Saying Goodbye to the Savant of Our Times

It has been over a month since his funeral, and even longer since his demise from this world, but the heart still feels the void of Pope Benedict XVI's passing.

I did not start out as a fan of Pope Benedict XVI, on the contrary, at his election, influenced by the reportage in the international media, I was aghast that the “Panzer Cardinal” and “God’s Rottweiler” had been elected Pope. Surely this was a disaster I thought to myself.

At some point, however, I chided myself; surely as a scholar I had an obligation to first engage with his written works and then form an opinion about the man? And so began my felicitous encounter with his opus. I read one, and then another, and then many more of his works (I am still far from reading all his works) and was smitten.

There were several reasons for my conversion, and I will commence with the secular reason, for this was how I first approached him. My intellectual formation, since my time in the National Law School of India (between 1995 and 2000) was in what could be called the critique of modernity. Remember that this was the time when India had what I called its “Woodstock moment”. Many young people from the middle-class were in support of the Narmada Bachao Andolan, critiquing the mega developmental projects which were displacing communities and bringing impoverishment to them. I did not travel to the Narmada Valley like so many of my peers but restricted my support and engagement with the issue through scholarly engagement: reading, writing papers, and trying to understand the issue from a philosophical perspective. Modernity, I was convinced, as I still am, was a poisoned apple.

The result of this conviction, both personally and among my peers, was an embrace of the non-western (since the West was identified with modernity). As my scholarly career developed, I encountered Latin American and Southern European scholars who were also opposed to western modernity and proposed alternate models for our world. They offer concepts like ubuntu, and the Andean Pachamama in contrast to the certainties of the Western model. I soon realised, however, that these alternative models could not afford us a new way forward.

The critique of modernity often naively suggests that the non-western models displaced by western modernity are capable of offering peace to a divided world. However, there is much in these models which is offensive to the liberal values that we hold on to, even as we critique western modernity.

For example, these models are rooted in violence. How could I forget that the pre-Columbian Andean cultures routinely offered human sacrifice? Sacrifices prohibited after the coming of the Spaniards and the Portuguese to that continent? Just as they prohibited the burning of widows, and the killing of lower-caste slaves for occult reasons, in this subcontinent? The apparently pacific contemporary cult of Pachamama, and other such cults, therefore, owes more to the Catholic Iberians than its proponents would like to admit. The critique of modernity, therefore, was not providing any solution to the civilisational crisis that we were in.

It was at this point that I began reading the works of Pope Benedict XVI. In particular his encyclicals, Deus Caritas Est, Spe Salvi and Caritas In Veritate, which I now recommend to all – not just Catholic – discerning readers, and especially to you, dear reader. Reading these texts, I realised that I was in the presence of the savant of our times. Someone who had something to offer our world which seems to be increasingly spinning out of control. Benedict XVI was also critiquing modernity, he was, however, doing it from the location of Christianity, and suggesting – a suggestion I now wholly endorse – that Christianity can offer not just a critique of modernity, but a path out of the problems it has caused.

More interestingly, Benedict XVI was not simply proposing membership in the Catholic Church, or certain non-negotiable rules. Rather, I realised as I read the first volume of his biography of Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, he was offering a personal encounter with Jesus Christ. It is this encounter and engagement with Christ, he suggests, which is capable of, to borrow a Christian metaphor, turning our water into wine.

What perhaps convinced me instinctually then, which I am now able to reason out, is that the Christian faith, through the imitation of Christ whom the adherent knows personally, is able to deal with the question of violence. Violence is the central issue that plagues every civilisational model. Christ’s response to violence, was – through his death on the cross – to embrace it, an option adopted by Christians through the centuries. Where they have done so, their action has been exemplary.

And so, it turned out that my engagement with Benedict XVI's secular arguments led to a profound spiritual conversion. This was, I believe, because he managed the delicate balance between rigorous scholarship and affective tenderness, the latter born from his own love of a Christ who was personally known and experienced.

Benedict XVI was also able to critically intervene in another intellectual question that I had been wrestling with. He has drawn much flack for the role Europe plays within his philosophy, accused of being Euro-centric. But rooted in his appreciation of Catholicism, Benedict saw Europe as not simply existing eternally, but rather born from Christianity, or rather, a contemplation of Christ. Thus, when he engaged with Europe, or proposed Europe as a model, he was offering the Europe born from Christianity, not the Enlightenment project of bourgeois Europe that is itself in such a mess these days.

Through this nuance that Benedict brings, I was able to graduate my own critique of modernity. The position was no longer simply anti-west, rather it was critical of the bourgeois Europe that was divorced from Christ. For westernised Christians like myself, this nuance is useful in intra-Catholic debates, especially those among Catholics in India. Too many Catholics effectively wind-up embracing nationalism as their religion, when they de-westernise their faith practices. What we need to do instead, is to disengage from the modernity that has insinuated itself into Christianity and Catholicism. This is a delicate, intellectually demanding project, and we could have well done with Benedict XVI’s continued guidance through such a project.

However, perhaps Benedict XVI has done enough. He has left us a wealth of reflections, and more importantly an affective path through which to deal with this project. To once again paraphrase scripture, he has finished the race, he kept the faith. Now there is in store for him the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award him.

Adeus Papa Bento, rogai por nós. 

(A version of this post was first published in the O Heraldo dated 8 Feb 2023)

Mistakes Catholics in India Make

Reading through the cover feature by Anthony Dias, SJ, and the appendix by Joseph M. Dias, SJ, in the July edition of Jivan, I was both amused and irked. Amused because both authors predictably chose to remain safely within the realms of the secular when formulating their propositions for the theme “Jesuit responses to a stunning verdict”; irked because despite the fact that both men are priests, there was no reference to Jesus, the one man who has an answer for every challenge we will ever face. These responses were not peculiarly Jesuit, however, nor were they necessarily unusual, but are, in fact, representative of a wider problem many Catholics in India seem to have in responding to the crisis that is staring us in the face.

This paralysis results partly from our uncritical acceptance of the rhetoric of modernism, especially that of liberal secularism. Recognizing the violence inherent to liberal secularism we will realize that the violence of Hindu nationalism was already coded into Indian nationalism. There is need for Catholics to rethink their relationship with modern nationalism, and the cult of the nation state. These go against the universal spirit of Catholicism.

A good place to begin articulating a Catholic response to this crisis would be to upturn modernist and liberal assumptions about politics and open up the field of the political from the immanent to include the transcendental. We need to particularly assert the possibility, and indeed the need for the sacred to embrace the profane and sacralise it. Simultaneously there is need to talk about the values peculiar to distinct sacred orders. Not all sacred orders cherish the dignity of the individual.

A response to Election 2019 must rely on a rejection of modernism and an insistence on the universalism preached by Christ and His Church.

(A version of this text was first published as a Letter to the Editor of Jivan, magazine of the Jesuits in India.)

How the Archbishop should have turned the other cheek

Not too long ago, the décor of a recently-opened pub caused a ruckus in the city of Bombay. Styled “Goregaon Social”, the interiors of the pub made plentiful references to the Gothic aesthetic that marked a significant phase of Western European Christianity, and the neo-Gothic which has an intimate history with the city of Bombay. They included stained glass panels with the figures of Catholic saints, Gothic-styled pews for clients to sit on, and a variety of other paraphernalia that clearly references Catholic worship.

Arguing that the establishment’s decor was blasphemous, a group of Catholics, calling themselves The Watchdog Foundation, filed a police complaint against the owner of the pub. Simultaneously, the Archdiocese of Bombay released a statement charging that the décor of the pub was blasphemous and a deliberate attempt to insult Christians. Therefore, they demanded the closure of the pub with immediate effect, and a cancellation of various permits and licenses until the décor was changed.

While the responses of both the lay Christians and the clerical hierarchy are problematic, I would like to focus on the response of the hierarchy because as leaders of the Catholic community they seem to have not only made a grievous error, but also lost a significant teaching moment.

At the very outset it needs to be stated that one can understand the reasons for the response. Along with other minoritised groups in the country, Christians too have increasingly experienced a shrinking of socio-political space along with simultaneous attacks on their places of worship and property. These attacks have particularly perplexed some Christians in India who play along with the whole rhetoric of Indian nationalism and cherish a deep-seated idea that they are an ideal minority.

On the other hand there has also been a parallel move to appropriate Christian lifestyles for the purposes of entertainment. The case of the interiors of Goregaon Social are but one example of a trend that is also evident in the way in which the settlements of Catholics, whether that of Bandra in Bombay, or villages in Goa, are being occupied while the residents who created these settlements and ensured its character are pushed out. Added to this is the simultaneous disparaging of these populations visible in the way Hindi films represent the Catholics of the west coast as a sexually promiscuous, alcohol-imbibing community given to song and dance.

In such a context of appropriation and attack, it is not surprising that Catholics should try to respond by asserting ownership over markers of a community lifestyle, nor that they should petition the state to redress their hurt religious sentiments. Unfortunately, rather than innovatively engage with Catholic tradition, these responses have played directly into the hands of the Hindu nationalists, as well as strengthened the growing tendencies towards authoritarianism.

The Archbishop’s argument of hurt religious sentiments merely follows political trends that have been crafted to favour the establishment of a Hindu rashtra. While it is true that the cries for the redress of hurt religious sentiments come not only from Hindu nationalist groups, but other minoritized groups as well, the fact is that the complaints of these groups are usually heeded only when they formulate their complaints along theocratic lines, not otherwise. But if one can ban images in a pub, or a film because it is blasphemous and offends Catholic sensibilities, it follows that one must also ban the slaughter of cattle because it offends brahmanical sensibilities. In other words, it is the upper caste Hindu nationalist groups that benefit once hurt religious sentiments are recognized as a legitimate basis to quash actions.

Phrasing appeals for state attention on the basis of religious sentiments also occludes the real issues at stake, the systemic inequality of power between the groups that comprise the country. To put it in the still relevant words of Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, “The Indian Christians need two things. The first thing they want is the safeguarding of their civil liberties. The second thing they want is ways and means for their economic uplift.” This agenda is more crucial than the mistaken imitation of identitarian politics that the Archbishop seems to have lent support to.

The Archbishop’s statement opens up dangers beyond the possibly identitarian problem of living in a Hindu state; that of authoritarianism and populism. What is evident in the statement is that there is an appeal to a state that does not follow the due process of law. In the Goregaon Social case one has a situation where a group of citizens that claims to speak for all Catholics have determined that they are upset by an activity and demand summary redress by the state in the form of a ban. The group demanding the ban does not want the complaint to be evaluated by a dispassionate judicial system and the issue treated through appropriate channels. What we witness in this case is a complete violation of the very due process that ensures the equanimity of the law. One wonders if the church hierarchy contemplated that, given the balance of power in the country, this same strategy of demanding immediate action and dispensing with the due process of law could easily be used against Christians in India?

This situation reveals the manner in which Hindu nationalist authoritarianism does not spring merely from the actions of upper-caste Hindu nationalists. Rather, it is sustained through the authoritarian tendencies that lie within minoritized groups in India, and especially in fonts of authority in these groups. In this context the Catholic Church has much introspection to do. Despite the winds of change in terms of leadership style that Pope Francis has brought to the church, the Church has had a long history of clericalism and authoritarian leadership that is often confused with respect for a healthy system of hierarchy.

Considering the delicate nature of politics in India, and the bitter reality that one cannot rely on the neutrality of the state, the Archdiocese of Bombay ought to have considered a more nuanced response to the provocation that the décor of Goregaon Social allegedly represented. At a time when the law has been reduced to cynical interpretations of codes to secure the interests of the hegemonic, the Archbishop could have used this opportunity to deepen our ethical appreciation of the problem that the décor of Goregaon Social represented. In this way he would have also fulfilled the prophetic role that is the true calling of the Church.

Rather than insist on a parochial assertion of ownership, and a consequent banning of the imagery, a deeper exploration of the use of the symbols in Goregaon Social would have demonstrated a surprising possibility. In statements published on social media, the management of the pub indicated that they saw the space as “the church of anti-consumerism” or the “Cathedral of anti-consumerism”.  In other words, the owners of the pub were attempting to set up an alternative to consumerism and recognising that this alternative might be present in a Christian, if not Christianized, lifestyle. In many ways Christianity is fundamental to modernity not in an abstract and discursive way alone, but very materially; with a liberative lifestyle associated with Christians. Christians, and especially those one finds in Portuguese-influenced areas like Bombay, enjoy a lifestyle that is largely unmarked by brahmanical taboos. Catholics enjoy a material lifestyle that does not place taboos on the consumption of meat, approves of social drinking, and allows for a respectful approximation of the sexes; social features largely absent in brahmanical cultures of dominant castes but crucial for claiming modernity. Indeed, one could inquire if the name of this pub does not take inspiration from the ‘socials’ that are a feature of the convent schools. In these socials, in the presence of chaperones and other adults, youngsters could learn the skills of not only drinking in moderation, but also to woo members of the opposite sex, dance with them, developing in this process skills of respectful sociality.

In this context the Archbishop could pointed out to a basic fact that many in India do not seem to have sufficiently appreciated, that however attractive it may appear, the Christian lifestyle is empty without a real encounter with Christ and Christian values. The Archbishop could have pointed out that a substantial alternative to consumerism was available through deepening the encounter with the person of Christ mediated through the Catholic Church. Such a response would not only have countered the appropriation that the décor of the pub represented, but also the empty promises of the prophets of consumerism, not to mention the anti-Christian rhetoric of the Hindu nationalistic forces, especially the voices in favour of the forced conversions of gharwapasi.

In sum, by following the dominant logics of Indian politics rather than cleaving to its prophetic tradition, the Catholic hierarchy has done more damage than it can imagine, not only to the community it leads, but other minoritized groups as well.

(A version of this text was first published in The Wire on 18 Nov 2016)

Letters from Portugal: The Modernity Deficit Complex

The Portuguese suffer from what I call the modernity deficit complex. Let me explain this with an illustration. Some weeks ago, a friend of mine placed the link to a video on her Facebook wall. The message that accompanied the link, a message that received a fair number of “Likes”, suggested that one could “safely substitute the Portuguese flag for the Italian and you get a sense of life in Portugal...” The video itself is hilarious. It consists of a contrast of two kinds of experiences in various episodes in life; from attempting to cross the road at a zebra crossing, to waiting for a bus, attempting to find parking, to political engagement. The first experience is represented by a flag of the European Union, while the second, which demonstrates the difference in Italian experiences from “the rest of Europe” is represented by the Italian flag. The experiences of the EU flag are what we all associate with the European experience, orderly, systematic, the text-book case of what is ideal. The experiences of the Italian flag however are a complete disaster. While in the EU case, one waits for a bus around five minutes and then hops into it, in the Italian case, the bus takes well over an hour to arrive, when it does, it leaves without the waiting individual. When the politicians in the EU illustration systematically take their place in power and leave it once their term is up, the Italian politicians, the video suggests, refuse to let go, and grow tentacles to cling onto State power. The suggestion of the video then, as well as its adoption by my Portuguese friend, suggested that Italy and Portugal, were not really European, they were simply members of the European Union, and failed to act genuinely European.

What was amusing about the video however, was that one could have easily substituted the EU flag for a label which said “modern” or “civilized”, and replaced the Italian flag for the Indian to get a “a sense of life” in India according to a good number of India critics. When we do this then, we get a sense of how the EU, both in its self-representation and in its estimation by others, represents the civilized norm. Clearly however, this norm, that is perceived as European, is not uniformly experience by all Europeans equally. There are some Europeans, who feel that they are not really European, but are only European in name. The question that emerges then is, where exactly is this ideal Europe located? Which are the countries that represent, not just for those outside of Europe, but those within the EU as well, the European ideal, and in this process, ideal modernity? Who are these ‘real moderns’?

One does not have to live very long in Portugal to realize that these moderns are vaguely identified as ‘the countries of the North’. Press further however, and this vague idea begins to disintegrate, and one realizes that it isn’t even most of Northern Europe that these impressions of modernity belong to, but more specifically countries like Belgium, Holland, Germany, the Scandinavians. The scope of modernity therefore is rather limited to a small set of Northern European democracies, democracies that are marked by societies that are perceived to be rather well-ordered and disciplined.

To return to the Portuguese however, their self-flagellation about not being modern, continues in other forms. Thus for example, the suggestion received on numerous occasions, whether it be intimate conversations, or animated dinner discussions, that the Portuguese do not have an educated elite. The grumble is that, unlike other places, the Portuguese social elites, are not particularly educated, nor cultured. One of the ideas that circulates for example, is that these elites in a rather hierarchized society, are quite comfortable with not having to obtain higher education, or read outside of the prescribed course work when they do take up professional courses. The fact that they are well-born, and they are in possession of plenty of money, is quite sufficient. One will recognize in this description of the Portuguese, a possible description of Indian elites as well, but let us leave this discussion for another moment and focus on the fact that once more, the Portuguese imagine ideal norms of civilized, and hence modern, society being located elsewhere, and not in their own country.

This idea of not being modern enough however, can work both ways, both as self-criticism, and often strangely enough, as a suggestion that we should be grateful for not being so messed up like those societies that have achieved modernity. Take for example the rather astute observation by another Portuguese friend. This friend pointed out that the Portuguese translation of the popular American television comedy series, Modern Family, is not a literal translation. On the contrary, the Portuguese translation, which is Uma Familia Muito Moderna (A VERY Modern Family) has an interesting twist, given that it suggests, that it is not merely a modern family we are talking about, but a VERY modern family. It has to be stressed here, that this translation is peculiar not to the Portuguese language, but only to Portugal, since the Brazilian translation is simply Familia Moderna (Modern Family). The family we are speaking about then, is deemed in the Portuguese case, to be an example of an excess of modernity. The implicit suggestion then, is that too much of modernity can be bad for you.

A glance at the storyline of Modern Family may possibly help us identify what is this modernity that is deemed as too much. The drama revolves around three families, related to each other through Jay Pritchett, the patriarch of this family, and his children, Claire Dunphy and Mitchell Pritchett. Jay Pritchett commences this excess of modernity, not merely by being divorced, but being married, as a white older man to a much younger Colombian (hence coloured) woman Gloria. Together with Gloria, Jay raises her son Manuel (or Manny), who is a somewhat odd boy, eminently cultured, way too old for his years, and whose character partakes of an unsure sexuality. Will the boy grow up to be gay, we are forced to wonder, or is he just extremely cultured? Claire, Jay’s daughter, is a fulltime mother of three children and married to Phil Dunphy, a real estate agent and man who just tries too hard to be a ‘cool’ father. Being the only other heterosexual adult male in the drama, his character struggles with some kind of desire for his step-mother-in-law. The Dunphys have three children: Haley, the stereotypical teenager, Alex, the smart middle child^, and Luke, the offbeat only son. Jay’s son Mitchell, who is a lawyer, and gay, brings to this ‘modern family’ his (male) partner Cameron, who while having grown up on a farm, and possessing various skills that we identify as hyper-masculine, is best described as a flaming queen. Together, they have adopted a Vietnamese baby, Lily, and together strive to be good parents.

One will admit to some amount of ambiguity to the name of the series in the US as well, but given that the ambiguity already exists in ‘Modern Family’, one could also suggestion that highlighting this ambiguity with ‘Very’ is a reference to the deep discomfort that Portuguese society is expected to experience with regard to this otherwise normal modernity.  The suggestion then, is that, this modernity is not us. We Portuguese, are not like this. We prefer to be not quite so modern. 

In light of all of this, surely then, the Portuguese can be said to experience a curious relationship with modernity, if not an outright Modernity deficiency complex?

(A version of this post was first published in the O Heraldo dtd. 21 May 2012)

In light of all of this, surely then, the Portuguese can be said to experience a curious relationship with modernity, if not an outright Modernity deficiency complex?

http://www.epaperoheraldo.in/Details.aspx?id=5211&boxid=23134328&uid=&dat=5/21/2012

Home cooked food!: The mantra, yantra, tantra of hygienic and clean food

A couple of days ago, a friend of mine, recently returned from the United States, complained about the stomach condition he had developed. What galled him most was that his illness had been caused via spoiled food served at a 5 star hotel. He had been warned, a dozen times over, that while road-side stalls were unsafe and unhealthy, the food served in the 5 star hotels in India was safe. And yet, this was not the first time 5 star food had him shuttling to and from the toilet. When I heard his story, I sat back and smiled. There was ofcourse, an explanation for why exactly his logic was not computing.

To get a grip on this logic however, we would have to go back in time, a couple of years when I was sharing a conversation with a friend. Speaking about the dabbawallas of Bombay, this friend remarked that this unique institution probably had something to do with the unique eating and dining habits of the South Asian. Caste rules as regards dining in older times restricted who we ate with, what we ate from whom, and where we ate as well, not to mention the times at which we ate. Thus, it was possible for a ‘lower’ caste person to offer food to a ‘higher’ caste person as long as it was uncooked. Where the degrees of separation between castes were lesser, then the possible pollution could beundone by sprinkling the cooked food ritually with ghee. The best route however, was to make sure that the food was cooked by some one reliable, someone who was ritually pure, and would thus provide ritually pure food. Someone from your home. It was partly for these reasons, this friend reasoned, that the dabbawallah was such a success in Bombay. It ensured a perfect system where ritually and socially privileged ‘home-cooked food’ could be delivered to you.

These ritual obsessions with purity, could explain the mania that the Indian displays for ‘home cooked food’; the home being a symbol for the pure. It is the absence of such preoccupations in other parts of the world, that allows places as wide-ranging as South-East Asia, Europe, the Americas and not least of all, the Islamicate urban centers of the South Asian subcontinent, to have such rich street-food cultures. The elusive hygiene of the street-side food-stall in India then, is less about hygiene and more about (often time unconscious) concerns for ritual purity. When we are not so sure about the social location of the cook, it is better to err on the side of caution.

Similarly, certain ritual systems of the subcontinent consider the consumption of food is an activity that makes one vulnerable. Thus the space in which one eats is something that one ought to give attention to. For the ritually conscious then, the liminal space of the street, that is open to polluting influences of all sorts, is best avoided as a place to eat. The ideal space to eat is the space in which one is secluded, in an environment where one is safe from intrusion of the polluted and dirty outside. Once more, scientific hygiene has nothing to do with the safety of the food.

But this is not to say that scientific hygiene has absolutely no role to play in any of these choices. On the contrary, it does and in a very interesting manner. Scientific hygiene was a colonial introduction into the subcontinent, and marked heavily by racism. The brown (or black) body was seen as the repository of filth and dirt. The tropical home of these coloured bodies was similarly loaded with pestilence and illness. Colonialism, through its mechanism of the ‘white man’s burden’ offered a way out of this mess to the coloured person, through the doctrines of scientific hygiene, urban planning and education. The elite of the subcontinent grabbed these ideas of hygiene with as much aplomb as they grabbed at the political institutions and ideas of the white man. As an illustrative case, take Gandhi’s agenda was tied as much with hygiene as it was with the setting up of the Indian nation-state. The political language of equality that Indian nationalism utilized did not however, necessarily transcend caste boundaries. In a clever move, while the dominant castes invested themselves with Western attributes, the attributes that were credited to the coloured person, were passed on to the ‘lower’ castes of the subcontinent. Thus their bodies and lifestyles, already deemed ritually unclean, were now also see as unhygienic. Just as the coloured person was seen as lacking in education, the Westernised coloured person, now projected this need for education and upliftment onto these ‘dumb’ castes.

It is no revelation that to most people in the third world, the 5 star hotel represents the developed West. It is a space where we can produce, and reproduce, ourselves as sophisticated, westernized and upper class. But as should be obvious, this westernization, and upper classness, also has casteist elements to it. Thus it is also an exclusive space, where we reject those who are not ‘people like us’. While there is no denying that a greater amount of care is possibly taken in the kitchens of these hotels, the fact is that these places are deemed cleaner, not only because they are more hygienic. They are deemed cleaner, because they are places where ‘people like us’ go, and where food is cooked ‘for people like us’. This is the safe space where the unknown and unclean cannot intrude, and this, perhaps above all, produces its ‘cleanliness’. In the past we had filthy cooks prepare food that was deemed ritually clean, because the cook was Brahmin (or of comparable caste groups). Or ritually suspect food could be eaten, because it was ritually purified by water or ghee. Similarly today, hotel food is produced as hygienic by the ritual mantra, yantra and tantra of shiny modern kitchens, presumed conformance to hygienic standards, and the modernity and exclusivity of their location.

Consequently then, we can make sense of the Facebook status message that started this whole conversation…

“Myth: Eating @ 5 Star hotels in India is safe. Just had my 2nd ever experience of illness due to spoiled food served. Consequently I have warned against "road side chai" and have had it over 2 dozen times. Number of illness bouts from chai? = 0”

(A version of this essay was first published in the Gomantak Times Sept 8 2010)

Mantra, yantra, tantra: refer to the three necessary components of magic formula, machine or implement, and the procedure through which 'Hindu' ritual can be successfully completed.

Thinking About Babush – III: Moving the ‘Devil’ from out of the shadows, into the Light of the Faith

The express intention of the Thinking About Babush series was to move away from the position that demonizes Babush Monserrate. The intention was not to essay an uncritical celebration of the legislator from Taleigão, but to present a hypothesis that would allow us to better understand the dynamics at work in the constituency. To demonize Mr. Monserrate goes beyond doing him a disservice; it prevents us from recognizing the socio-economic and political conditions and constituencies that he manages to represent.

In the first part of the series I suggested that the eyes that demonize Monserrate were in part, also eyes of the elite that refused to see the political motivations of those they alleged were either bribed, or were blindly voting for him. The second essay suggested that in addition to lavish gifts to his constituents, Monserrate also presented them with a vision. This vision was one of the City where the hierarchies of the village would be dissolved, and all would be able to participate in a genuinely modern existence. In this column, I would like to suggest that in many ways Monserrate is trapped within his modus operandi, both for reasons of his own personal location in society, as well as the kind of society he lives in. However, I would suggest that for these reasons, he is also a possible repository of hope for the future.

As I suggested in the first part of this series, Goan society can be very punishing, if you don’t fit the rules it lays down. Despite his nominal position among the landlords of Taleigão, the vicious whispered rumours about his ancestry give Monserrate a just and understandable reason to want to destroy the social hierarchies of the village. As discussed in the last column, one way to destroy these hierarchies is through the fashioning of the village into the city. What I am suggesting therefore, is that the dream that Monserrate peddles could be more than an evil plan he has for lining his nest at the expense of the people of Taleigão. He could actually be emotionally invested in it, believing that it would provide deliverance as much as the others who believe in this dream.

India’s encounter with modernity is peculiar. Rather than being understood to be the values of equality and respect, reasoned acceptance as opposed to acceptance by diktat, modernity has been understood primarily as the acquisition of technology, the material benefits that come with it, and the associated aesthetic styles. The intellectual foundations of modernity have been rejected in favour of the purely material. In focusing primarily on the material, it is possible to spin the web of meritocracy and argue that if one does not gain the material benefits of modernity, it is because one has not worked hard enough for it. Thus only the upper-castes and classes benefit from modernity, while the rest slave under it. Even worse, the myth of meritocracy, destroys tendencies toward solidarity and allows the creation of a (slum)dog eat dog world, where it is each one for oneself. To gain respect in this faux modern world, one has to garner as much wealth as one possibly can. In the process, one must necessarily cut personal ties to climb the ladder of achievement. Solidarity must now lie with those who are already in the big game, not with those one is leaving behind. In India, this automatically has caste implications. The caste implications are at their most stark when we expect Dalit leaders (e.g. the vicious criticism against Mayawati) to somehow be Colossi of morality, while other leaders who feather their nests are somehow exempt from this harsh social judgment.

It is in this context that I would like to see Monserrate. In addition to the social agenda he may have, he is also as hostage to the skewed understanding of modernity as the rest of us. Thus in his race for respect, feathering his own nest is but a natural outcome. While this is under no circumstances excusable, the question we should ask is why we reserve such scorn for the acquisitions of Monserrate (or indeed the similar figure of Churchill Alemão), even as we excuse the sins of others in the political establishment. Why for example are we more accepting of the tactics of the Rane establishment, in particular the father? It has always been rumoured that it was he that initiated the land scams with Mr. Ray when the latter was Chief Town Planner. Is it his ‘noble’ birth and cultivated charm that allows us to look the other way, not investigate these rumours? Perhaps. It is therefore, in the social exclusions and hypocrisy practiced by our society that the only route open to Monserrate is to continue to line his own nest, and open up his own path for a radically different social order.

It is this and other reasons then that are at the basis of our demonizing of Babush Monserrate. We fear the social reality whose coming he represents. We would prefer to keep him and the classes he represents entirely out of our perfumed consciousness.

In addition to this though, there is another, possibly communal angle to the whole game. I don’t believe that it is entirely by accident that Monserrate (like Alemão) is demonized, is Catholic, and effectively occupies the lower-caste position in our society. This has been a pattern of our society, where among the Catholics, only the upper-caste is feted and the rest of them are expected to just follow suit. Thus when J. B Gonsalves had a chance at being Chief Minister, the glitterati on Panjim scoffed, ‘the baker wants to be Chief Minister!’ In recent times the communalization of our society has taken a more serious turn. As unchallenged Rei de Taleigão, the demonization and destruction of this man, theoretically opens up the way for the unchallenged romp of the BJP into the village.

There are therefore multiple reasons for us to suspiciously view the demonization of Babush Monserrate. And yet, none of this should be taken to endorse the manner in which he funds his agenda. In the final sum, his modus operandi is going to give us only skin-deep modernity and a resulting social, political, economic and ecological mess. With so much power in his hands, undoubted access to cultivated minds (as his urban projects show, he definitely has talented architects working with him) Monserrate’s failure to engineer a more egalitarian and sensitive politics cannot be condoned. Our opposition to Monserrate’s modus operandi (real estate funded social change) must therefore continue. It must however, be a principled opposition. Principled opposition is not a notional, do nothing, and think much opposition. Firm and unyielding when no quarter can be given, it is also cognizant of the benefits he may possibly bring. It is necessarily marked by action. In the long run, such an unyielding but principled opposition will force him to necessarily adopt, even if in slow and reluctant measures, a more sustainable route toward the agenda that we support. A neighbour of mine prays for the conversion of Babush just like Sta. Monica did for the conversion of her son, the future Doctor of the Church St. Augustine. In many ways, I join her in her prayers. I do so because I believe that such a conversion is possible; Monserrate does in fact have what it takes to be the Augustine of our age. Until such conversion however, this principled opposition (the physical evidence of our prayers) in favour of the village refounded must continue.

(Published in the Gomantak Times, 3rd April 2009)

(I would like to thank Paulo Varela Gomes, Fernando Dias and Luis Dias for their support in going through the original version of this series and suggesting detailed changes. Also, to Albertina Almeida and Frederick Noronha for their opinion on the positions I take in this series. Last but not least, to Derek Almeida, editor Gomantak Times, for running this series on consecutive days.)