Why don’t you see Fascism?

The bye-elections to select the representative for the city of Panjim are being seen as critical given that it will determine if the BJP-led coalition will continue to govern Goa, and will also determine the career of the BJP candidate Manohar Parrikar. It is for this reason, therefore, that most people are on edge and apprehensive about the outcome. Some of the tensions involved in this election were made evident in the article written by advocate F. E. Noronha and published in Renovação, the newsletter and magazine of the Archdiocese of Goa. In this article, Noronha all but urged the electorate to reject Parrikar at the polls, arguing that a Nazi-like atmosphere had arisen in Goa.

A newspaper article reported that Vijay Sardesai, leader of the Goa Forward party which is a member of the ruling coalition, dismissed this article as “hyperbole”. Sardesai is reported to have indicated that he thought the argument “a clear cut case of exaggeration. In Goa, where is the fascism? Which community is being discriminated or acted against by the state, through the state machinery?”

This report confirmed my own evaluation of the problems with the Indian polity, and the inability of elected representatives and politicians to either appreciate the nature of what exactly is at stake at this particular moment in Indian politics, or to ignore the implications in their drive to obtain political power.

To begin with is the sheer arrogance with which Sardesai dismisses Noronha’s argument. As a member of a Hindu dominant caste, Sardesai is in no position to idly dismiss others’ concerns.  How would he, who is under no threat - of life, or culture - be able to determine what is hyperbole or not? Rather than dismissing the concerns of a member of a minoritized group, he ought to have said, “yes, I hear you, and I will see what I can do to resolve this matter”. This dismissal is particularly callous given that Sardesai rose to power through the support of the many Catholic groups. 

It appears that Sardesai has either no idea how fascism actually operates, or is being disingenuous given that he has pledged his support to Manohar Parrikar’s election bid from Panjim. In any case, since Sardesai reportedly inquired which community is being discriminated against by the State, let us take him seriously and provide a response. This response will demonstrate the manner in which fascism has been growing, systematically pushing groups out of power and minoritizing them.

It needs to be noted that fascism does not emerge fully-grown, like some Athena from the head of Zeus. On the contrary, fascism grows through small, deliberate steps. One need only look at the discrimination against the Roman script of the Konkani language. Ever since 1981, when the Official Language Act (OLA) was legislated by the Congress party, the Roman script has been the target of hostility by the state-supported Nagri Konkani lobby. Not only have literary works in the Roman script been ignored for awards, these works have not even been admitted to competitions on the grounds that the Roman script is not an officially recognised script. This is the face of creeping fascism where the chief tool through which a social group, viz. that of the Bahujan Catholics, expresses itself is systematically and deliberately side-lined and suffocated. Indeed, given Sardesai’s claims of representing Goemkarponn, or Goanness, one would have expected him to take up the long-standing demand of such groups as the Dalgado Konknni Akademi, and the Romi Lipi Action Front to ensure that the Roman script is officially recognised. But this is not the only example of systematic minoritization and threat. There has been a stream of anti-Catholic abuse by persons not just from outside of Goa, like Sadhvi Saraswati, but persons within Goa such as Subash Velingkar, Uday Bhembre, with people like Naguesh Karmali having actually participated in the destruction of property as in Fontainhas in 2002. In all of these events, state governments of varying parties have literally looked on passively. One should also not forget the effective suffocation of the production of beef in the state a process initiated by the MGP in 1978.

One would have hoped that Sardesai would use his position in the ruling coalition to push forward agendas, like the official recognition of the Roman script, that will halt the systematic minoritization of various groups within Goa. However, Sardesai’s rhetoric demonstrates a troubling similarity with Hindu nationalists. Take, for example, that not only has Sardesai reportedly dismissed Noronha’s argument as hyperbole he has also dismissed “certain sections of Goan people” as being irrational. He suggests that such concerns are the result of “scepticism, pessimism among certain sections of Goan people” rather than rational opinion articulated after careful study and observation. Given that these comments were made in the context of Noronha’s article, one can safely assume that Sardesai means Catholics when he refers to “certain sections of Goan people.”

As should be obvious from the discussion above, fascism in our state is not limited to the actions of the BJP alone. Rather, it has had a long gestation period. Nevertheless, it is also true that the presence of the BJP, especially at the Centre, has allowed for the animosity towards non-Hindu groups to be asserted viciously. In this context we should take into consideration the words of the economist and former finance minister of Greece, Yanis Varoufakis. Speaking in the context of the recently concluded French presidential elections Varoufakis pointed out that it was important to rally around the problematic figure of Emmanuel Macron precisely because it was critical that the racist and right-wing Marie Le Pen be defeated. Speaking to those who did not see a difference between these two problematic figures he pointed out that one needed to be aware of the implications of what happens when a “fascist, racist party” gets its “hands on the levers of the deep state, the levers of the police, and of the army.” This article will appear too late for it to have any impact on the outcome of the election to the Panjim legislatve seat. However, the larger point that needs to be made is to underline how fascism operates, and how it is, in fact, very much a threat in Goa.

(A version of this text was first published in the O Heraldo on 24 Aug 2017)

The Goan language problem and its resolution

There were a wide variety of responses to the State Legislative Assembly’s resolution on the twelfth of this month to grant official language status to Marathi. As can be imagined, in addition to the delight of Marathi language activists, for whom the explicit status of official language for Marathi has been a matter of principle, there were loud cries of dismay and protest from those for whom Konkani is the only vernacular tongue they consider their own.

In their anger these self-confessed Konkani lovers rejected the idea that Marathi has any Goan history while claiming that Konkani alone is the language of Goa, and that Marathi has ample opportunity to be patronized in Maharashtra.

I believe that this position is a grievous mistake. The fact is that Marathi has a long and legitimate Goan history.  Marathi was an official language when the Portuguese were around. In his book Goan Society in Transition (1975) Bento Graciano D’Souza haw drawn attention to the fact that the Boletim do Governo do Estado da India, i.e. the Gazette of the Portuguese State, used Marathi to communicate with its citizens since the late 1800s. It is also a fact that Marathi was used by the Adil Shahi sultanate, whose territories eventually came to comprise parts of the New Conquests. In Primary Education in Portuguese Goa (2013), Ricardo Cabral highlights that the Portuguese State also backed Marathi-medium government schools in Goa. Scope for the first Marathi Primary school in Panjim was established through a Portaria dated 8 Aug 1843, and by 1847-48 there were five schools in the Marathi language.

Marathi, therefore, does have a historic presence in Goa, and it would be silly to discount patent historical facts. If these Marathi language schools were able to ensure the education of the dominant castes in the New Conquests, it also ensured the education of the upper ranks of the bahujan groups. These bahujan groups deepened their emotional bond with Marathi when they used this language to counter the hegemony that the Saraswat Brahmins attempted to assert, in both late colonial and especially post-colonial Goa, through Nagari Konkani. It is in part this more recent history that has resulted in the insistence that Marathi be officially recognized as an official language, despite the fact that it has effectively been an official language since the enforcement of the Official Language Act, 1987.

However, it should be stressed that these angry responses are not without reason. No matter the history, the recognition of Marathi as an official language will not be without consequence. In the course of my doctoral research a couple of Romi Konkani activists explained to me that the recognition of Marathi as official language would impact on government recruitment. While knowledge of Konkani is today essential for recruitment to a Government post, they explained, Marathi is optional. A recognition of Marathi as an official language would require the knowledge of both Marathi and Konkani, or ensure that those with knowledge of both languages would be preferred for governmental positions. What this means is that Catholic aspirants will essentially lose out in the recruitment process, further marginalizing Catholic groups, and especially the bahujans among these groups.

Seen in this light, the opposition to Marathi is not necessarily a blind opposition but largely the response from marginalized groups fearful for their continued existence. One way to redress this fear would have been along the lines articulated by Dale Luis Menezes in a recent post on social media. As he said, “if justice has to be done, it is not by recognizing Marathi as official but Romi as official first. This is not to say that Marathi shouldn't be recognized, but first it has to be Romi Konkani. Otherwise the Marathi movement, which had anti-caste [and] pro-Bahujan leanings at its start [but] has since now been increasingly reproducing Hindu majoritarian politics, through Marathi mobilization will only lead to more Hindutva.” In formulating the argument in this manner, Menezes hits the nail on the head. As much as Marathi has been associated with bahujan politics, it has, and is, also associated with Hindutva politics. What should also be noted is that with the full recognition of Marathi, we would have a situation where the high (Marathi) and low (Konkani) languages of Hindus in the state are recognized, but those of Catholics and other groups are not. As such, only a simultaneous recognition of Romi Konkani along with Marathi would ensure a state in which justice is meted out to the various groups that call the territory its home.

However, there is also a need to point out the ridiculousness of the propositions that are determining this entire politics. No territory is the home to just one language. Such formulations emerged from antiquated ideas of the Romantic movement and have led to way too many wars and conflicts to be the basis for serious state building. The linguistic reorganization of states of the young state of India in 1956 drew from these problematic and racist politics. What we need is a politics that moves outside of the faulty frame of linguistic homelands and recognizes that the duty of the state is to speak to all of its citizens, in the languages they understand. After all, if the much criticized, if unfairly so, Portuguese state way back in the XIX century could speak to its citizens in languages other than Portuguese, what prevents the Indian state in Goa from doing so in the XXI century with all the technological capacities at its disposal?

Speaking of Portuguese, Pratapsingh Rane, the elder statesperson of the territory, made an interesting intervention in the ongoing debate on languages in our territory.  He is reported to have stated in the assembly that “We should have no problem with any language. I learnt Portuguese because our own documents are in Portuguese,” further adding a critical point that I too made some years ago, “If you want to know the history of what happened in past, you should know this language also.” Indeed, in the coming years the failure to inculcate a knowledge of the Portuguese language in a broader segment of the Goan population will lead to a crisis in both historiography and legal interpretation.

In the recent past there has been much talk about cross-religious bahujan unity. In the spirit of such unity we should welcome the recognition of Marathi as a language. However, such calls for unity cannot be a one-way street. As such, the failure of pro-Marathi activists to also demand the inclusion of Romi Konkani is rightly seen as pushing a Hindutva agenda. It would be useful if we moved away from these narrow linguistic politics to push for an agenda where the State recognizes as official all of the languages that have had a presence in Goa’s recent history.

(A version of this post was first published in the O Heraldo dated 19 Aug 2016)