Lux in tenebris: Mathany Saldanha and the projects of his day

The loss of Mathany Saldanha is indeed a great loss for Goan civil society. By all accounts, Goa has lost a principled man of politics, one who rather than acting merely for a private or familial interest, had the larger interests of society at heart. In an age when ideology seems dead, it appears as if the death of Mathany Saldanha has taken away from us almost all hope of an ideologically driven politics. It is thus with heavy heart that we must mourn the death of Mathany Saldanha, who leaves us as it were in tenebris.

The death of this clearly inspirational figure must not however prevent us from asking questions about some of the decisions that he took in his long life as an activist. Two questions stand above all in my mind; the first, when it should be so obvious that ‘Special status’ for Goa is not going to resolve any of Goa’s problems, why did Mathany Saldanha commit so much passion for it? The second question that emerges is, why did Saldanha, rather than remain the principled independent, join forces with the BJP, not once, but twice?

A more cynical response to the second question is the one given when most marginalized figures join dominant power blocs. Starved of executive power for so long, they are willing to make compromise with even the devil to be able to get into power and convert into reality their vision for the space they represent.  When Mathany Saldanha has been lionized by so many as not one to compromise, this answer does not seem to hold much water. Perhaps a look at the life of the man would provide us with other possible answers.

If we look back into the life of Mathany Saldanha, and to the moment when as leader of the ramponcars’ agitation, he appeared on the stage as an activist to reckon with, we see that it was not merely formal equality that he was looking for, but internal equity.  This involvement was subsequently followed by his role in the Konkani language movement in the 1980’s, the Meta-Strips opposition of the 1990’s, and more recently the mass mobilization against the SEZs, one of the many movements that lent palpability to the call to arms to ‘Save Goa’. Finally was his support for the demand for ‘Special Status’, a demand that has gained much strength from the ‘Save Goa’ cry. What becomes obvious when we look at this long string of associations, is that these were not merely isolated events that he associated with, but part of a larger commitment to the issue of citizenship in Goa. This is to say, Mathany Saldanha was involved in a larger project of renegotiating the citizenship pact in Goa, the relationship between the Goan and the State (be it the regional level, or at the national); and the relationship between and among Goans.

Let us leave aside for a moment the fact that what exactly we mean by ‘Special Status’ has not as yet been clearly outlined in any public debate. All we have so far are emotive calls that assure us that things for Goa will be much better, that it will be saved in fact, by the acquisition of Special Status. What we do know however, is that the demand for Special Status is one that cannot simply be wished into existence, it requires an amendment to the Constitution of the country. To be sure,  this is merely an amendment, if the demand for Special Status is on par with the kinds of special status that have been granted to other territories within the country (though ‘ofcourse’ not including Kashmir). However, it should be emphasized that the Constitution is not merely a document containing administrative clauses that can be modified this way and that, depending on the mood of the moment. On the contrary, the Constitution is the singular document that embodies the kind of relationship that we enjoy with the State, and with each other, as individuals, and as communities.

If one keeps this equation in mind, then perhaps Mathany Saldanha’s association with the BJP begins to make sense. Perhaps the single most important project, at least in terms of citizenship, that the BJP was involved with when it was in power in the Centre between 1999 and 2004 was an attempt to renegotiate the State-citizen compact in Indian republic. The Constitution Review Commission, that was set up by the BJP-led NDA government in Feb 2000 was a signal part of this effort. The reason for the Commission was ostensibly ‘examine the experience of the past fifty years to better achieve the ideals enshrined in the Constitution’. The unilateral move by the NDA government raised a hue and cry across the country, not only for the manner in which this process was initiated, but because the government had failed to specify clearly what exactly were the issues that required changes in the Constitution. What was clearly hanging in the background were statements by the BJP’s ideological partners, the RSS and the VHP that have often called for changes in the Constitution to make it more representative of the Indian ethos.

Even though the NDA government assured its critics that it had no intention of tampering with the basic structure of the Constitution, one has to keep in mind, that such issues as secularism, that forms a part of the basic structure of the Constitution, are not terms frozen in stone, but open to interpretation. A good number of scholars of secularism, have pointed out, that the BJP is not against secularism, where the concept separates State from church (or religious bodies). What some segments of this body are opposed to are a secularism that recognizes that different communities are placed differently in society and require differential (while remaining equal) treatment. The term that they gave to this at the time, was ‘pseudo-secularism’. These segments would rather ignore the fact of real differences in society and treat unequal people, equally. Furthermore, what these groups would like to see is the enforcement of the secularist agenda along radically different lines. One, where the secular citizen is understood as the  upper-caste Hindutva subject, and all other 'communal' groups required to conform to such standards as would be comfortable to this upper-caste Hindutva subject. The presence of cultural difference then would not be tolerated, as is currently the case.

A review, or change in the Constitution, and in the citizenship relation of the people of India with each other, and the Indian State, are clearly a larger part of the BJP’s national agenda. Mathany Saldanha’s agenda, even if directed towards different, nore local, intentions, twined with this larger agenda. Indeed, from among the basket of arguments often forwarded when making the claim for 'Special Status', is the argument that Goa had no representation in the Constituent Assembly when the Constitution was being framed.It would have made sense therefore for him to lend his might (and it has to be recognized that it was he that was lending might to the BJP, and not necessarily the other way around) to the BJP. The question that we need to ask however, and one that I regret not being able to ask Mathany Saldanha directly, is;  is it worthwhile taking this risk? The risk is that, for the goal of gaining ‘Special Status’ within the Union, a remedy whose potential benefits have not yet been effectively ascertained, we may be aligning ourselves with a power that will use our power and voices, to effect larger changes. These changes, it must be recognized will not be in the larger interests of the Indian population, and will radically change the nature of the Indian citizenship compact.

Mathany Saldanha began his career with a commitment to internal equity, and it is my belief, that if he were to contemplate deeply the larger impacts of his commitments, whether to the BJP, or the demand for ‘Special Status’, he may have changed his mind. There are times, when our love blinds us. In this case, perhaps it was his love for Goa (and Goans) that blinded this Prince of Patriots to the larger implications of his move. We need not be guided by his possible errors however, but by the larger principles by which he led his life.

Mathany Saldanha, may you rest in peace.

(A version of this post was first published in the Gomantak Times 30 March 2012)

Toothless and blind: Insult, intimation, disrespect and the public space

Time after time, this column returns to the on-going fitna (or upheaval) in Goa’s political life. There have been calls to ‘Save Goa’ and this has now led to some campaigns to prop up ‘clean’ candidates who will clean out the system. There have been attempts in Mapusa, there are some plans for this in Loutolim, and a general hand-wringing and desperate pleas from overseas Goans over the internet.

One does not know whether to read the presence of Dr. Hubert Gomes in Benaulim’s electoral fray as a part of this movement for change. However, given that electoral success may result in the frustration of the establishment of a political dynasty and a familial capture of legislative power, his entry should be welcomed for the challenge it brings.

This challenge however has not gone unobserved. On the contrary, it received a rather nasty retort through an abusive public message signed by a number of Churchill Alemao’s supporters and recently published in the Herald. The notice has been rather mistakenly called defamatory, when really it should be seen as a naked threat of violence. Dr. Gomes’ response sets the tone for what this column would like to focus on, the building of bridges rather than engaging in mutually destructive warring. Dr. Gomes’ response pointed out that he had been advised to file criminal cases against the signatories to the message and trap them in a long drawn legal battle. He resolved the issue by asking himself the question if he should get involved in settling scores and waste his limited resources and get side-tracked from his real mission in politics, or focus on the task at hand? Thankfully for him, he opted to focus on the latter.

If Dr. Gomes’ response was the epitome of how we should build politics in our fragile democracy, then the responses of his well-wishers to the public message tilted to the other extreme. “Chorchill Alemao is a Pig and a big Chor of Goa.” went one message. More than one messages stooped to insult Churchill by calling him uneducated. Another suggested that he was a “Tarvotti cleaning toilets on the Asian cargo ship. He came up in his life by doing smuggling business.”

These responses of support are perhaps as shockingly unacceptable as the initial public message by Alemao’s supporters. What is additionally disturbing however is that they single out hard labour and a lack of education as the reason for Alemao’s alleged sins. Education, we should all know, is no antidote to corruption. Neither is ‘good’ birth. We have extremely ‘well born’ political leaders in Goa who engage in pretty much the same antics as Alemao is accused of. What the responses of support from Dr. Gomes indicate perhaps, is one of the reasons why we have the corruption that we do in Goa. In a society where the hard labour of a sailor, or a sanitary worker, is not respected, but on the contrary spat at, is it any wonder that we spur on a society that is looking to make a quick buck?

Dr. Gomes in his public response to the public message thanked his well-wishers for the various messages of support that apparently poured in subsequent to the message. If Dr. Gomes is serious about his aim of entering into politics in order to help clean up the State’s political stables, then it is incumbent on him, to issue a public statement distancing himself from these remarks. Such a message would indicate the norms that his supporters must necessarily follow in public debate and discourse. Clean politics, we must realize, is not only about what our elected leaders do within and outside the legislative assembly. It is also about the actions of all of us that contribute to creating the larger political environment. For too long, the activists who cry ‘Save Goa’ have been strutting around with a holier-than-thou attitude. They must realize that if their messages are anything to go by, they are as responsible for the internal class war that is tearing Goa apart. They must stop blaming the outsider (variously labeled as the ghanti, bhinta) and introspect as to their own role in the mess we are in.

For his part, Mr. Alemao would do well to distance himself from the public message that threatened Dr. Gomes. Dr. Gomes himself has assumed in his response that the message came directly from the hand of Mr. Alemao. This may be true, but seems entirely without direct proof. If we are to create a respectful public space, it behooves us to give him the benefit of doubt, and give him the opportunity to distance himself and request forgiveness for the actions of his supporters.

The message threatening Dr. Gomes, and the subsequent responses of his supporters against Churchill Alemao seem to indicate that the Goan public space is deeply lacking in traditions of respect that are necessary to create a civil society. Such incivility draws to mind the words of Dr. Oscar Rebello who a couple of years ago warned that Goa was in the middle of a civil war. We would do well to realize that the behaviour of our leaders is not determined solely by them, but also by our own actions and the way we treat those we disagree with. Goa’s problem is not merely corruption; it is the fact that it is a broken society. The building of bridges ought to be our primary political goal. Perhaps then we will get somewhere.

(This blog was first published in the Gomantak Time 16 Feb 2011)

Wheat from Chaff II – An eye for an eye, but no teeth please.

A fortnight ago this column strayed from its usual path of picking on Hindu right-wingers to focus on the Catholic bigot. The varied responses to that column justified the decision to take up the issue of the Catholic bigot. Rich and varied have been the response, some supportive, indicating that it was something that needed to be said, some sympathetic pointing out that the Goan Catholic elite are a group that history has left behind, while others were frankly piqued and peeved. It is the last that are perhaps most instructive and useful to construct a counter.

Before moving on to these piques though, it should be pointed out that the earlier column was not about the Goan Catholics, nor about the Goan Catholic elite. It was more specifically about the bigots that populate both these groups. A supportive response rightly highlighted that while the column provided ‘picture of a part, or even a good part of this elite…there was another relevant part (of the Goan Catholic elite) that was anti-Salazarist, active or quietly, and that though even professionally dependent on colonial rule had the courage not to compromise with it.’ To be sure there were these brave persons, whose examples we cannot and must not forget. Indeed, these women and men are the examples we need to hold aloft. However it needs to be pointed out that the bigotry of the Catholic elite was not merely tied to Salazar. Salazar was only one facet of a larger problem that colonial values created in Goa. In contemporary Portugal Salazar is conveniently made a bogeyman for all things bad, so that to stone him allows contemporary Portuguese to self-exculpate themselves from post-colonial faux pas completely. To brutally paraphrase the Urdu poet Faiz, there are greater evils in the Lusofone world than Salazar.

This defense of the past column to affirm that it was not calling all Goan Catholics bigots stems from the fact that the largest piques resulted from this particular misreading. These posts inquired why the column was ‘baying for the blood’ of ‘Goan Catholics in Goa (who) today are a shrinking minority. Jason can get around and finish the job he has set out by crucifying the remaining.’ This is a somewhat bizarre response since a shrewd appraisal of the situation would point out that when a community can identify its bigots, and effectively deal with them, it creates the space to protect the larger community from external attack. This response was indicative of the manner in which the sense of persecution or marginalization (the fact of which this column has consistently argued for) contributes to an inability to introspect and address problems within. It is in this sense then that Hindutva (or any other majoritarianism for that matter) prevents minority groups from addressing issues of inequality and injustice within it. When pushed to the wall, the dominant groups within a minority invariably manage to suffocate internal challenges to the status-quo. Thus the critique of a bigoted mindset among Catholics was castigated as a challenge both to Goa and to Catholics itself. As argued in the earlier column, given the representational dominance of the elite, it is elite representations of Catholic Goan-ness that get frozen as the representative of an entire community. It was also within elite Goan Catholic contexts, that this peculiar brand of bigotry was produced. To this extent then Catholic bigots (like bigots in any group) are not harmless but act as foils for majoritarian attack, and also work together with this right to undermine the non-dominant groups within their fold.

There is also a need for us to challenge notions of a homogeneous and unified Catholic community. Just as there is no single Hindu community, but a Hindu community fractured by region, caste and class; just as the Indian Muslim is a fictitious character, similarly the ‘Goan Catholic’ too is a largely fictitious entity. This is not to deny that there are factors and features that bind different groups together as Catholics and Goans. This is merely to point that this unity is not total. It is fractured by the existence of caste, class, region and goodness knows how many other factors. The last column was castigated for dragging caste unnecessarily into the issue. This was surprising given the last column argued that Catholic bigotry was not restricted to a class or class, but can be, and is present, among all groups. I would like to extract two comments here. The first, ‘I am a sudra fighting for the Goan cause.’ And a second, ‘Not sure which Bamon rubbed Jason Keith Fernandes on the wrong side for him to paint all Goan Catholics with his dirty muck calling them bigots!’ These comments tell us that there is more to caste among Catholics than we care to admit. Both these comments assume the blemish-free nature of Sudras and non-brahmins, and assume that it is always Brahmins or Bamons who are trouble-makers. This column has time and again argued that Brahmins do not hold a monopoly on brahmanical thinking. However, given that the brahmanical frameworks work to their advantage, like other dominant castes, they have a tendency towards it.

Speaking of bigotry among Goan Catholics is important because their bigotry often masquerades as a call to ‘Save Goa’. It prevents any opportunity for internal debate as they present the Hindu right as a far greater threat and call for ‘unity’ in the face of this attack. In both cases there is a reason to fight, both for Goa, as well as Christian security in India and in Goa. But we should not allow the bigots to colour our choices and strategies. These bigots would not have us work with other minority groups or create a genuinely democratic politics. Thus in Goa, they would have us spurn choices to align with the cause of Muslim persecution in Goa, or to work with Dalit and tribal causes in both Goa and other parts of India. They will not contemplate the possibility that Goa's emigration/migration problems could perhaps be partially addressed through better and respectful labour conditions. The bigot would have us believe in our superiority merely because we are Catholic and embody (forgotten) Portuguese values. Indeed they would use discontent with the present to produce an idyllic and blemish-free Portuguese past, which indeed it was not. The bigot would have us confuse uniformity (of opinion) for unity. And in these embattled times, this is no option at all.

(P.S. The reference to 'Save Goa' is not a reference to the 'Save Goa Movement' that existed fas a coalition of groups or a brief moment in recent Goan history)

(A version was first published in the Gomantak Times 19 Jan 2010)

Trouble over a siesta: The Goan, the migrant and the public park…

Not too long ago, Panjim’s long languishing Jardim Municipal was renewed and once more open to the public. For this action, we must give thanks to the Panjim Municipality and the other departments (and politicians) that engaged in the refurbishment. We have to be particularly thankful for this renewal because it was rumoured that a portion of the garden was to be converted into a multi-storey parking lot. One must give thanks for small mercies when they are afforded to us; and especially because the choice of renewal of the garden over the possibility of a multi-storied parking lot represents a commitment towards public spaces, rather than the trend towards the privatization of spaces that we are currently facing.

A day after the gala opening of the garden, a consistent visual archivist of Goa sprayed a couple of images of the garden in various Goa related cyber-groups on the internet. These images were not congratulatory images, but rather evidence for the complaint that he now mounted against the public uses of the garden. The images showed labourers sleeping on the newly planted lawns, and some men urinating in corners of the gardens. The images provoked the usual comments of rage, and chest-beating, both from Goans abroad and within Goa. It is to these comments that I would like to address this week’s column.

This column has often pointed out to the qalb or upheaval that Goan society is facing. ‘Save Goa’ is just one manifestation of a larger change. What is bothersome about this qalb is that it very often represents itself as progressive. It uses the language of decentralization, peoples’ democracy, need for public spaces even, to challenge the capitalist onslaught that Goa is facing. As valid as this battle and the arguments invoked may be (and they are!), very often these same valid critiques are employed by groups that are not particularly democratic themselves. While they embrace the ‘Save Goa’ slogan, what they seek to do is reaffirm the structural inequality in Goan society. I would argue that the complaints over the fact of labourers using the lawns of the Jardim Municipal for a siesta are in fact reflections of the social inequality that some of us would like to reinstate in Goa, under the guise of saving Goa. My interest does not lie in castigating these forces, but indicating why it is precisely in supporting the right of the migrant-labourer to sleep on the lawns, or indeed recognizing what makes us urinate on street corners, that we can lay the foundations for the Goa of our dreams.

The first argument I would like to make is that by sleeping on the lawn, the migrant-labourer is being the unwitting foot-soldier for the Goan dream. He is staking our continued claim to the public open spaces that were a feature of the fast-disappearing Goan landscape. The public open spaces are available not merely to be cordoned-off pretty images that our archivist is suggesting. They are present so that they can be used by the people. And this use is not limited merely to labourers lying on the lawns, they also include little Goan children playing on these very same lawns. As long as the lawns are not destroyed in this process, why should people be denied this small luxury? Indeed, these labourers lying on the lawns are also a reality-check, indicating that there are still people in our Republic, who do not have access to decent standards of labour.

The problem that little Goan children face with regard to playing spaces was brought home to me by Cecil Pinto my fellow columnist, who pointed out the manner in which the guards (acting on orders) invariably prevent his children from running across the lawns of public gardens. The logic that this Goan visual-archivist and the guard share in common is a privatizing logic. Pretty spaces to look at and not use result when we do not feel the need to use the public space anymore but merely whiz past from one private space to another in our little private vehicles. This is part of a larger enclosure movement that is on-going in Goa – think back to the manner in which the Government was contemplating the conversion of the old premises of the Escola Medica (GMC) into a mall. I repeat therefore, that what the labourer, in taking his afternoon siesta on the lawns, is doing is to be the foot-soldier in the larger battle that the Goan is fighting against the system. Indeed, it is not just in sleeping on the lawns that the labourer extends this solidarity to the Goan cause. A priest-friend once remarked to me, that when he takes his post-dinner constitutional around the city of Panjim, invariably what he finds is that it is ‘outsiders’ who use the public spaces as ‘we Goans once did’. Indeed, the liveliest public spaces in Panjim, and perhaps the safest, are where the migrant workers congregate to meet with each other, and unwind after their day’s work. ‘They use the space like Goans’, was my priest friend’s assertion. If they use the space as Goans, then it appears that we gain a couple of insights into this whole Goan identity question. First, that Goa is composed as much of its urban spaces, as it is by the open spaces of the villages. Secondly, it is in using these public spaces that we became properly Goan. That is to say, we were not born Goan, we were socialized into being Goan, by the use of the constitution of public space in Goa. Thus, anyone can become Goan with their adoption of certain mannerisms and a public manner. Indeed, contrary to the helpless hand-wringing of the Konkani ‘lovers’ in the State, Konkani is adopted by ‘outsiders’ at as fast a rate as it is being abandoned by ‘Goans’. The final insight that we gain from this priest’s insight, is that the Goan is increasingly abandoning the public space and retreating into the private. This is not a good sign at all given that democracy and indeed group identities are produced through our presence in public spaces.

Finally, what of those men urinating in the corners of our spanking new park? Clearly I will not suggest that public urination is a shot in our continuing effort to ‘Save Goa’. If so, then as was suggested so long ago, we could have pissed all our troubles away! However as with lying on the lawn, the public urination is indication of the absolute lack of decent and hygienic public facilities on offer more generally. In fact even such sanitary facilities when placed have more recently been effectively privatized by requiring payment to use the toilet.

In sum, we need to watch out for the manner in which our unequal Goan past may push us toward neo-liberal strategies to manage our cities. These strategies while looking good, would infact spell the doom that we are struggling so hard against. In the meanwhile, we need to put together a medal for the blissfully unaware labourer who spurred this entire discussion! Viva Goa!

(First published in the Gomantak Times 20 Oct 2010)

Standing on the shoulders of giants: A chapter from ‘The Training Manual for Younger Activists’

I attended a couple of days ago, a meeting by a group of young activists, who like many of their compatriots were concerned about the state of Goa. The idea was, as with others, to save Goa from the fate that it seems determinedly headed toward. One of the highlights of this meeting were the sage words from one of these young activists; Goa was headed towards becoming another Bombay. It was going to become the base for big capital, and as with the old Bombay, the social groups who earlier constituted the space, would be forced to move out. This person was speaking in the context of the Bombay Goans and the East Indians, but he might as well have added the Parsis and other sundry groups that constituted the old Bombay. The new Bombay is a space for the national and international money bags, even as the city is awash with labouring groups from all over the subcontinent.

Despite the obvious enthusiasm to address the problem, and the willingness to form a group to address the problem, I came away from the meeting with a deep depression. The depression had something to do perhaps with the fact that these enthusiasts were ‘young activists’. The young is not a reference to their age. There were some older persons in the group. The young is a reference to their experience as activists. This was clearly, the first time that these folks were attempting to come out into the public sphere and assert their stake in the governance of the land. And yet, merely because we are young as activists, there is no need for us to reinvent the wheel, as I perceived was the case, and the problem, at that meeting.

The Goan public sphere is no stranger to activism. Right from the seventies Goa has seen persons emerge from out of the blue to take a stand in the way the state ought to be governed in the larger interests of its people and its environment. Some of these activists have gone down the political party route and are thus lost, in some measure, to the larger public cause. However, a good number of them have continued to remain in the popular space, outside of party politics and continue to raise their voices against the injustices in our land. One of these activists points out how in the seventies, when the first environmental protests were being raised in Goa, the Chief Minister of the time scoffed at them. ‘What environmentalists are you speaking about’, he is reported to have asked; ‘you can count them on the fingers of your hand’. What may have been true in the seventies, does not hold true today. Those seven voices today have grown into a voluble chorus, graced by a number of committed souls and fine minds with keen analysis.

In such a context then, younger activists have no reason to reinvent the wheel and contemplate how or where they ought to begin their fight to save Goa. Our first attempt ought to be to engage with these older activists. These activists represent a range of political positions and preferred and tested strategies allowing us to gain in this process of engagement, a political education and a choice as to our preferred route of engagement. This engagement would also allow us to plug into existing networks and causes, building on the foundations that have already been laid. Why start from scratch when there is already such a wealth of effort and energy at our disposal?

Goa is young as a democratic political society, and the qalb (the upheaval) that we witness today are signs of a population coming of age politically. We must remember that the Portuguese era was not so much a time of suppression by the Portuguese regime, as much as a time of suppression of the common man by local elites who collaborated with the Portuguese state. This domination has continued since ‘Liberation’, making some mockery of that term. What was missing was the presence of larger popular democratic institutions and the current tension in our society allows us the opportunity to create these. If this politically poised population is to mature therefore, what it requires is an investment in some kind of institutionalization. It is this institutionalization that still seems somewhat lacking in our state. This allows for younger activists to continue thrashing wildly while they seek to address the rot in the state.

Institutionalization does not however mean forming registered bodies or groups. It does not even mean taking the positions of all the existing and older activists as gospel truth. Institutionalization should mean merely the creation of a framework for a consultative process. A process through which we can gather, discuss, agree and disagree, and in the process sharpen our analysis and then be able to strengthen each other’s causes. If we can stand on the shoulders of giants, it should be possible for us to see beyond the dark that threatens our present and look into a promising distant future.

(First published in the Gomantak Times, 2 June 2010)