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)
The city-state of Goa was not built only by the
Portuguese, but with continuous Goan support. Albuquerque had made an earlier
attempt in February 1510 but was subsequently expelled from the city by the
forces of Bijapur to whom the city belonged.
On both occasions Albuquerque was supported by local forces, who
continued to support the Portuguese state until sometime before Goa’s
integration into India in 1961. 
