Mining profits and a new Goan social order

“So!” I said, beaming at my journalist friend, “What do you think of the Goenchi Mathi Permanent Fund (GMPF)?” I was somewhat confused for a moment when the smile on his face turned into a sneer. “They must be joking,” he responded. “Mining is serious business, man; not a simple procedure of digging up mud and selling it! It is not going to be possible for a bunch of villagers to manage the complex processes of mining.”

This answer converted my confusion into disappointment. I had assumed that this journalist, who has his heart in the right place and a ringside view of the scandalous operations of state power and the mining industry, would understand that the GMPF deserves a chance. Further, he seemed to have misunderstood the concept entirely. To the best of my understanding, the GMPF does not propose that residents of mining areas undertake mining but that all the proceeds from mining be funnelled into the Permanent Fund. Simply put, the GMPF suggests that the soil of Goa should not be considered the property of either the leaseholders of the mine or that of an abstractly understood state. Rather, it should be considered the property of the people as well as their unborn descendants. Thus, any profits from mineral wealth should go directly to the current citizens and subsequent generations.

These are great ideas that need to be encouraged for a variety of reasons. To begin with, the GMPF represents a challenge to the hegemony of neo-liberal values that have been ascendant for a while. The GMPF does not represent an anti-capitalist vision, but envisions an industrialism that is put to the benefit of the common person rather corporate profit. Thus, the GMPF does not represent a ban on mining but a responsible conduct of mining, and a conscientious utilisation of the profits that accrue from this industry. The argument for the Permanent Fund rests on the assertion that the privatisation of the huge profits from mining is obscene, and thus renews the agenda of the welfare state. Further, the GMPF asserts a truth that seems to have been forgotten: the state does not exist for its own sake. The state is a creation of the citizens and exists for their benefit. The state is not the owner of the resources of the land; it is merely an institution established to administer these resources in the best interests of all individuals. The state exists for the citizens, and not the other way around.

Despite the enthusiasm one might have for the GMPF, it needs to be recognised that it is a concept that is still in flux and developing. Take, for example, the suggestion that in addition to creating a fund, the income from mining be converted into a basic income transferred to every Goan household. This is a great idea, as it assures an income to households that are in poverty. The suggestion of a basic income is being implemented in various parts of the world largely because it asserts the principle that all individuals are entitled to a minimum basic standard of living and, more importantly, it cuts out on the bureaucracy—and attendant corruption—that accompanies subsidies.

And yet there are some problems with this proposal. The GMPF seems to suffer from an upper-caste bias in that it does not, as yet, move beyond the realm of formal equality. In other words, while formal equality is an inalienable part of contemporary democracy, we also need to recognise that in practical terms, not everyone is equal. Poverty is not born merely from economic deprivation but primarily from social exclusion, and any attempt to redress poverty and create the space for the equal treatment of all persons must also provide additional support to marginalised groups. 

It would make the GMPF that much more appealing if it recognised that there are multiple communities in Goa, and especially in the mining areas, that would benefit from a disproportionate expenditure in their favour. I am referring especially to the scheduled communities (castes and tribes). These communities have a right to an excess spending of the GMPF in their favour. This spending need not necessarily be in terms of an enhanced basic income. Rather, it could be expressed in the utilisation of the resources of the fund to specifically address the socio-economic deprivation that has been the lot of these communities for centuries. The Goa Foundation, which is promoting the idea of the GMPF, would do well to incorporate the notion of affirmative action into the basic structure of the fund. To do so would take it so many steps closer to the articulation of a just welfare state.

The GMPF deserves a chance because it is offering us a new democratic start. So often in the case of electoral politics, we grumble that there is no choice. The GMPF may not be electoral politics, but it is still an intervention in the realm of politics. Indeed, if implemented, it may in fact bring about the social changes necessary to restructure the way in which electoral politics is conducted today.

(A version of this post was first published on the O Heraldo on 11 Dec 2015)

The Tejpal Factor: Trigger finger of the colonial gun

You already know that the recently concluded Thinkfest, organized by Tehelka, was partly in the news for the wrong reasons. In addition to being hosted by alleged violators of the coastal zone regulations, and being backed by mining interests, serious charges had also been brought against the editor of Tehelka, Mr. Tarun Tejpal. One of these charges was brought by an anti-mining activist, Mr. Hartmann de Souza, who alleged that Tejpal had deliberately silenced a critical story on the illegalities involved in Goa’s mining industry. Subsequently, Tejpal got into trouble for making a suggestion that when people come to Goa, in this case guests at the Thinkfest, high on their priority was engaging in sexual and other sensorial excesses.

Tejpal responded to Mr. de Souza in a profoundly insulting riposte in the Hindustan Times, attempting to deny the charges of silencing the mining story; and denied the charges regarding his statement at the Thinkfest. In his rebuttal, de Souza piled one fact upon another to demonstrate the hollowness of Tejpal’s defence. One came away from reading de Souza’s response to acknowledge that there was indeed something sticky about Tejpal, Goa and the mining issue. What this systematic destruction of Tejpal’s fig leaf left untouched however, was the colonial thinking that Tejpal had demonstrated in his response to de Souza, and which seems to have manifested itself in his alleged statement at the Thinkfest.

Tejpal’s response to de Souza commenced with the title ‘Albert Pinto ko gussa kyon aata hai’ (What makes Albert Pinto angry?). For those not in the know, the title refers to the 1981 film by Saeed Mirza featuring the socio-political dilemmas that face a young working-class Catholic man in midst of the socio-economic turmoil of Bombay in the 1970’s and 1980s. Interestingly, while the film itself offers a critical and sympathetic look at a subalternsocial group that in addition to being a religious minority was further marginalized economically and politically, Tejpal’s title does the opposite. If there is a link to Bollywood in Tejpal’s title, then it is to the ‘Anthony Gonsalvez’ from the film ‘Amar, Akbar, Anthony’ (AAA). If Mirza’s film paints a realistic likeness of a community, AAA paints the Indian west-coast Catholic into a caricature. This caricature is not unfamiliar to us, Bollywood repeatedly casts, dismissively, the Goan-East-Indian communities  as jolly (read alcohol-charged) fellows, ready for the singing and dancing. One cannot really expect them to mount a serious argument, and they are at best given to spontaneous bursts of emotion; like children really. This reading of Tejpal’s title is borne out by the manner in which he structures his response, where he rebuts every allegation, only by mocking de Souza’s alleged inability to follow an argument, or his alleged collapse into hysterical anger. The underlying message of Tejpal’s response is unmistakable; you can’t take this de Souza fellow seriously, discussing with him being an experience akin to arguing with a child (or a drunk). This was a colonial tactic too. The white-man assumed a colonial burden of educating the childlike noble savages into civilization, and the techniques of democratic governance.

Tejpal then takes up another technique used by the white man in his colonial drive. One of the justifications for colonialism was the inability of the colonized native to effectively harness the resources of the locations they lived in. The colonizer was effectively doing them a favour by effectively exploiting the local resources for development. Tejpal informs us in his response to Mr. de Souza that “the house we bought was an old ruin in an inner village”. In his rejoinder to this riposte, de Souza informs us that there were also words like “I mean, look at Moira man, it’s a dying Goan village”. Tejpal would perhaps prefer if we did not rely on de Souza’s version of the conversation between the two of them, but it does not change the way in which we read Tejpal and his statement. The point of Tejpal’s argument is clear, he is doing Goa and Goans a favour by buying an ‘old ruin’ that Goans themselves (shame on them) do not value, and he is going to breathe life into it. Could the colonial logics be any clearer? The colonial master values (the delicate Goan architecture) what the local savage (the Goan so blindly destroying his own culture) does not. 

This logic of saving has been a part of the rhetoric of a good number of those who come into Goa buying Goan property, and oftentime home-bred Goans themselves. To make this argument is to fail to see the complex mix of reasons, the socio-economic and political reasons, why Goan homes are being pulled down. To blame the Goan is all too easy, but then this easy response is part of the colonial technique of simplifying matters so that the more complex argument brought on by the colonized seem like misplaced anger, and blind stupidity. We should not forget the histories of other colonized places, where impoverished persons of the local communities (be they the First Nations of America, or the adivasis of Central India, the aborigines of Australia) were first impoverished, and then made to sell to the colonizer what they would not have contemplated selling before. This process of impoverishment, and forced selling of livelihood and history, is not uncommon even today in large parts of India, not least in Central India.

Tejpal does not see himself as part of a colonial machinery. After all how could he, given that he sees himself as the good guy fighting against the evil forces of corporate greed. But perhaps Tejpal has not followed his own logic carefully. In his response he indicated that he pleaded with de Souza to make space for ‘complexity, in an intricately intertwined world.’ If we acknowledge this intricate intertwining that Tejpal suggests, then we must also acknowledge that while we fight the good fight elsewhere, we are also implicated in the evil conquests elsewhere.

The problem with the left-leaning Indian liberal is that they do not realize that they are as Indian as the Indians they fight on other fronts. Despite their battles, they share many traits of an Indian-ness, and they too are engaged in an Indian national project, though they differ on the tiny details of this project’s agenda. And so it is, when de Souza protests against the kind of colonial enterprise that Tejpal is associating with in the Goan context, Tejpals suggests that ‘I suspect, for him if it isn’t Goa it doesn’t count.’ What is this if not the kind of charge of anti-nationalism that gets leveled against all those who protest against the excesses of the Indian Union’s colonial project, whether it is in the mountains of Kashmir, the jungles of Jharkhand, or the banks of the Brahmaputra? Tejpal leveled this charge against de Souza three times, ignoring the personal history of a man, committed to another kind of Indian-ness.

The Indian left-liberal may oppose Hindu fundamentalism, but this is largely because they don’t like this ‘return-to-the-Vedas’ kind of Brahmanism that the RSS pushes. On other fronts, they will push their own particular brand of Brahmanism, a form that Pandit Nehru was particularly fond of. One could call this, ‘playing the white man’. On the one hand Kashmir is important because it stresses our Aryan roots, on the other hand Goa is important because as long as they continue to keep up this ‘piece-of-Europe-in-India’ story, they can continue to pretend they are white people. Let us not forget the alacrity with which the former play-spaces of the white masters were taken over by the post-colonial Indian babu; from Lutyen’s Delhi, to the Himalayan and other hill-stations, Pondicherrry, and Goa.

In light of the colonially loaded sub-text of Tejpal’s response to de Souza, one should not be surprised if Tejpal did indeed make those vile remarks in the course of the Think Fest. But we would do ourselves an injustice if we restricted our gaze to Tejpal alone. The larger issue is that there are so many Tejpal’s out there, busy pushing a contemporary colonial agenda. These Tejpals exist both within the ranks of the 'insider' as they do within the 'outsider'. The issue is, what do we do about them?

(A version of this post was first published in the Gomantak Times 16 Nov 2011)

Fight the Good Fight: A People’s Tribunal and an activist’s Epiphany

On numerous occasions well-meaning friends have come up to me asking me why I have railed, raved and ranted against some of the positions of the GBA. ‘They are trying so hard’ they’d say, ‘why not give them a little credit’. In a wonderfully self-reflexive and honest column in the Herald yesterday, Venita Coelho laid out what exactly was my (and others’) gripe with the positions that the GBA and associated groups and individuals had been taking for a long time, “It was all about land and land use – and not about people and the reality of their lives at all”. Welcome to my world Venita, we are now on the same page!

For another healthy slice of the reality of people’s lives, I would have recommended attendance at the Peoples’ Tribunal held on the “Restoration of Adivasi Homelands in Goa” organized by the Gawda Kunbi Velip and Dhangar Federation (GAKUVED). Over the two days at the end of the last month, close to 60 tribal persons from Goa presented their woes before a jury, indicating the wide number of problems they faced, none of which have been even remotely touched by the Regional Plan 2021 process.

The sorry fate of the tribals of Goa is primarily because of the invisibilisation that they have been subjected to. Goa is constructed both internally and externally by discourses that would see Goa as either Dourada (Indo-European) or Indica (Brahmanical). The originary myth of the first is that of the creation through contact with the Iberian west, the originary myth of the second is of creation through the peaceful extension of the land by brahmanical settlers. Both myths have a basis in fact and both have done much to deprive the tribal population of the rights of dignified existence. As a result of the operation of these two frameworks, the woes of the tribals have as yet never been articulated systematically, and the Tribunal was probably the first time such a systematic articulation was achieved. For this reason alone, the Tribunal was a momentous occasion.

It became clear, in the course of the Tribunal that there were at least three categories of problems that the Goan tribals face. The first emerged from among those who lived on the fringes of Goa’s forests. Like tribals in the rest of India, their interaction with the Forest Department officials is far from ideal. They are harassed by the operation of the Forest Department, their rights not settled and very often are illegally assaulted and interrogated by Forest department officials. The space of the Communidade emerged as the second arena of problems faced by the Goan tribal. All too often their names are not recorded in the Government’s land survey records as the tenant. This is despite their being present on, and tending to the land for at least two generations, and very often also having Portuguese-era documents to prove their title. Somehow, subsequent to the ‘Liberation’ their presence on the land, and their rights on it, were cleanly erased. As a result today, they are unable to claim Government benefits and schemes, unable to extend their homes, get electricity or water and are made to beg for permissions, not from the Government offices, but from the Communidades. The third category of cases is the threat of mining. Many of the tribals who are educated are first generation learners. Their primary skills lies in tending the land. this they have done for generations now. The extension of mining leases threatens to destroy their homesteads (and livelihood bases) either through appropriation for mining, through the illegal dumping of mining rejects in their fields and forests, or through the destruction of the fresh water aquifers that quench not only their thirst but all of Goa. Listening to this last category of problems, the audience realized with a shock that the large sightings of wild-life in Goa, and the large number of reports of crop destruction or at least straying into villages, was the result of the aggressive extension by industry into the forest areas. As is normally the case however, rather than deal with industry, it is the tribal who gets caught by the Governmental machinery.

In the context of the Regional Plan, it also became clear that there was wild confusion as to what was the status of their proposals. Would proposals in the light of recent information be accepted? Further, it became clear that there was no uniform system that was followed with regard to the articulation of the village plan. Interestingly some villages in Sattari that were in opposition to the Eco-I status of lands in their village had this decision taken in the chamber of their Legislator in Porvorim. Interesting!

On another front, one that would have been hilarious if it weren’t so tragic, it appears that most developmental schemes formulated by the Government have compounded rather than relived the condition of the tribals. One case in point was that of the Bandharas, that dam water in the rivers, but instead of proving any use, make impossible the traditional cultivation of the river bed. When Venita therefore realizes that planning is about people and their problems, and listening closely to what the facts on the ground, as articulated by the people say, she has hit the nail squarely on the head.

Both Venita and the representatives at the Peoples’ Tribunal would have agreed on one fact. That a mere gram sabha deciding the Village Plan is not enough. What is necessary is an honest collation of the factual conditions in the village, and the building of claims and decisions on the basis of those conditions. What was very clear through the representations however, and through the dossier submitted prior to the Tribunal, was that what was required was first a recognition of their land rights (rather than solely that of the landlords) and secondly a system for consultation with the tribal groups in villages across the State.

The next couple of columns will identify a few issues that emerged in the course of this Peoples’ Tribunal and deal with them at some length.

Before concluding however, we must recognise that Venita’s epiphany, and the Peoples’ Tribunal were made possible primarily because both the GBA and GAKUVED looked outside of Goa for inspiration. This is not to say that Goa is lacking of ideas, but that they have hit on a very vital ingredient for successful social mobilization; networking. All too often Goan struggles have refused to take lesson from similar struggles in other parts of India. The tragedy of the Regional Plan process is exactly this. Rather than looking across our borders for communities that have already invented the wheel, we attempted to invent it ourselves. In the process, we have failed to draw strength from across our borders. But, as Venita’s realization, and the Peoples’ Tribunal indicate, it is not yet too late and there is much that can still be salvaged.

One last point. It should be seen as part of a divine plan that the GBA consultation that Venita benefited from and the Peoples’ Tribunal occurred at around the same time. If networking and listening to the voices of the people are the lessons that we are being asked to learn, then surely, the renewed process towards a Regional Plan must see a networking between these two groups?

(Published in the Gomantak Times 3rd June 2009)

Cycling to Camelot: The Buddhist route to a safer and greener Goa

Hurray for Anibel Ferus-Comelo, hurray for Luis Dias, and hurray for Ulrike Rodrigues! Together these three musketeers have created a group called Goa Cycles! On its website Goa Cycles! describes itself as “an independent, citizen-run organization that advocates for cyclists and cycling in Goa”, whose goal is “to increase awareness, safety, and enjoyment of transportation, recreational and travel cycling in Goa”. I don’t know if there have been other cycling groups in Goa’s recent past, but if not, then it’s about time we had such a group.

Having heard about Goa Cycles! I checked them out online, and found an essay about the group written by Ulrike Rodrigues. The essay (available online at the group’s website) could just as well operate as a manifesto for a political group, since it covers an impressive range of social issues. It questions the gender and class biases of our society and suggests that cycling could in fact be a way to not only challenge them, but also get ourselves a reality check on the real Goa. This real Goa she talks of is not just of the pretty green fields that spreads out as one cycles through the Goan villages, nor of the smell of paddy cultivation, nor of the smell of coconut plantations. She also points to the efforts of Manoj Joshi whose multi-day Goa bike expeditions show “first-hand how Colva’s touristed beaches, Balli’s paddy fields, Cavrem’s ore mines, Bhagwan Mahaveer Sanctuary’s biodiversity and the Mandovi River struggle with issues”. Ulrike quotes Joshi pointing out how the “expedition shows beaches, nature, and water falls but it also shows how Goa is being deforested; how the greed of the few is displacing families, and the rape of the nature.”

One of my all time favourite stories is that of the encounter between the Buddha and Angulimala. Angulimala bounding toward the Buddha insisted that the monk stop walking away. The Buddha calmly turned around, looked at Angulimala and told him that he (the Buddha had stopped walking) it was Angulimala who was running. Modern life tends to be like Angulimala’s experience. We are so intent on dashing from point A to point B in our little automobile capsules that we fail to realize the beauty of the world around us. Consequently we see the world as blur, an impressionist background to our frenzied traveling. As a result we loose out on the beauty, but also loose track of how this frenzied travel is itself helping destroying the landscape and in the process our quality of life.

Rodrigues essay is high on gender-sensitivity and she describes in some detail her frustrations as she tried to locate a suitable ‘ladies’ cycle. Reading her adventures in this respect, I recollected my own experience with the wonderful initiative that started in the French city of Lyon, but has now been embraced by Paris as well. Vélo'v is an initiative that allows residents of the city to hire bikes at nominal rates from locations all around the city (the idea being to have bike parking stations not more than 300 metres from each other). The rental is cheap, and with these parking stations located so close to each other, is extremely convenient to use. When I first encountered the system in Paris, I was a bit skeptical. I don’t like these large bikes that I have to jump over to sit on. What about the handle-bars? The height of the seat? Delightfully it turned out, almost everything on the Velo-cycle, can be adjusted, the height of the seat and the handle-bars as well! In addition, there are no men’s cycles or ladies’ cycles. There is just one standard type, which both women and men can use, and this cycle does not have the bar which defines the men’s cycle. What a wonderful example of gender-sensitive engineering and planning! I myself have been contemplating to get myself a cycle and if so, would rather go in for the gender non-discriminating model, which for some strange reason we call the ‘ladies’ cycle!

I had thought that riding a cycle in Paris would be a charming experience. My expectations were not entirely realized. Parisian drivers can be just as rude and aggressive as the very best in India. On more than one occasion as I pedaled through the city, I thanked God and the city administration for the bicycle lanes that made space for the slower paced traffic. Many a time, the cycle –lane shares space with sidewalks, making me realize that the cyclist is the natural ally of the pedestrian. They both have something to fear from the faster and heavier traffic around them and it would be interesting to see if Goa Cycles! is able to work out an alliance of some sort between these two groups in Goa. In fact, a vocal cyclist’s group would also allow us to make the move toward more humane public transportations systems. While the Goan towns are largely flat, they also include hills, like the rest of the Goan landscape. Cycling up these slopes in the heat of the summer is not exactly easy. San Francisco, that Mecca for the alternative lifestyle, is a city located across hills. They resolved the bikers’ problem by including a bike stand in front of the bus! So in case you don’t want to cycle up a hill, all you have to do is wait for the bus to arrive, load your bike onto the stand, enter the bus, get off where you have to, and then pedal away all over again! If there is no stand, the bus is designed in a manner to allow for you to, without any inconvenience to yourself or fellow-travelers, carry the cycle into the bus. This system operates not just for the buses in San Francisco, but for the transportation system around the San Francisco Bay area. It is possible therefore, for you to cycle from your house to the train station, wheel your bike into the train, get off somewhere in the city, and continue to use your cycle! In combining these two systems, one can easily traverse a distance of 128 kilometers with your cycle, and not have to rely on a private petrol-powered vehicle!

A politically alive and active cycling group could be just the solution to address some of Goa’s civilizational problems. Making cycling options more convenient would address issues of class, gender, make for healthier persons, a healthier environment, taking us one more Buddha-like step toward realizing that wonderful Camelot all of us dream off.

I don’t know about you, but I for one am signing up as a member of Goa Cycles! Join me.

(Published in the Gomantak Times, 8th April 2009)

Two cases in Calcutta

A tale of two cases and two options…

This column is being written immediately on my return from Delhi, where I spent the time between the last column and this. My stay in Delhi was to enable my presence at the inaugural conference of the Law and Social Sciences Research Network held between the 8th and the 11th at the Jawaharlal Nehru University.

While present at the conference, the participants were made aware of a rather interesting story. This true story involves the case of one Hans Dembowski, who subsequent to his research and the award of a PhD degree published a book, via the Oxford University Press titled Taking the State to Court – Public Interest Litigation and the Public Sphere in Metropolitan India. This book was concerned with the issue of governance in metropolitan India, and sought to elaborate the manner in which the Indian courts are playing a vital role in making public institutions more accountable.

Unfortunately for him however, two lawyers of Calcutta High Court, one of them being a government pleader, initiated a contempt petition before the Calcutta High court stating that the book contains "scurrilous derogatory and scandalous remarks against this Hon'ble Court" and has "scandalized and/or tended to lower the Authority of this court". Acting on this petition, the Calcutta High Court in an interim order ensured that the national and international circulation of the book was stopped. Dembowski hangs in limbo ever since.

Closer home, just prior to my departure from Goa, I was made aware of another petition that had been accepted and acted upon by the High Court of Calcutta. This one is a petition filed by Fomento Industries against Seby Rodrigues, where Fomento, represented by Sujay Gupta, former editor of Gomantak Times and now in the employ of Fomento claimed it was being defamed by Seby. Among the other prayers to the Court, Fomento made to the Calcutta High Court was a claim of Rs. 500 crores from Seby for the damages caused by the blog http://mandgoa.blogspot.com/ that he manages.

The admission of both these petitions by the Calcutta High Court is rather disturbing, since it really amounts to participation in a suffocation of the rights of debate and discussion. In the first case what the interim order represents is a suffocation of the right to academic debate. In the second, in terms framed by Pravin Sabnis, what we have is in fact an assault on the rights of a journalist, a person who documents social processes.

The question that emerges in both cases is, is there something desperately wrong with India’s judicial processes and institutions? Does one suffocate the circulation of an eminently academic work that raises questions and honestly seeks answers and promotes debate? Should the Calcutta High Court have taken up an issue that could, and perhaps should have, ideally been dealt with in Goa? Initiated a process without the participation of the defendant?

As a socio-legal scholar other questions also flood my mind. What is the relationship that a superior court of this country ought to have with procedure? Is it procedure alone that a Court like the High Court of Calcutta must bear in mind, or must its imagination also be animated by some knowledge of, and a respect for the workings of society?

Attending the public meeting in response to the defamation suit filed by Fomento, one got a sense of the workings of this society. A society that is in fact not working. A society that is simply not in communication within itself.

Did Fomento in fact initiate a dialogue with Seby prior to filing this suit in the High Court of Calcutta? Was this dialogue attested to by some form of written communication? Ideally, Fomento ought to have; in such a case displaying its commitment to an open society, and arming itself against the now widely prevalent accusations that it is seeking to harass an activist who is raising valid questions about the nature of mining in Goa.

For all the challenges that Goa has been dealing with, every challenge is an opportunity for dialogue. Unfortunately it seems that at almost every turn, this opportunity is being rejected in favour of the legal; a route that is really in confrontation with the social.

(Published in the Gomantak Times 14 Jan 2009)

Another Film Festival: Random Notes from the Goan Peoples’ Film Festival

Forgive me if I sound triumphalist over the successful conclusion of the Panjim leg of the Goan Peoples’ Film Festival. The Festival was held to protest the silence with which the Goan State has been treating the various memoranda and questions of the Ganv Ghor Rakhon Manch (GGRM) pertaining to the continuing rise of speculative real-estate projects, and the State’s lack of commitment to participatory planning that is the first demand of the Goan people.


The Festival was accomplished under handicaps of various sorts. The first of these was that of time. We contemplated this move of drawing attention to the abuses of the Goan State (and administration) only on the fifth of November. And yet despite this late decision the response that we had from people both in Goa and the rest of India was overwhelming. While the support in Goa was understandable, it was the support from India that was truly heart-warming. Directors from across the country, at a moment’s notice couriered films to us, sending messages of support and solidarity. If one of the aims of the Festival was to draw Indian attention to the Goan struggle, then in some measure the Festival succeeded in drawing national attention to our cause.


The relationship between India and Goa was one that featured in some of the discussions at the Festival. There were some, myself included, who feel that the dominant relationship between India and Goa is in fact a colonial one. It is a colonial relationship when it comes to viewing Goa as a holiday destination (India’s holiday state as NDTV once put it) for the country; and as another space for exploitation (of mineral resources) where the voices of the local people don’t really matter.


And yet these voices, didn’t call for a Goan nationalism, but rather an articulation of a healthier relationship with India, based on democratic and constitutional norms. To do this however, we recognized that we will have to rearticulate not only the manner in which the Goan economy is currently structured, but also the mythologies of our State.


When speaking of restructuring mythologies, it was suggested that we also need to think in terms of restructuring geography. It is not just in Portuguese-Indian mythology that Goa is seen as a land apart. The whole Parashuram myth also sees Goa, as the land beyond the end. New (and this emphasis on ‘new’ needs to be noted) land that was created for invaders (migrants?) from the North. Mythologies of other groups would show us connections of the land we now call Goa, with Bijapur, with the Deccan and the Kanara coast, that link us in organic ways with India. Routes that don’t push us into self-isolating insularity.


Another way we can connect with the India, along democratic and constitutional norms, is in finding our own voice, among the voices of resistance in India. The insular position that Goa (and Goan causes) find themselves in, is also the result of a certain patriarchal provincialism that sees nothing in common with Goa. As such, one heard the question, but what do these documentaries have to do with Goa? The answer was aptly given by Ramesh Gauns after watching Rakesh Sharma’s ‘Aftershocks: The Rough Guide to Democracy’ that dealt with the fate of villagers displaced to allow for lignite mining. “I felt I was watching not Gujarat but Goa!” Ramesh Gauns would know what he is talking about he has been at the mining issue for a while now.


Yet another parallel between the Indian experience and the Goan, came across after watching ‘India Untouched: Stories of a People Apart’. The film dealt with the experiences of Dalits across various parts of India. Dadu Mandrekar, another persistent voice, this one dealing with Dalit issues, was visibly moved by the film. It is a mistake to presume that we in Goa do not suffer from the kinds of violences that are meted out to Dalits in other parts of India. These do exist, but are very effectively silenced. It is possible that these violences may be limited to small sections of our territory but the daily experience of humiliation by upper-castes is an undeniable fact. And at the end of the day, who am I to judge if your humiliation is greater to or less than the humiliation of some other person. Humiliation is humiliation, period.


Engaging with the resistance in India, will allow us in Goa to nuance the arguments that we present to the opposition here in Goa. It will open up newer options for us, options that we in our small society, oftentimes dare not dream of.


The smallness of our society was cause for another one of the handicaps that the Festival had to deal with. ‘Why do you want to do it alongside IFFI?’ ‘Are you hosting a parallel film festival?” “Why! What will the Government say?” Indeed, one of the supporters to the Festival threatened to pull out at the last moment fearing a souring of their relationship with the State if they helped in hosting a parallel film festival.


These responses and the fear of this particular supporter speaks volumes about the Goan state-society relationship. We are willing to go only so far and no further in offending the State and threatening the socio-economic elites that support and benefit from it. It is the size of the Goan territory and its elite that allows this almost tyrannical situation to continue. Tyrannical because when no one is willing to break the conspiracy of silence, tyranny is the only situation that comes to mind. Once more it is in joining forces with a larger Indian resistance to State, corporate and elite tyranny, that we in Goa stand a better chance.


The Goan Peoples’ Film Festival ended its screenings in Panjim yesterday, and will now reconvene in Colva to allow the dialogue initiated in Panjim to continue. If you are even vaguely interested in the issues on the boil in Goa, you would do well to visit the Festival!

(Published in the Gomantak Times, 26th Nov 2008)