Drama around the NRP Sagres II : Attempting an inter-cultural dialogue

Last week this column tilted at the protests by the ‘freedom fighters’ and the ‘Hindu’ nationalists suggesting that they were contributing to the problem rather than resolving one, by creating an environment where dialogue was not possible. In the process however, the column also suggested that all was not well with some strands of contemporary Portuguese nationalist tropes that draw on colonial images and understandings. One of the arguments the column sought to make, was that both these nationalisms worked to support each other, and continue the post-colonial mess we find ourselves in.

However it is because we are inextricably twined together that dialogue is both necessary and the only option. Demonstrating perhaps the value of dialogue, the column generated a response from three Portuguese men, all of who have some sort of connection with, or interest in, India. Today’s column will extract portions of these responses from ‘the Portuguese’ and seek to dialogue with them, conceding some arguments, and disagreeing with others.

One of the respondents argued that “Saying there's a transfer of culture does not mean you don't recognize other peoples’ cultures. I suggest you read Fernão Mendes Pinto who in the XVI century spoke of the superiority of the Chinese over the Europeans! But you need a really very sharp anthropological look to recognize your cultural debt to the Bororo people... Even in India, tribals are seen as less civilized, aren’t they? I don’t agree, but that they are seen as such is a fact.”

The second of the respondents partially disagreed saying, “Good points, but not sure I share your conclusions towards the end. In any case, "a disco of fados, a Gallo de Barcelos, and scarves celebrating the Portuguese football team" are not "culture" (in general) but "a culture" (specific). And yes, I would say that, in comparison with other colonial encounters, the Portuguese was far more symmetric in terms of what you call mutual transfer/exchange of culture.”

The third of the respondents felt that “Jason falls into that common trap of academics: over-interpretation. The posters say nothing of what he reads there, they are not that smart. Their inspiration is not nationalistic tropes about civilizing missions, it is the internationalistic tropes about tour operating.”

To the first of the respondents, I would like to agree that the descriptions of Portuguese culture do not unilaterally deny the transfer of culture from the various parts of the world, and the former Portuguese territories to the Portuguese metropolis. On the contrary, there is a good amount of the mythology of the country that acknowledges and celebrates this mixture. However, we must acknowledge, if we are to challenge and move forward, that there is a dominant tendency, that seeing Portuguese culture as European, falls into the trap of acknowledging it as superior and having contributed more than it has received. As an illustration, but also to complicate the image and point out that it is not always an ‘us’ south Asians (colonized etc.) versus ‘them’ Portuguese (colonizers etc), contemplate the following anecdote, recounted by a Portuguese historian. He pointed to the historical works of Teotonio De Souza as significant to the intellectual world of the Indo-Portuguese. Too many of the rest he argued, were still using terribly antiquated notions. He pointed with some horror, to the works of a Portuguese historian of Goan origin who still used ideas like India being in a state of barbarity until the Europeans (namely the Portuguese) brought culture and Christianity!

Sticking with history, the first respondent should be reminded that merely because Fernão Mendes Pinto spoke of Chinese superiority, does not make him representative of Portuguese society for that time, nor for the same society in different other periods. Once again, this does not deny the capacity of the Portuguese to recognize superiority or merit in the Other. It merely affirms the fact that societies are polyphonic – they speak with many voices. The voice of Fernão Mendes Pinto was one of these voices, and possibly at times, a marginalized voice.

The more interesting observation of the second respondent was to repeat the Lusotropical illusions that the Portuguese colonizers were more symmetric in the exchange of culture. Lusotropicalism thrives on the idea of Portuguese colonialism being a good, equitable and gentle colonialism. A response to this idea would not be to counter Portuguese colonialism as bad, violent and inequitable, but point out that the reason we do not see British colonialism as symmetric, is because of the way the British colonial state represented its colonialism; as non-interfering in the cultures of others, and of not mixing racially with its subject populations. The transfer of culture is not a conscious choice, it occurs through unconscious actions in the daily lives of people. Where the colonial state was not around to bar such quotidian mixings, as very often the Portuguese state was unable or ideologically unwilling to do, one sees a greater amount of mixing. We have to bear in mind that we should not, as we often do, take the representations of the colonial British too seriously.

To finally address the last respondent; yes, it is possible that the last column was an over-interpretation. That possibility exists. But as with all columns, the point was not to establish an unassailable and definite truth, but to contemplate the possibility of the general points being argued. The posters of the Euromilhões lottery were merely an excuse. To however deny entirely the possibility of colonial stereotypes continuing to populate contemporary Portuguese imagination would be to affirm the possibility that colonial imagery still does play a role, and that the contemporary Portuguese are unwilling to talk about it. Furthermore, tourism is not an innocent bread-winning exercise. Tourism rests critically on colonial imagery, as well as colonial relations. One does not see mass-tourism from the global south to the global North. The touristic locations of the North are marketed differently from those of the South. Furthermore, as the subsequent column will go on to explain, the character of tourism in Goa, is not so distinct from that in Portugal.

To conclude, dialogue, as in the act of speaking to each other, may possibly help more than violent protests. Dialogue is not a one-way street, in pointing out possible problems with the Portuguese we open up the space for them to point out our own weaknesses. For example, as first respondent pointed out, don’t most Indians see the tribals of South Asia as less, or uncivilized? Do we not for this reason see our colonization of resources in their homelands as legitimate?

(A version of this post was first published in the Gomantak Times 24 Nov 2010)

Resisting nationalism’s seduction: When a Goan boy in Australia is attacked

Last week this column discussed the manner in which nationalism highjacks humanist causes that rise above the petty and parochial politics of nationalism. Sometime between that column and this one, there was another incident that seemed custom-made for highjack by nationalism. Some of the many responses to the incident demonstrate however the manner in which we can respond to the human element by building larger solidarities and side-stepping the seduction of nationalism.

On October 18, two boys attacked a 12 year old school boy of Goan origin at their school in Melbourne, Australia. This boy was so brutally beaten up that he has reportedly had to have a titanium plate inserted under his eye, and may possibly loose sight in that eye. Some of the reporting on the incident sought to colour the incident as yet another racial attack on ‘Indians’ in the continent. However rather than go down that road, some of the responses to the incident have had a warm, familial, concerned response that seem better suited to the trauma that the family has been expressing.

Responding to the incident, a Goan resident in Goa felt that there was a need to reach out to the family, writing, ‘when a father feels that there is no future in remaining in Australia anymore (due to this incident), it becomes a defeat of the dreams one nursed for the future of his children having giving up everything one had in one's own land for a future for one's off-springs.’ This letter placed concern very appropriately in the interests of a family that had already possibly sacrificed much to get to Australia. To go down the ‘Indians being attacked’ road would have possibly gotten international and governmental attention, but would such concern for the individual family necessarily have received attention? More importantly, would it have received such fraternal solidarity from individuals, unrelated by blood?

At a more systemic level, where one needs to make sure that such incidents do not get repeated, other Goans pointed out that there are high levels of violence in some schools, and that these need to be tackled at the level of the school. These observations did not rule out that there is a possible racial element to the attack, but seemed to refuse to get trapped in the ‘racist attacks on Indians’ formula. It seems to have helped that this particular Goan was particularly critical of the failings within India. To raise slogans against Australia, he felt, would only be a case of the pot calling the kettle black. Touché!

Yet another Goan pointed out that while he was raising the issue and not denying the possibility of a racist element to the attack, he also agreed that there needed to be a larger response to the incident. The Indian Government uses these incidents to boost its own international visibility, attempting to act like its role model, the U.S. State that reassures its citizens even when they are abroad. Rather than pull in the Indian state, perhaps one could reach out to existing organizations in Melbourne that seek to work against racial stereotyping and addressing the social problems that emerge in multi-racial and immigrant neighbourhoods like Noble Park where the school is located.

Speaking at the much maligned conference on Azaadi at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi a couple of days ago, Arundhati Roy made a powerful observation that we would do well to apply here. Kashmiri’s who want Azaadi for Kashmir, she said, would do well to forge solidarity with other movements for justice within India. Similarly, if we as Goans are concerned for the fate of this boy and his family’s continued residence in Australia, we would do well to work towards fostering bonds with groups that work on social harmony. The answer to the Indo-Pakistan conflict, some believe lies in person-to-person contact. There is no reason why we cannot manage such a contact, rather than engage in nationalist sloganeering.

Seeking alternatives to nationalism is imperative if we are to resolve a number of the problems we face. Very often nationalist thinking is so ingrained in our thoughts that we fail to see alternative ways of thinking. The responses to this Goan boy’s sad plight however shows the multiple levels at which we can respond to the issue.

(A version of this post was first published in the Gomantak Times 3 Nov 2010)

The Problem with Nationalism: And how it limits our imagination…

A number of readers of this column must wonder about the column’s obsession with nationalism. What is so wrong with some patriotism and love for one’s country they may ask? For these good souls, the following anecdote would provide one more illustration of the manner in which nationalism distracts attention from the real issues, and perverts good intentions for banal and pointless ends.

A couple of days ago I received an email in my inbox asking me if I had heard the name of Narayanan Krishnan. If I had not, this message informed me, it was a result of ‘a collective failure’ his being ‘one of the most incredible stories of personal commitment.’ Narayanan Krishnan, this email informed, was currently 29 years old, doing ‘what he was professionally trained to do as a chef. Feed people.’ Unlike others however, ‘Krishnan does not do this in the swanky confines of a 5-star hotel. Every day, he wakes up at 4 am, cooks a simple hot meal and then, along with his team, loads it in a van and travels about 200 km feeding the homeless in Madurai, Tamil Nadu.’ The message continued to indicate that Krishnan often feeds upto 400 destitute a day, often throwing in a haircut for those who need one. The inspiration for this endeavour the message contined dates back “eight years ago,(when) this award-winning chef with a five-star hotel chain was all set to go to Switzerland for a high-profile posting. On a visit to a Madurai temple, he came across a homeless, old man eating his own human waste. That stark sight changed Krishnan's life.”

There should be no problem thus far. In fact what Krishnan has done is laudatory. But this is where the email started to go horribly, horribly wrong. ‘Krishnan is the only Indian in a list of 10 heroes that CNN has picked worldwide to honor. One of them will be chosen CNN Hero of the Year, selected by the public through an online poll. If many Indians get together to vote for this inspiring man, he can win by a long mile. If Krishnan wins he will get $100,000 in addition to the $ 25,000 that he gets for being shortlisted for the Top 10. Akshaya Trust needs all the monetary support it can get to build on Krishnan’s dream. Let’s help him get there.’

It was at this point that I saw red, and with alarm bells going off by the dozen in my head, I flipped. I simply lost it.

The first problem that I had was with the opening line of the offensive paragraph, “Krishnan is the only Indian…” How, is his nationality even relevant? Is there a suggestion implicit in that identification of nationality that that if there had been no Indians there would have been no reason to reach out to the other causes that CNN is highlighting? That these other causes are somehow less relevant or worse still capable of being ignored? What this appeal has done, in identifying Krishnan’s nationality and appealing to our patriotism is to distract us from the humanitarian cause that Krishnan is serving. It distracts us from the emotions of compassion and solidarity and asserts that it is in fact nationality that is is worth supporting. Forget the efforts in Haiti, in Mexico, in Nepal. They are irrelevant, focus on ‘our’ India. The petition suggests that Krishnan being Indian is sufficient reason for us to suspend our independent thinking and blindly vote for him. But this is what nationalism and patriotism does, it forces us to suspend independent thinking and be another robot.This petition then does great injustice both to Krishnan and other humanitarian causes.

Secondly, ‘if many Indians get together...he can win by a long mile’. This is the most perverse use I have seen of India's so-called population problem. Since we cannot compete in terms of quality, let us use collective weight to bludgeon our way to the top. Indeed it is demonstrative of the larger way in which we see our population. Normally seen as the dead-weight burden that drags us to the bottom of the global race, the only time we see the Indian population as an advantage is when we use it to attract works from abroad. This formula necessarily involves the lowering of labour standards, wage rates and the like. But once again though nationalism rears its ugly head, in that thanks to nationalism, it is not the working conditions of thousands of Indians that is at stake, but the greater glory of the nation. This glory as we known translates only into extra rupees in the pockets of a select few.

My third problem with the appeal is that, thanks to this nationalist sentiment, it makes the case of support for Krishnan one of winning alone. ‘If Krishnan wins he will get $100, 000 in addition to the $ 25,000 that he gets for being shortlisted for the Top 10. Akshaya Trust needs all the monetary support it can get to build on Krishnan’s dream. Let’s help him get there’.

Rather than suggesting that we should contribute to Krishnan’s largely humanitarian cause, the petition directs us to get recognition for India. In doing this, not only is it not suggesting that we contribute to winning a competition ‘for India’, but is also hiding a rather important fact. India's poverty is not a result of a lack of internal resources. It is a lack of the will to see an equitable distribution of the plentitude of resources that the country enjoys. In urging us to vote for Krishnan so that he wins the CNN money, the author of the petition falls back into a long tradition of garnering foreign funds, rather than addressing the disparity in access to resources within the country. This also follows the other strategy we have commonly adopted. Make symbolic gestures alone, and not address the structural reasons for the continuation of poverty. But then nationalism is eminently about symbolism, and fooling people into believing things will change.

These are just some of the reasons why nationalism is a problem. It prevents us from seeing the world as our home and having solidarity with issues outside of the national space. It forces us to think of the nation alone, and justifies the unnecessary deprivations thousands have to face every day. It hides the fact that internal problems are the result of internal decisions, not internal lack of resources.

Eventually, in fighting nationalism, we effectively fight for a better society and a better world.

(A version of this post was first published in the Gomantak Times 27 Oct 2010)

Taking the Republic Seriously: Why the Centenary of the Portuguese Republic is a Goan event

The year 2010 is a year of great significance for in this year we commemorate a number of hugely momentous political events. We mark the fifth centennial anniversary of the conquest of the city of Goa by Afonso de Albuquerque in 1510, the centenary of the declaration of the Portuguese Republic in 1910, and six decades since the enforcement of the Constitution of India. Subsequently, this year shall give way to another, when we in Goa will mark our integration into the Indian Union in 1961.

Let us leave aside the event of 1510 for the moment. We shall have much to discuss about this event in the months to come; and I dare say that the nationalists will have even more! Let us concern ourselves however with these two Republics, both of which are appropriately ours as Goans; the Portuguese and the Indian.

There are moments in time, when one is confronted with events of such profundity, that one can understand them only as moments of rebirth. The old self passes away, and in light of the revelation before us, is reborn, rather like a Phoenix from the ashes of the old. One such personal moment of rebirth, was the realization that the Portuguese Republic of 1910 was my own. This was a fundamental moment of rupture. Happily for me, the initiation into this truth occurred at the hands of not some nostalgic ‘Portuguese Left Over’ (PLO) – as they are so unkindly called – but via an activist of the Goan Bahujan Samaj. Standing up at an event this man proclaimed to all the Goan world, that he was first liberated when recognized as equal in 1910, under the effects of the Portuguese Republic that recognized all Goans as citizens. His reference was to his formal liberation from the caste oppression that, he will argue, continues to dog the lives of numerous ‘lower’ caste Goan Hindus, as well as to the formal recognition of equality that was given effect to via the hard work and perseverance of Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, the Father of our Constitution.

For too many of us however, Republic Day is just one more day for nationalist ‘India Shining’ chest thumping, the offensive displays of the might of the Indian armed forces, and the cloying sweetness of ‘cultural diversity’ parades. I was the horrified witness to a entirely serious discussion on Facebook, where a number of young Indians maintained a steady discussion on how awful it was that we had a frumpy looking woman taking the military salute at this years Republic Day parade in Delhi. Why couldn’t we have a more stylish, smarter woman as President? Why can’t she just do something for her hair!!!

Can Republic Day mean more to us? Our Bahujan Samaj activist gives us an insight into taking the Republic seriously. The declaration of republics in various parts of Europe meant the abandoning of social and legal orders that were based on feudal privileges and hierarchies. It presented the idea of a political order where all were to be equal. To be sure we realized in the course of time that these republics replaced one inequality with another. The idea of equality which was to apply to all men, was taken literally, in that women were excluded for a long time from political representation. All men however did not apply to men of colour and to colonial contexts. And yet, the mere idea of these rights were important because it allowed us to imagine different ways of relating to other human beings and assured us we did not have to always be cowed down. The promise of equality and rights was the gift of the Republican ideal. In many parts of the world, not just in Europe, the idea of the Republic is taken very seriously. It is something to continuously fight for, to ensure that these values of equality are in fact realized on a daily basis.

In India too, the constitution of the Republic is significant for the fact that it announced to a country filled with hierarchies of different sorts that these were to now be a thing of the past. The Indian Constitution announced formal equality to people who until that moment lacked it. This Constitution was not won easily. The Indian Constitution was defended vigorously by Dr. Ambedkar and others from ideas that could possibly reaffirm the old hierarchies. This is a project that is not as yet complete, for not only are the egalitarian ideals of the Constitution not realized in effect, but there are constant attempts to undermine these ideals. The military drills, ‘India Shining’ and the standard celebrations of Republic Day are in fact parts of this process of distracting us from the more profound significance of the constitution of the Republic.

The Goan Hindu, more specifically the elite Goan Hindu, is perhaps best placed to be able to appreciate the significance of the declaration of the Republic. With the Declaration of the Portuguese Republic, all Goans were now full citizens of the Republic. There was to be no more of the second class treatment of old. The Goan Hindu was able to now burst forth legitimately into the public arena, and burst out they did. While the Goan Hindu elite were always a significant force behind the Estado da India, the Republic allowed them to now take a more significant part in this process of governance. In allowing for the land reform legislations, and liberating subaltern Goans from the material conditions that sustained oppressive social regimes, the Constitution of the Indian Republic continued for the Goan, the promise of the republican ideals that were cut short by the interlude of the Estado Novo.

Commemorating the year of the Declaration of the Portuguese Republic is crucially important because it marks our long and continuing journey towards equality. Erasing such an early leg of our history would serve only to obscure the length of our struggle and more easily distract us toward nationalist celebrations. Indeed perhaps this is why our Bahujan Samaj activist declared his debt to the declaration of the Portuguese Republic. In recognizing this longer history he refused the many lies that are peddled to us under the garb of nationalism. In recognizing the contribution of the Portuguese Republic he tells the story like it is. The enemy is not some possibly-foreign colonial. On the contrary, the enemy lies within. Not necessarily a person, or a group, it is a tendency to underplay the importance of this egalitarian goal and push us in other (nationalist) directions. These directions while stressing boundaries and differences detract us from the republican ideal; that is equality for all.

For this reason, therefore; Viva a República! Viva Portugal, Viva India; Viva Goa!

(A version of this post was first published in the Gomantak Times, 10 Feb 2010)

Faith, Hindus, Christians and Cynics: A Letter to Sudin

Dear Sudin,

A couple of weeks ago, I read a letter to the editor in one of our local newspapers. Written by a Hindu gentleman who had visited a temple dedicated to Shantadurga, the letter does not indicate to us why he went there. One presumes however, that he was there to perform a ritual. While at the temple, he came across a farmer who was there to beg the intercession of the Goddess. He had suffered rodent damage to his crop, and was convinced, or so the narrator of this letter tells us, that sprinkling the teertha (holy water) in the fields would save him and his crop. This simple (and perhaps naïve) faith of the farmer proved too much for our gentleman narrator, and in his letter to the editor, exhorts that we must cease such practices of blind superstition and adopt scientific principles and rationality.

I have to confess on reading this letter I was most upset. While I might join the narrator in thinking the farmer’s practices naïve, surely they are just as naïve as the reasons that the narrator was in the temple in the first place? For what was our narrator doing in the temple? Was it not to honour a deity of graven stone?

You will realize that I am not rubbishing the practice of the worship of the Goddess. I am merely challenging the supercilious attitude of our narrator, asking him to indicate where blind superstitious faith ends, and rational belief begins! While the formulation above was clear to my mind, I nevertheless felt that I was missing something in my analysis of the issue.

A few days ago, in the course of a virtual chat, I was eager to impress you that I speak about the importance of faith in public life, not in religion. You retorted, indicating that perhaps this ‘faith’ was something you (Christians) have, whereas we (Hindus) don’t need it, it is enough that ‘we’ perform the ritual. No sooner had you made this suggestion, did I realize what was bothering me about this letter I have just elaborated on above. My response will deal with two issues; the first the whole idea that the Hindu/ Indian is alien to faith (this being a Christian/ Western innovation) and second the implications of this faithless religion.

In its attempt to dominate the world, colonialism set up certain binaries of virtues. Thus if the colonizer was material, the colonized was spiritual. If the colonizer intelligent, the colonized innocent. In these binaries, the colonized always landed up with the least flattering, as the colonizer was cast as the mature and pragmatic sibling in the relationship. These binaries were wildly popular during the halcyon days of nationalism. In the attempt to give the colonized a voice, rather than challenge these binaries, these binaries were valorized and made the basis of the colonized’s challenge. While we don’t engage in such childishly embarrassing binaries today, the tendency remains. There is an attempt at shallow sophistication. Thus colonialism is now tied to Christianity, and this faith-tradition is counterposed to the native traditions, and differences trotted out. Christianity has a text, Hinduism does not. Christianity has faith, Hinduism does not, and so forth. The idea is to cast colonialism as bringing modernity, and in face of the problems and violences of modernity, to suggest that the non, and pre-modern can provide a useful platform for a challenge to our modern mess. This is the intellectual origin of the suggestion that the Hindu has no need for faith.

Surely the encounter in the temple narrated above should convince you that the ‘pagan’ native is capable of and not innocent to faith. Empirically therefore, your argument should fall flat on its face. It is possible that you would choose to argue that this native has learned faith from the Christian. I trust you will not go down this embarrassing path and deny the bliss of faith to the native. Should you choose to do so however, what you are effectively doing is to suggest that Christianity is forever alien to native soil (a preposterous position for reasons beyond my being a South-Asian Christian). Secondly, you would be suggesting that the native faith traditions have somehow emerged fully formed, without any evolution, or that any evolution has been entirely indigenous.

In response to your argument however, I will not deny that there are Hindus who operate without faith. This is not however, exclusively a Hindu domain, since this dubious facility is shared by Christians, Muslims and Jews as well. These people fulfill their religious obligations, but do so recognizing that these are religious rituals that must be performed for the social sanction they obtain. Thus John Fernandes will take his children to mass, and introduce them to First Holy Communion, even though he thinks the Virgin Birth and the Resurrection to be ‘scientifically impossible’ and thus akin to our farmer’s use of teertha.

In these days of religious revivalism, fundamentalism et al, it is not the faithful that I fear. It is the religious. That is, those who operate in the field of religion without faith. It is true that the fields of faith and religion intersect so often that it is often difficult to distinguish one from the other. The faithful can be gullible, but it is the cynical, those who perform religious ritual, without a belief in its spiritual merit, that are perhaps more to be feared.

In the course of my itinerations round Goa, I have seen the cynics that populate the temples, obsessed more with using the Goddess as a tool to power, rather than falling prostrate at Her feet. The narrator of the letter, I would wager is one of them. The product of his cynicism, is that not only is there a failure to grow in the virtues of trust and mutual dependence that faith brings, but it brings also, as was so obvious from the letter to the editor, a certain disdain for those of the lower order. These ‘superstitious’ are seen as in- need-of-education, and at the end of the day, merely tools for us to reach the paradise that we have deemed fit for creation. Indeed, as the good Pope Benedict XVI repeats constantly, contemporary man, having displaced God, arrogates unto himself the power of God, but in the process renders fellow humans less than human. Setting out to create paradise, he invariably produces the hell of contemporary existence.

To these ramblings, I would welcome your comments.

(Sudin, is the pseudonym for a Goan (Hindu) currently engaged in a PhD in the UK. While Sudin is a pseudonym, all other references are entirely factual.)

(First published in the Gomantak Times, 13 Jan 2010)

Opening up or Ushering in?: The Panchayati Raj amendments, Activists, and Public participation

Over the 25th and the 26th of July I was in Pondicherry, to participate in a workshop around the theme of public consultation and citizen participation in urban governance. ‘Opening Up or Ushering In’ was the rather enigmatic name for the workshop that mystified most of the participants. It was only later that we got an inkling into this framing of the workshop. Given that public consultation and citizen participation that have become rather fashionable catchwords; are these processes being used to open up spaces for citizens to participate in the articulation of plans and projects in their cities and neighbourhoods, or usher in technocrats and their consultancies under the guise of public consultation and participation? You have to admit with me that the organizers were more than clever in their framing of the workshop title, as well as placing on the agenda, an interesting issue for debate.

I would like to reflect on this idea within the Goan context, returning in the process, to a theme that I have not taken up for some time, that of the frustrated moment of the Goan revolution. What has not ceased to amaze is the manner in which, despite constantly brandishing the issue of public participation and decentralization, most of the groups in the fray have been singularly unable to actually realize the objective. All of this despite the fact that the GBA, at that time the more powerful among these groups, held the trumps at a crucial moment in the struggle.

Trying to understand why they failed to seize the moment, two options emerged. One, because of the conviction by some of the more prominent Margao activists that decentralization was a bad thing, the average citizen would make a mess of the powers they were given. The second, because for the architects and urban planners involved in the movement, participation and consultation began and ended when they were ushered into the planning process. In their well-intentioned estimation, this was also participation and consultation, so at least they were taking the process somewhere. As the recent ‘stepping down’ of Edgar Rebeiro has shown us, this assumption was not just terribly naïve, but eventually impotent as well. Participation is not achieved until the entire body of citizenry is enabled to participate in planning. The question that needs to be seriously posed is if this association with the State executive, right from the time the GBA joined the Task Force, an association entirely outside of a legal process, was useful or not.

The reason for distinguishing between the two reasons stated above, is because I would like to distinguish between a conscious option to prevent genuine and large-scale participation (in the first case), and a misunderstanding as to what participation and consultation actually means. In the second case, the error is possibly unconscious, the result of a blinkered vision engendered by one’s professional training. It is a different matter that this professional training is rooted in the same fear of the ‘ignorant masses’ held by our Margao activists. When imbibed through education however, it gets internalized unconsciously. That these professionals belong to a class that in any case has a tendency against mass participation and towards a surprisingly firm belief in its own capacities does not help them in thinking out these biases that are educated into them.

To be sure, these biases have a longer history, as displayed in the history of the anti-colonial struggle in British-India. The early forms of the ‘national struggle’, in particular the demands of the liberals and Swarajists, was not for ‘freedom’. Whenever this potentially explosive term was used, it was in fact rather ambivalently articulated. Their aspiration was in fact for a greater ‘share’ in the governance of the country, as reflected in the demands for greater opportunities in participation in central and provincial legislatures and executive councils. There was no contemplation of universal participation for all Indians, the attempt was to only share the pie of governance with the white man. It was only later, in the event of the failed expectations of the Indian National Congress on most offers of constitutional ‘reforms’ that the discourse and practice got radicalized to lead to the situation of a robust non-cooperation against the British Raj. Popular support was garnered through the eventually unrealized promise to the unwashed masses of their having a say in the future, in matters of governance.

What we must not forget is that there existed right from the very beginning a tension between the freedom struggle led by Gandhi, to whom we can trace this liberative notion of local self governance, and the representative ‘consultative’ democracy that eventually triumphed. This latter form took for its inspiration the structures of the colonial State, and this is why today, we experience nothing less than a colonial violence, as demonstrated by the recent changes effected to the Goa Panchayati Raj Act by the representatives in the legislative house. The fight in Goa, for greater transparency and more participation in governance is in fact a continuation of this unresolved fight against colonialism, and one can see uncanny resemblances. The State apparatus in Goa is that inherited from the Raj, the GBA-mobilization was led by elites for whom sharing of power is sufficient.

It now looks as if this earlier history from British-India is repeating itself. The failed expectations of the leadership of the GBA are prompting queries if we should not now push forward into more radical measures against the Government. As suggested on numerous occasions, that may not be such a bad idea. However, this radical action CANNOT be the goal of the movement. Any action (radical or otherwise) has to necessarily acknowledge that the goal of the movement is nothing less than a legally recognized system of meaningful consultation with the citizens in their wards, and an effective system of participation in village-level and city-level meetings. It is because of our longer history, where colonial institutions and logics have prevailed over the genuinely participatory logics that we have to make sure that in the next mobilization that seems to be imminent, we ensure that the lessons from the history of both the Indian anti-colonial struggle (popularly called the freedom struggle) and the ‘Save Goa’ campaign are not forgotten.

What we need is an opening up, not an ushering in.

(Published in the Gomantak Times, 12 Aug 2009)

Judging the Magdalene: Law, Love and the Homosexual

The decision of the Delhi High Court, on the 2nd of July, to read down Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code in so far as it pertains to consensual sexual relations between adults (even when they be of the same sex), was welcomed across the country, and indeed internationally. This reception has good reason. The reading down of the provision decriminalises an activity that many argue is normal, if less common. For those who are not convinced by the normalcy of same-sex relations, the argument has been offered that even if one disagrees with the proposition that homosexual relations are immoral, a criminal identity is hardly something one can thrust on people who are going about their business in the privacy of their homes.

The response to the law however was somewhat distubing. One saw gay activists and others claim to ‘be proud to be Indian’. This pride is somewhat bizzare. Why pride in the country? One can feel a pleasure in knowing that innocents will be no longer branded criminal. But pride? The pride became understandable when one ran through a number of Facebook messages on the 2nd of July. The pride was connected with India having arrived in the 21st century, in having ‘grown up’, and in having ‘progressed’.

The whole idea of progress, the maturation from immaturity to maturity is deeply tied to our colonial past, when the colonised were held to be like infants, who needed to be disciplined by the adult in the relationship – the white colonial master. Indeed, Winston Churchill maintained that the Indians were not ready (i.e. not mature enough) for self-rule. National movements were attempts by colonised elites at recovering their self-respect and showing that they were indeed mature, and progressive. Unfortunately, all too often this meant not charting their own course in history, but following the path of the former colonisers. The welcoming of the decision of the Delhi High Court therefore, I suspect, has less to do with a deep-seated commitment and belief in the rights of persons to a dignified existence, and more with the desire to be like ‘them’. If they can recognise gays, then so must we, else we might prove how ‘backward’ we are! And ofcourse, as the whole idea of ‘India Shining’ showed us, we care deeply about what the West (read world of the white man) thinks about us.

If the decision of the High Court has been welcomed by the secular liberal and assorted others, members of the religious right have been quick to denounce the decision protesting that this decision will only encourage more ‘anti-social activities’. Homosexuality is against the traditions of Islam, Christianity and Hinduism, they scream.

Before the religiously inclined make any decision however, it would be worthwhile to have a look at the statements made both by the Delhi Archdiocese as well as the Catholic Bishops Conference of India. Writing on the matter, Fr. Dominic Emmanuel, a significantly placed cleric in the Archdiocese of Delhi in his column in the Indian Express expressed that “the Christian community does not (repeat it does not) treat people with homosexual tendencies as criminals. Nor does it be believe that they can be regarded on par with criminals. Therefore, it has no serious objection to the repealing of Section 377, which incidentally is what the Delhi high court seems to have ruled today in its historic judgment. In other words, it does not object to decriminalising homosexuality, though it fears that doing so might increase cases of HIV/ AIDS”. Echoing a similar position, though in the negative, Cardinal Varkey Vithayathil, President of Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India expressed that “Although decriminalizing homosexuality does not make it moral, people in general may think thereby that it as morally permissible. The government should not give the impression that homosexuality is licensed”. Reference to documents from the Vatican, in particular the Pastoral Letter ‘On The Pastoral Care Of Homosexual Persons’ suggests as well that hatred toward the homosexual is not the position of the Church, but affirms the loving embrace that must be extended to the homosexual. To quote Fr. Emmanuel again, “The Vatican’s stand on this is quite clear: “They [homosexuals] must be accepted with respect, compassion and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided” (From the Catechism, No. 2358). But one must hasten to add …that decriminalising is not the same as: a) granting legal benefits; and b) accepting it as normal or natural.”

It should be clear that the Church finds itself in a sticky position vis-à-vis the criminalisation of homosexuality. It does not bless the criminalisation of the homosexual, but is clearly concerned with the impression that if decriminalised, the message that will go out to the wider world is that homosexuality is immoral. I do not wholly concur with the position of the Catholic Church; and for that discussion the space of this column is not sufficient. Yet I believe a valid point is being made by the Church when it cautions us against the perils of “consumer culture”. My own perspective on the welcome sexual liberation of the West has been, that while liberation was obtained for the human person from repressive sexual mores, the same person has now been colonised by the culture of consumerism, which sees the human body as just another vessel for consumption and pleasure.

To return to the thrust of the argument though, in this sticky situation, and especially given the larger context of India, it would be wise for the Church to remain within the moral sphere and not dictate the law, or lend their voice to dictation. The sphere of the Church (and religious leaders of other denominations) is ideally the moral sphere. In these days when States are composed of plural societies, we cannot hold on to the proposition that law is the reflection of the morality of society. Or as Cardinal Varkey would like to phrase it, “Criminal laws of a country defend the minimum morals of a society.” Those days, if at all they existed are gone. The notion of law that this proposition suggests was a notion of law suited to societies that were forming themselves into national communities. Nationalism as we know has often had to wipe out entire communities to produce the unity they are so proud of. The law of the State as we would have very often noticed is also unable to deal with the human being owing to the burdens of politics and procedural bureacracy. The moral sphere on the other hand, allows us to place ourselves in the position of Christ when judging the Magdalene. While not necessarily flexible, it is able to stand back from dogmatic positions to recognise the vulnerability of the human condition. It is only in the moral, that the Christian position of Caritas, can truly be realised, not through the violence that is inherent in processes of Statist Law.

(Published in the Gomantak Times 8 July 2009)

Subsequent to publication of this essay, as a blog post, a few of my friends suggested that I ought to have discussed also the Islamic position. Space being a challenge in a newspaper column, please follow the links to queer-friendly religious positions, and one short essay on the possibilities of a gay-friendly Islam.

Notes from after the Rally

The response at the rally held at the Azad Maidan last week, to protest the communal violence toward Christian minorities, was overwhelming. Yet, one can’t help feeling (to use a phrase from chemistry) that the equation was somewhat unbalanced. The incompleteness of that demonstrative moment we could attribute to matters both said and unsaid.

Of what was said at the rally, perhaps the most disturbing was the statement that we are members of the nation first and then members of our religious communities. Fact is, it is this insistence on the primacy of the nation is exactly the reason why we are in the mess we are contemplating today. The Indian nation was constructed on a curious mix of the Anglicized culture of the upper castes of India and technology. For those who had the necessary social capital, namely possession of the English language (and the associated culture), an upper caste history or identity, and an ability to engage in the technological ministrations of the nation-state, this national identity worked very well indeed. For those who did not posses these markers, and whose social capital rested either on a lower caste identity, or a religious or other identity, or indeed participation in a different economic and technological world, the nation-state’s primacy meant only slow and certain death. The rise of lower caste groups and religious communities protesting this upper caste control of the state was a natural outcome of this insistence on the nation-state before other identities. The demand of these groups was simple, do not ask us to be something that we are not. Accept us the way we are and let us be. The response of the nation-state in its turn was the saffron terror that is increasingly being unleashed to retain the hold of those upper castes in control of the state.

The argument being forwarded here is not to insist that we should necessarily place our religious identities prior to the State. On the contrary, the question being asked is; what happens to those people for whom this national culture – itself cast in the cultural language of certain (predominantly Hindu upper caste) groups – does not make sense at all? Thus as a Muslim, or indeed as a Goan who prefers my Konkani in the Roman script and the lilting phrases of Sashti Konkani, this primacy of a nation, that does not recognize my needs or mocks my existence does not make sense at all. Clearly the way out of the conundrum we are in lies in getting out of the nationalist rhetoric, and recognizing that we are individuals and communities that have a right to continuing our way of life, without having the nation-state or its extra-legal demon armies breathing down our backs.

Moving on, they say that you can always fight a known enemy. It is when the enemy is unknown that you have no clue as to what strategy to employ. And indeed, it was the issues left unsaid at the rally, that are the most troubling and disturbing. The rally was called by Catholics, to protest violence against Christians in various parts of the country and spoke of the need to end the madness. Through this framing of the issue, the Catholics came out looking like lambs bathed in wool, perpetual victims at the altar of communal frenzy. This may be the partial truth in other parts of the country, but it definitely does not hold good for Goa. In Goa, it is the Catholic who is part perpetrator and part silent accomplice to the systematic campaign of hatred against the Muslim. It is because of the knowledge of large-scale Catholic participation in this Muslim persecution, that it was possible for that Saffron activist to make a public call to Catholics and Hindus to unite and send them packing out of Goa. The laudable ethical position to take at the rally- one drawing from the laudable Christian tradition of confession - would have been to openly speak about this persecution that the Goan Catholic is actively engaged in. Unfortunately, no one spoke about the real issue, preferring to bury these real issues, under the outdated, sickly sweet talk of Indian secularism, where are all bhai-bhai. In the end problems are resolved only by speaking about them, not by ignoring their existence.

In this sense the rally was a total failure, because we failed to make use of a literally God-given opportunity to preach to the flock who had gathered entirely unconscious of their own bloody hand in the carnage that goes on around us.

The large presence of Catholics at the meeting however, was problematic at another level.

The manner in which we use our religious identity can be distinguished between two forms; religion as ideology, and religion as faith. In the first a religious identity is mobilized to create a universal identity that is primarily political in nature. This process erases internal differences to create an artificial and monolithic community. Like in an army, one responds to the call of the bugle, and does not, or cannot question why one is being summoned, or the cause one is being asked to lend one’s support for. On the other hand, one has religion as faith, where one contributes to a cause prompted by one’s belief in the ethics preached by religion. On what basis did the many participants attend the rally at Azad Maidan? Did they attend as members of a political identity responding to a call, or as members of a faith community protesting the perpetration of violence? To mobilize Christians primarily on the basis of ideology would leave us open to perpetuating the very violence we seek to protest. It is precisely religion as ideology that is relied on by both Islamic fundamentalists and the Hindu right wing to draw members to its causes. As Christians in India are drawn into this fire-storm, it would be useful to keep in mind, that there is a way out of the trap. This way (for the Indian and Goan Christian) would draw from Christian ethics, and protest violence regardless of the identity of the oppressed. When necessary it would be fully conscious and cognizant of our own contributions to persecution and violence. To be fair to the Catholic Church in Goa, it has since the time Archbishop Rev Filipe Neri Ferrao has taken over, initiated a variety of steps to bridge the gap between the Catholic and those of other faiths, including the Muslims. It is unfortunate though, that these necessary overtures by the Archbishop have not been welcomed by some within the body of the Church.

Despite this raising of the dilemmas arising from the rally held on the 16^th of this month, the fact that the rally was held was in itself useful. It should be seen as a necessary first step towards combating the rightist take over of the Indian state. What we should keep in mind however is that the solution is not going to come through heightened nationalism, but heightened respect for the differences of other groups. And secondly that if the Goan Catholic is truly desirous of peace in Goa, it must first make the overture of peace toward the Muslim community it has by and large been sinning against.

(Published in the Gomantak Times 24 September 2008 as "Azad Maidan Rally: Combating the rightist takeover)

[The Council for Social Justice and Peace, a forum of the Archdiocese of Goa, and the Inter-Religious Dialogue for Life, organised together a rally to protest the atrocities against Christian minorities in Orissa. Subsequent to the announcement to hold the rally, violence against the Christian groups in Mangalore and other parts of Karnataka broke out, allowing the rally to doubly express the concern of concerned groups, not just Christian. Helping out at the rally to collect signatures, I collected a small amount of Muslim signatures as well. The overwhelming presence of people attending was Catholic however. This rally was one of the larger rallies that Goa had seen, with the central square in Panjim literally engulfed by a sea of humanity.]