa through the excessive exclamation marks that she uses when listing the things that brought her to Goa: “The beaches! The restaurants! The music, and the people!” Further, as if to prove the point of a continuity between the imperial British and the contemporary imperial Indian elite, Kapoor states that she has decided “to look toward Europe or Latin America” in her search for a new place to live. It should be obvious that Latin America is placed along the same continuum as Goa in terms of being the place of Iberian influenced tropical languor and excess. Therefore, Kapoor will merely shift from Goa to another location that offers a similar southern European backdrop for the party.

Interestingly, the insistence of Indians, such as Kapoor, on labeling the built landscape in Goa as different from India reveals a disinclination to be attentive to the historical and legal differences of this former Portuguese territory. Unlike the legal scenario that unfolded in British India, Goans were constitutionally recognized as Portuguese citizens as far back as the early 1800s. This resulted in a restricted segment of the population being entitled to vote in parliamentary elections. And vote they did. Goan elites regularly sent voluble representatives to Lisbon, who established the legal and social parity of Goans with metropolitan Portuguese. This situation was temporarily suspended in the years when Goa, like the rest of Portugal, suffered an authoritarian regime from the 1930s until 1974. It was in this situation that India sent troops in to militarily wrest Goa from the Portuguese. Rather than engage with the political agency that was being expressed within and outside of the territory, India simply asserted sovereignty over the territory and extended citizenship to persons residing in the territory. Given the right of colonized peoples to self-determination, this was an act for which there was no legal precedent, but was based on the assertion of a dubious argument of cultural homogeneity.

With the normalization of relations between Portugal and India in 1975, Portugal recognized the continuing right of citizenship of residents of its former territories in India. As consciousness of this continuing right percolates through Portuguese Indian society, many have chosen to access and assert this right. The Indian state, and consequently most Indians, however, fail to see this as a resumption of an existing right. They see it instead, as the acquisition of dual citizenship, which some argue is prohibited by the Indian legal system. This places Portuguese Indians – in this case, Goans – in an awkward situation, where they have to give up political engagement with Goa, and a host of other rights, if they choose to assert their right to Portuguese citizenship. Like most Indians, Kapoor seems to fail to recognize this complexity and naively suggests that Goans are leaving, or, as she puts it, “looking elsewhere”. As I articulated in an essay some time ago, Goans are not leaving; they are merely employing one more way to maintain their historical connections and pursue livelihood options. It is only in the face of an Indian state that refuses to recognize the complexity of Portuguese Indian history, and prevents this movement, that Goans are, in fact, being forced to leave.

At the end of the day, it is the refusal to recognize this most basic of rights, that of citizenship pre-existing the Indian takeover of Goa that complicates the relationship of India, and Indians, with Goa, and Goans. The refusal to recognize a pre-existing constitutional right of citizenship transforms the Indian presence in Goa into one of occupation and not post-colonial liberation.

The colonial nature of India’s presence in Goa is perhaps best captured in the way the territory has been actively converted into India’s pleasure periphery. In his book, Refiguring Goa (2015), Raghuraman S. Trichur points out that “it was only after the state sponsored development of tourism in the 1980s (more than two decades after Goa's liberation/occupation in 1961), was Goa effectively integrated into the Indian nation-state” (p. 13). This is to say that the integration of this former Portuguese territory, which ought to have been given the right to self-determination, was ensured through the process of articulating Goa’s “otherness” or cultural distancing, as evidenced by the social practices and performances that constitute the tourism destination in Goa. Thus, Trichur argues, Goa’s emergence as a tourism destination is more than the fortuitous agent of economic growth: “it is also an arena, a discursive frame where the Indian State intersects with Goan society” (p. 16). Tourism, then, is precisely the way through which Indian colonialism is exercised in Goa. Indeed, the usage of “Portuguese” houses, in reference to the homes of Goans, suggests homes not continually inhabited by Goans but open for occupation by the “helpful” outsiders that come to renew Goan life.

While Kapoor correctly lists the many problems that are cropping up in Goa as a result of a tourist industry gone wild, she seems to place the responsibility for the looming ecological and social disaster primarily in Goan hands. One reads in Kapoor’s narrative the usual suggestion that it is the greedy Goans who are selling agricultural land and pulling down ancestral homes, and that the local government has no vision. What escapes her is that Goans are all too often subject to forces not within their control. Goans are trapped in an economy that, rather than working on producing more varied opportunities for the locals, has for decades now relied exclusively on tapping the extractive industries of either tourism or mining, or on overseas remittances. While the tourist economy has produced huge profits for some, incomes have not risen to keep pace with the increased cost of living. In such a context, there are two options that will assure people without the material resources or skill sets to fuel social mobility of persons who cannot achieve betterment in Goa. The first is the sale of land to persons in search of the fabled Goan lifestyle. The second is migration in search of gainful and respectable employment. The irony is that the critique of the Portuguese presence in Goa was that they failed to develop a viable economy, which required people to migrate to earn a living that would assure them and their families of a higher standard of living. Indeed, for the vast majority of the population life under Portuguese rule was experienced more as life under landlord rule. And this Goan lifestyle was no idyll. It was only through migration that they could economically emancipate themselves. It was only with the economic liberation possible through migration that Goa, now a place to return for the summers, was constructed as an idyll. As it turns out, the transition to Indian rule has not changed much, as many Goans are still forced to migrate.

Yet it is not economics alone that Goans are trapped by but, the political system itself. There is a clear understanding among the many groups in the territory that this system is not delivering good governance and that there is a need for dramatic change. In their imitation of Britain, British Indians adopted the unsophisticated first-past-the-post system of determining political representatives. As Dr. Ambedkar pointed out, the ills of the system are such that it does not allow for marginalized groups to find a voice in the legislature. Even though there are moves to shift to a system of proportional representation, it seems unlikely that there will be a change anytime soon. Thus, Goans are chained to a political structure that they had no say in determining, and that clearly does not work for their territory, given that it reproduces persons who represent majoritarian politics. One wonders whether Goan politics may not have been dramatically different if the people of the territory were allowed to innovate with a proportional representation system followed in Portugal.

But Kapoor’s text is not merely illustrative of the problem that Goans have with the Indian elites. Rather, it exposes the colonial relationship of these elites with marginalized Indian populations. The trouble with the Indian elites is that they do not see themselves as a part of the political processes of the subcontinent, believing themselves too good for the rest of the citizens of India. Indeed, this is part of their adoption of the colonial gaze. These elites see the residents of the rest of the continent as a strange race that requires firm governance. The review of Kapoor’s book by Prashansa Taneja makes this quite obvious when she reports, “more often than not, she gives into the temptation to exoticise Delhi, and India, for the reader. Many Indian women cover their heads on a daily basis, but when Idha [the character in Kapoor’s book] does so at a Sufi shrine, she feels she becomes ‘Persian, dark-eyed, pious and transformed’.” One could argue that she succumbs to the use of clichés precisely because like other members of her class, Kapoor looks at the people in the city of Delhi, through a gaze adopted from the Raj.

Goa and Goans are locked in an unequal and unfair colonial relationship with India. Until and unless this inequality and injustice are resolved, and the relationship is made more equal – indeed, until the colonial equation at the heart of the imperial Indian project is resolved – Goa and Goans may be doomed to destruction. Kapoor’s text is offensive precisely because she is blind to these facts, and while also being blind to her own privilege is completely oblivious to the extent to which her article is a gripe about the loss of her own privileges. Kapoor’s problem seems to lie in the fact that with other Indians, and not just other elites but all sorts, coming to play with her toy, the party has been ruined. While Kapoor may be able to trip off to some other island paradise and live the life of the wandering elite, where, pray, will the Goans go?

(A version of this post was first published in Raiot webzine on 17 Oct 2016)

Learning from Tiracol: Elements in the Dismantling of Goa

Some weeks ago I had the opportunity to view an illustration by the artist Angela Ferrão which is reproduced with this column. Titled, The Extraction of Goan Identity, the image was clearly inspired by the horrific acts of 16 May 2015 when the village of Tiracol was set upon by men and machinery with a view to surreptitiously destroy the orchards and pave the way for a golf course and hotel. The image depicts a landscape ravaged by the destruction of trees, of gaping holes and mounds of loose soil, and the presence of cranes and other earth-moving equipment. Indeed, one could suggest that Ferrão has also illustrated the miserable outcomes of mining in Goa. To that extent, Ferrão’s image speaks beyond the immediate scenario of Tiracol and to the larger way in which Goa is being ‘developed’, and forces us to ask fundamental questions about the future we desire for Goa.

My interest, however, was piqued by another element in the image. Squat in the centre of the foreground is an issue that Ferrão clearly identifies as central to the problem of Goan future: “Out Migration of Goans”.

I was delighted when I saw this articulation because it dovetailed with my own estimation of the problem. The out migration of Goans is one of the significant issues faced by contemporary Goa. What was particularly heartening, however, was that while the artist identifies out migration of Goans as one of the problems, she does not similarly identity migration to Goa as a problem. I think that while the migration into Goa of “outsiders” is popularly seen as a major problem threatening the survival of a Goan identity, this in-migration to Goa turns problematic primarily because of the out migration of Goans, and the denigration of extant Goan cultural practices.

Making this argument does not mean that I seek to blame Goans, as some are wont to do. Rather, I believe that rather than blame Goans, or the migrants into Goa, the root of the problem lies in the structures which cause Goans to leave, as well as those structures that make it possible for lived cultural practices of Goans to be denigrated, even as an unreal Goan-ness is celebrated to feed the profits of the tourism industry and the coffers of the Indian state.

Coincidentally, it was as I was formulating these thoughts that I came across an article by Haineube Newme titled “The root causes of racism against North Easterners”. Reading through his reflections I was struck by the similarity in his analysis of the problem. Newme suggests that the racism against persons from the North East of India does not emerge from personal racism, but, rather, is fed by an institutional racism.  “The North Eastern regions have been neglected economically and socially”, he argues. Goans and people from the North East both seem to have one thing in common, and that is a high rate of migration. So to phrase it in Newme’s words “The relevant question would be: why have so many people fled their villages or towns and come to live in the metropolitan Indian cities?” Newme could be speaking about Goa when in response to this question he asserts: “Comparably, if greater opportunities of living were being provided, North Eastern states can be better places to live than the other cities of India. One can enjoy better environment, beautiful landscape and better sanity in the North Eastern region. But, the region suffers from a dearth of employment, development and better education opportunities. The reason as to why many people have fled to various cities like Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai etc. is nothing but to search for better educational scope or survival as they do not see any hope in home states to fulfil their needs.” Once again the pertinence of Newme’s articulation to Goa is striking.

In his insightful book Refiguring Goa, Raghu Trichur has pointed out that since integration into India, Goa’s economic ‘development’ seems to have been restricted to mercantile capitalism.  Thus, while merchant capital encourages the production of commodities, for example iron-ore, or of Goa as a tourist destination, it does not transform the relations of production that produce these commodities. The result is that the emancipation that could be a part of capitalist development is not realized, and unequal labour and social relations continue to be sustained. It is because tourism, or other employments opportunities within the state, do not provide Goans dignified labour that so many migrate. Hence there is a dual onslaught, where Goa’s landscape is capitalised, to allow external and internal capitalists to purchase Goan property, even while poorer locals have no scope to rise socially. It is precisely this that forces a systematic process of Goan sale and migration.

These observations allow us to respond to Chief Minister Parsekar’s recent defence of the golf project in Tiracol on the grounds that it will provide employment. The question that those of us who are interested in substantial development must ask is not whether it will provide employment or not, but what sort of employment it will provide. This is where the distinction, recently raised by Amita Kanekar, between two types of tourism come in. On the one hand is the small scale tourism that first emerged in Goa that allowed former tenants to change their lives and prospects. On the other hand is corporate tourism that follows the logic of mercantile capitalism.

What sets the stage for the institutional racism, and simultaneously colonialism, is the complicity of the State in Goa in this process of privileging mercantile interests over those of the citizen. Goa has been witness to emigration even prior to its integration to India. This emigration was a substantial statement of the inability of the Portuguese state to provide decent conditions to citizens in Goa, as well as an indication of its inability or unwillingness to upset its relationship with landlords and feudal chiefs who propped up the colonial regime. Subsequently, in its early period of its possession of Goa, the Indian state seemed to delight in the fact that it earned foreign exchange via the persons it was sending abroad. To this extent, it seems that the Indian state was not very different from the Portuguese state. Both these states failed to provide infrastructure which would ensure that people were not obliged to leave the state to improve their prospects.

Another observation Newme makes is to point out that “North Easterners are considered as outsiders 'polluting' the existing Indian culture.” This observation ties in with my own assertion, that the migration into Goa is assumed to be a threat primarily because of the disparaging of Goan cultural practices. It is through this dismissal of Goan culture, and especially the elements that predominate among Catholics, that this racism is institutionalised.  Take for example, the condescending manner towards tiatr and cantaram as examples, or the absolute refusal to recognise the Roman script in Konkani. From many Catholics one hears the helpless words “what is left for us here?” It is the fact of this dismissal of the locals, and their practices, that allows for a displacement of Goan culture. Were Goan cultures not faced with such official dismissal, it is unlikely that the presence of migrants would have been seen in quite the same way as it is today.

The Goan Hindu is not spared from this onslaught either. It appears that they too suffer from a feeling of not being Indian, i.e. Hindu, enough. Witness the spate of temple demolitions across Goa, where perfectly stable temples are brought crashing down so that newer temples in “Indian” style can come up. Or take the rather interesting article written on the changes in weddings among Goan Hindus by Padmavathi Prabhu in the Navhind Times in January this year. Prabhu celebrates the trend where elements of North Indian (Punjabi and Doabi) Hindu weddings are incorporated into these weddings. However, the question needs to be asked, would other customs be adopted if one were secure in one’s traditions, and not marked by a feeling of shame? It is only when one feels outside the paradigms of power, that one begins to adopt the customs of others, and those who are in power.

So why are we speaking of all of this when it is the case of Tiracol that should fall squarely within our cross hairs of our immediate concerns? Because all of this continues an argument I began in my previous column. Both these columns point to the importance of articulating a person-centred economics. There is a need for the state in Goa to articulate a developmental programme as if people matter. Should the state fail to do so, then it would only go on to support the institutional racism that we are witness to, and aid in the ongoing systematic dismantling of Goa. Tiracol is not the beginning, it is just one more step of the process, and if not addressed it will only get worse.

(A version of this post was first published in the O Heraldo on 12 June 2015)

Why What Happens In Goa Matters

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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