Letters from Portugal: A Geração à rasca

Three French men, Louis XVI, Napoleon Bonaparte and Alexandre Dumas, are credited with declaring that ‘Europe ends at the Pyrenees’, or alternatively, that ‘Africa begins at the Pyrenees’. What these wicked, wicked men suggested was that the Iberian peninsula, comprising Spain and Portugal, shared more with Africa, northern Africa at any rate, than it did with Europe. A number of Portuguese too will laughingly use this reference to explain away the laxity that marks this western most part of the European continent.

It is no secret that the Portuguese economy is today in an unholy mess. A good number of Portuguese will lay the blame for this mess squarely on the same laxity. The sins on this list are rather long. They will agree that Portugal is not marked by a meritocracy. If you don’t come with the right name and the right background, moving forward could be substantially difficult for you. Add to this the political graft that marks the country’s operation. Business interests and political leadership are shamelessly twined, official power used to further private interests. Joining the European Union has meant that the directives from Europe regarding the setting up of systems and procedures are met, but in a manner that recalls the spirit of that famous response by the Spanish Viceroys in the Americas, ‘I obey, but do not comply.’ The procedure is followed, but the spirit absent, resulting in applicants being caught in the nightmare of bureaucratic purgatories. But perhaps what makes this worse is the situation where there is no widespread culture of popular dissent in Portugal.

In apparent synchrony with the North African comparisons however, the pot boiled over subsequent to the Afro-Arabic revolutions. Fed up with the situation in the country that includes the cut back of funding for students, the lowering of salaries of public functionaries, the rolling back of the rights of workers, the significant amount of unemployment among the young, a good amount of these under the excuse of dealing with the economic crisis, a group of 4 young persons finally said enough is enough. This group of 4, speaking in the name of the geração à rasca, or the cornered generation called for a demonstration in Lisbon on the 12^th of March. They pointed out that their generation was the most qualified generation in Portugal’s long history ever. And yet, large numbers of these youth are unemployed and have to emigrate, to find futures outside of the country.

The response to this call was monumental. Hundreds of thousands of Portuguese congregated to march in the protest scheduled to end at Praça de Restauradores. So large were the numbers that once at the end of the march, they carried on to other parts of the city, continuing to voice their protest at the systems that has pushed the lives, dreams and ambitions of so many in this country into crisis. So large was the demonstration that some have pointed out that this was the single largest protest demonstration in the country subsequent to the collapse of the Estado Novo in 1974. This is perhaps a dubious distinction, pointing once more to the lack of a vibrant culture of political dissent in the country.

As powerful as this demonstration was however, one wonders if it continued to resound with the problems that mark this wonderful but sadly traumatised country. The leaders of the demonstration failed to offer a suggestion to go forward beyond the manifesto that launched the demonstration. The manifesto itself, framed in the broadest possible manner to attract broad support, did not get down to specifics. And here lies the problem, one that we share in Goa. We can demonstrate all we want, but until we are able to mobilise this anger and transform this into a sustained critique of the system, and create agendas for change, we will remain in the rut.

This is not yet the moment for critique though. This is the moment to congratulate the geração à rasca and wish them strength to network and combine to create options for systemic change in their country.

(A version was first published in the Herald March 20 2011)

Learning from Egypt: Separating Water from Milk

This summer I attempted to beat the heat by drinking rose-syrup flavoured water. It is sweet, turns the milk a lovely shade of pink, and is best served chilled.

The results of Panjim’s municipal elections are still unknown as this column is being written. However the results are rather irrelevant to the points this column seeks to make. This column was motivated by the vigorous campaign launched by the Panjimites Initiatives for Change (PINC) against the panel supported (or propped up) by Atanasio Monserrate, MLA from Taleigão. Interestingly, the members of this group were also at one point prominent faces of the GBA. They faded from the GBA at about the same time that the GBA agreed to join the Committee set up by the Chief Minister to review the Regional Plan.

Rather than attempt any deep reading of this situation, we may perhaps be instructed by the voice of an activist from Egypt that seems to speak remarkably to PINC’s initiatives.

Hossam al-Hamalawi is a labour activist who in an interview with Al-Jazeera pointed to some misconceptions that were being propagated around the world about the Egyptian revolution. The revolution was not fought and won only on Tahrir Square he reminded us. It was fought and won because of the simultaneous strikes by large numbers of Egyptian workers across the country. He went on to remind us that these strikes were continuing, even as the demonstrations in Tahrir melted away after Mubarak, the figurehead of the regime, was done away with. In his telling, this dissipation of the pressure on the regime was enabled by the ‘lullabies’ sung by the middle class. ‘Let us get things back to normal’ ‘return to law and order’. When were things normal? he asked. What law and order can we return to when for 3 decades there was no law and order, but a mockery of it? Do you ask these men, living on paltry sums, to wait six more months before their most basic, roti, kapda aur makaan demands are met?

Al-Hamalawi’s observations point to the problematic role of the middle-class in any revolution. It rides the wave of popular unrest, obtains its adjustment with the regime and forces in power, and then asks the masses to go home and let the law play its role.

The point here is not to vilify the middleclass, on the contrary they may very often sympathise with the oppressed. As a class however, they will play out their inherent tendencies. The point is that we must be aware of the manner in which they will operate. The Goan mass despite having been led on a merry dance on multiple occasions now, seems to continue to buy the palliatives of the Goan elite groups. Perhaps the reason that they do so is because in Goa the middleclass groups to a larger extent overlap with caste group configurations. The middleclass aspires to lifestyles largely set in place and upheld by dominant caste groups.

It appears that the success of a Goan revolution lies in the development of a strong caste, and class consciousness. Political discourse in Goa, and especially among the Catholics, needs to grapple with these issues, going beyond dislike and hatred of caste groups, to understanding the manner in which these groups operate and influence politics. Further, there is a critical need for us to embrace livelihood issues as the primary cause. This column has pointed out on earlier occasions how the GBA’s mobilisations (when led by this PINC segment) were largely based on (dominant caste/class) aesthetic considerations. Till date the issues of mining and its impact of livelihoods, or real-estate development and its destruction of livelihood options, have not been systematically embraced by these groups who claim to want a change in Goa’s state of affairs.

Allow those groups impacted by mining to lead the demonstrations for change and watch the difference. The demonstrations will automatically take on the dimensions of Tahrir. There will be a besieging of the homes of the CM, of the Secretariat. There will be no backing down till there is a complete halt of activities. There will be a necessary confrontation between the contradictions that we do not want to, but must necessarily addressed if we want to move Goa out of the mess it is in. Contrast this then with the efforts of the groups that led the GBA, and they will begin to look like the tea-parties (pun intended) they were.

As a conclusion, regard the plea by the Convenor for PINC. He requested us to vote for the candidates identified by this group of largely dominant caste elites because “We promise to keep them on a tight leash, if elected, to obey peoples’ mandate”. Words such as these Al-Hamalawi would call lullabies. First, given the fact that the Indian democracy gives its citizens no right of recall, once elected, there is no control on a representative by the voting public, except at the end of their five year term. Second, ‘keeping on a tight leash’ suggests that the members of PINC endorse a backroom management of democracy, rather than a public, deliberative democracy. These are hardly the people you can rely on to lead Goa out of the mire of political graft, nepotism and privateering. On the contrary, as this very same group and leader demonstrated in the past, they are capable of taking command of popular movements and compromise it at exactly the moment it can press home the advantage. They did so, not because of their inexperience in social activism, but because of their deep faith and commitment to the backroom politics that has compromised the effort of so many Goan mass movements.

If Goa is to learn from Egypt, we are required to examine our politics and make a consistent stand with livelihood issues. Developing finely tuned, and publicly debated political analytical skills that account for caste and class are imperative. This will eventually allow us to live in a society where the elite-led middle class groups may contribute their mite to change, but will not compromise or hijack change. At that point, perhaps we would be able to separate milk, from water.

(A version was first published in the Gomantak Times 16 March 2011)

Breaking Secularism´s cast(e): The curious case of the poor Indian Muslim

In an opinion piece in The Hindu on the 3 March 2011, Vidya Subrahmaniam wrote of her discussion with a group of Muslims in Deoband about the reported validation that Maulana Ghulam Mohammed Vastanvi, the controversy shrouded new Vice-Chancellor of the Dar ul Uloom at Deoband. These are her words;

‘I raised the Modi issue and was instantly put down: “We are not saying that Muslims should forgive Modi or forget 2002. But all of you in the secular media want the Gujarati Muslim never to get out of his grieving. Hindu or Muslim, the Gujarati is a businessperson, and that is what Vastanvi was trying to say.” The words stung but they were true. The Congress and the secular media wanted the Gujarati Muslim forever to fight Mr. Modi but neither was there to protect him.’

Subrahmaniam should be credited for her perspicacity and sensitivity. This fact should be obvious to many an observer of the unfolding of Indian secular democracy, but has by and large remained unspoken.

The fact is that in addition to being pilloried as a result of the Orientalist and subsequently nationalist histories of India, the Indian Muslim is held hostage by another force that masquerades as its friend, the ‘secular’ Indian. The key article of faith of the secular Indian in contemporary times has been to moan the fate of poor blighted Muslim. Reams of paper, rivers of ink and oceans of tears are spent in this cause, to the extent that the cause of secularism – in this case the welfare of all minority groups in Indian – has become less of a concern, and has been replaced by a singular concern for the Muslim.The problem with the Orientalist and subsequently nationalist understanding of India is that it has understood India to be originally Hindu. All those who came ‘after’ are seen as the non-Indian, or less Indian. In the terms of scholarly debate, they are the ‘Other’ to the Hindu ‘Self’. Given the locus of dominant Indian nationalism in North India, the Muslim was seen as the ‘Other’ to the Hindu state, and blamed for all the shortcomings of nationalism, most significantly of all, Partition. Ever since, the Indian Muslim has been bludgeoned to the desperate condition they find themselves in today. The argument here is not that concern for them is misplaced. The argument is that by focussing on the Muslim ‘Other’ alone, what these secular Indians do is reaffirm the central place of the Hindu in the national imagination. The problem with Indian secularism is not the Muslim, it is the central place of the Hindu in the national imagination. This problem can be rectified only when we start realising that India is more than Hindu and Muslim, but includes tons of other minorities as well, Christians, Buddhists, Jains, Adivasis, Dalits to name just a few. Displace this binary relationship, recognise the pluralism of the Indian reality, and we would have progressed multiple steps towards combating the problems confronting Indian secularism.

The question that remains unanswered in all of this however is why does the ‘secular’ establishment in India fail to grasp this seemingly obvious fact? Why does it persist in this obsessive focus on the Muslim and reaffirm the central place of the Hindu? The answer is once more hinted at by Subrahmaniam in her observation that ‘The Congress and the secular media wanted the Gujarati Muslim forever to fight Mr. Modi but neither was there to protect him.’ In her formulation of the problem, Subrahmaniam falls into the regular trap of identifying the Congress as secular, and the BJP as communal. We would grasp the nuances better if we harked to the words of Khalid Anis Ansari, a scholar researching the Pasmanda movement.

Ansari points out that ‘…there are a few differences between BJP and Congress … even when in the ultimate analysis they defend the same caste/class interests. For one Congress is dominated by anglicised and elite Brahmins, the BJP on the other hand is controlled by Brahmins from the rural or middle class backgrounds.’

In this formulation, Ansari helps us get to understand the obsession with the Indian Muslim. If one reads the ‘BJP’ and ‘Congress’ as symbols for opposing camps in Indian politics, and not merely – as normally done – as representative of the electoral parties, then one can see Indian politics as the struggle between the anglicised and elite dominant castes, and the rural and middle class dominant castes. The first group sold on the idea of western modernity, is empowered by its access to western cultural capital and drawing its power from international hierarchies, seeks to make a modern ‘secular’ India on these ideas. The other group as yet unable to acquire this western cultural capital, drawing its power solely from local hierarchies, seeks to delay this transition to western modernity until they too are in the seat of power. In the battle between these two dominant caste elephants, it is the Muslim grass that suffers. As Subrahmaniam rightly realised, the Muslim is by and large a pawn in the battle for access to State power. The ‘Congress’ claims to uphold Muslim interests, and the ‘BJP’ in response attacks them. In response to these attacks the ‘Congress’ calls the ‘BJP’ communal, and restricts our understanding of ‘secularism’ to essentially the Muslim cause. In the meanwhile secularism as a larger ideal of the protection of minority interests against majoritarianism falls by the wayside. What complicates this picture is that the battles are not between religious groups, but between caste (and especially dominant caste) groups. As such when the ‘Congress’ espouses the ‘Muslim’ cause what it is primarily doing is espousing the cause of the dominant Muslim castes. Further, it is quite capable of absorbing those people into its upper echelons who can walk the walk and talk the talk, be the Muslim, Christian or Hindu. All that is required is the ability to behave like an anglicised dominant caste. The power of the ‘BJP’ on the other hand, given its rural and middle-class character, is largely based on the assertion of ‘traditional’ caste structures. Thus this group too can make peace with non-cosmopolitan Muslim (or Christian) dominant caste groups toward the larger end of preserving rural social orders and traditional hierarchies.

Two lessons emerge from Subrahmaniam’s observations. The first that the solidarity that large portions of the secular lobby in India show to the Indian Muslim are motivated by the desire to wipe out their contender for power. Second, is the lesson that these political divisions in India, are not so much about religion as they are about caste power and caste battles. It thus appears that we would make some progress towards secularism if we complicated the picture of secularism in India to look beyond the Muslim, and also accounted for the manner in which both groups seek to establish the norms for gaining power in this diverse country.

(First published in the Gomantak Times 9 March 2011)

Letters from Portugal: Lux tua vita mihi.

Like so many children in India I grew up in Goa in the shadow of the former British Empire. As a result London was a fabled city, the former centre of a truly global empire, and imagined to be filled with architectural marvels that should rightly grace an imperial centre.

Visiting London for the first time was a truly depressing let down however. There was practically nothing that was on a truly monumental, imperial scale. The experience on travelling to Lisbon on the other hand was an entirely different matter. Here indeed was a city that knew how to present itself as an imperial centre. Huge squares framed by monumental buildings. Façades of churches that, to borrow a phrase from James Fergusson, seemed to have been conceived by giants and finished by jewellers. And to top it all, as if to stick a tongue in the England’s gloomy direction, was the light.

Lisbon’s name is said to be derived from the ancient name for the settlement Olissipo. This name in turn was associated with the mythical founding of the city by Ulysses, the Greek adventurer of the epics. The more boringly pedantic, will tell us that the name derives not from the Greek adventurer, but from the words that meant ‘safe harbour’. In time, Olissipo was transformed to its Arabic version Al-Isbuna, until when after the Crusader conquest it came to be called Lisboa. While there may be good reason to name the city for its safe harbour, it seems a travesty that Lisbon is not in fact called Luz Boa, and named for its good(Boa) light (luz).

This city has the most amazing light! It is a light that is sharp and sparkly and does the most amazing things to the city. The contribution of this light first dawned on me when traversing the city one morning early in my stay of the city. Moving from the cold shadows of the Rua do Loreto into the light in the Praça de Camões, one realised how privileged one was to live in this incredibly beautiful city of light. Whether it is out in the squares, or on jacaranda shaded avenues, the light that this city receives converts the golden yellow, salmon pink and powder blue façades of its buildings into so many Fabergé eggs. Polished by the scores of feet that daily caress the limestone cobbled streets of the city, in this light these sidewalks shine like so many silken ribbons nestling these exquisite precious eggs.

And this light induces ecstasy. Standing on the edge of the Praça de Camões is the neo-classical façade of the church of the Incarnation (Igreja da Encarnação). Surmounting this façade are a series of dramatic ornamental urns sculpted to appear as if with flames at their mouths. Come sunshine and these urns catch the rays of the sun to incarnate variously as the burning bush of Sinai, or the icon for the Sacred Heart of Jesus. If light ever contributed to the drama of architecture this is a perfect example. The profound changes that this sight works on one’s sentiments can only be experienced every attempt at description falling short. It does drive home the point however to the perfection of Lisbon as a stage for this light. And it is thus that my heart confesses, ‘Lisboa, lux tua vita mihi’ (your light is my life)!

(First published in the Herald 5 March 2011)

The Good Samaritan: Pouring healing balm over wounds

Sometime last month, this column began an engagement with what it termed the Catholic bigot (CB). The intention was not to label all Catholics bigots, but point out to a peculiar strain of bigoted thinking among Goan Catholics. The idea was that this could possibly lead to an internal debate and prevent us from falling into the form of thinking that marks the bigot among the Goan Catholic. Delineating the contours of the imagination of the CB is important because of the times we live in, where this bigotry only serves to fuel the provocations of the Hindu right-wing. Once more it should be pointed out, not every Hindu is fascist, but given the contours of Indian nationalism and dominant thought, it is possible for regular Hindus too to sometimes (and unwittingly) fall victim to rightist thoughts.

Pointing out to the existence of the CB will also ideally provide to us the opportunity to create a space for dialogue with those Hindus who while currently swayed by rightist thought, do so for reasons of not encountering the range of possible ways in which it is possible for a Catholic to be Goan and not a bigot. An entry in an email list that hosts a good amount of the diasporic CB presented an opportunity for us to explore such a space.

The message read as follows:

‘Goan people are very scared to speak out against the current regime for fear of reprisals. But thanks to the net and the various forums, whispers are turning into mighty words. In this regard one Goan medroso now relates the Naguesh Carmali freedom fighter story. It is believed that Carmali was a young and naive bystander at Lohia anti-Goa meeting in Margao. Like many Carmali was carregado by the police and taken to jail. Imagine this incident made Carmali a freedom fighter. Now for almost 50 years Carmaili is receiving money from the Goan taxpayers. He also got a good job in the communication media and his anti-social activities in Pangim have gone unpunished by the puppets of the current rulers.’

This discussion will not engage with the plethora of issues that this particular CB raises in his rather bizarre message. The sole focus will be with the manner in which this message relates to the person and history of Mr. Naguesh Karmali. Regular readers of this column will recollect that Mr. Karmali has been focused on by this column for the more extreme of his public activities on a number of occasions, so perhaps the contrast that the subsequent reflections will make the space for possible dialogue all the more clear.

In relation to Mr. Karmali, what is striking about the message is the absolute lack of sympathy for the young Naguesh. One may have any amount of disagreement with the older avatar and abhor his actions, but that should not necessarily preclude us from cultivating a sympathy for this earlier experiences and misfortunes. Indeed, it seems to be precisely this unjust treatment meted out to him, and his subsequent experiences in jail that have embittered Mr. Karmali. One need not sympathize with his shenanigans in Panjim and other parts of Goa; one can see these actions as an immature and unfair response to that earlier experience, but one can understand why he acts in this manner.

If one takes the message as gospel truth, then what is obvious from the scenario described is that an innocent Karmali was jailed by the late-colonial Portuguese regime. This says less about Karmali than it does about the late-colonial Portuguese regime. It was not above jailing and persecuting innocents in the course of maintaining its grip on the Portuguese people (and this included the Goans). This recognition is an important point in our challenge to CB imagination. It is an imagination that presents the Portuguese presence in Goa as blemishless, one long paradisiacal period of peace. This is not so.

To acknowledge this proposition however does not force us to conclude that the entire Portuguese period was one horrific nightmare. It leaves open for us the space to recognize that many of us were distinctly formed in that period and cherish the kind of persons we are now. It also does not prevent us from looking into other aspects of this period and holding it up as a politically charged model for challenge to the current state of the Goan democratic experience.

Ideally, one also imagines that our ability to recognize this violence and harm done to the likes of Mr. Karmali and others like him (he cannot have been the only innocent to be falsely arrested) opens up a space, however small, for dialogue with Mr. Karmali. Perhaps once convinced of our ability and willingness to be open about the varied experiences of; once convinced that we acknowledge his earlier unjustified suffering, we would actually be able to talk, rather than engage in street-side violence?

The Catholic bigot (admittedly an ideal type construction) is unable to see any ill in the period of Portuguese sovereignty over Goa. But this position is not necessarily shared by all Catholics, who for cultural reasons may see themselves associated in some manner with Portugal. To separate this chaff from the larger pile of wheat must be our continuous endeavour if we are to create spaces for dialogue with members of the Hindu right. After all, at the end of the day, the point is not to create concrete divisions and raise high walls, but to recognize that we share the same space and must learn to talk things out. If necessary, perhaps agree to disagree.

(First published in the Gomantak Times 2 March 2011)

Raising a toast to the Goan’s Tambdi-Ingliss

The past couple of columns have attempted to joust with the figure of the Catholic bigot (CB). The CB is the phantom that most Goan Catholics live with. We either share in, or sympathize with, some of the thinking of the CB, or are too fearful as a minority group with other external challenges, to openly declare war with this interna

l regressive character. But battle we must, more importantly for the damage the CB does not least within the Catholic fold. Take for example a recent correspondence via one of the many email groups that debates (and mourns) the passing of Goa.

Responding to the arguments of a Goan whose English was not what one would call ‘proper’, this particular CB requested to be taken off the e-list. His reason was that if this was to be the standard of English in the discussion, he didn’t want to take part. He didn’t want to ruin his English. The argument is laughable in the extreme, given that if one’s English is liable to be ruined because of a minor conversation, then surely your command over English is not very substantial in the first place. A case of the pot calling the kettle black. What is not laughable however, is the manner in which this particular CB was attempting to humiliate the other participant in the conversation. This humiliation unfortunately, is a daily part of Goan interaction. It calls on older traditions of caste and class difference and conflict, and is often an attempt by the humiliator to remind the other of her (or his) lower social origins. Leaving aside a discussion of the other hierarchies among the Goan Catholics for a while, let us focus on this matter of English for a while.

An earlier column had suggested that speakers of Konkani in Goa, who often complain that all discussions happen in English ought to take the burden onto their own shoulders. Speak in Konkani, the column urged, those of us who have lived in Goa long enough, will understand you and respond back in English. This route may possibly avoid the manner in which Konkani is oftentime shoved down peoples’ throats. What these Konkani partisans do not realise, is that Konkani is too tied to caste locations to allow it to operate as a language in which one can realize self-respect and social mobility. Our speech in Konkani marks our caste and class location, and there has been no serious action within the Konkani language movement to address this issue. On the contrary, as the ongoing challenge to the selection of Antruzi Konkani as the standard form for Konkani indicates, one particular caste and regional form of Konkani has been privileged over all others. Also, mutual respect does not form a basis for Goan society, and thus any salvation from this lack of respect, has to come from the outside. English is thus, and especially among the Catholic (though this does not exclude the Hindu), the preferred route for social mobility.

Given that English is the preferred route for social mobility how does one deal with those of us who do not speak English very well, and yet insist on using, what some of us call, tambdi-Inglis (Red English). The term red-English is a condescension, and we must recognize it as such. To castigate the English spoken by young (and older) persons who insist on speaking in English in fact goes against international literary trends that gives space to the different inflections of English. Take A Sea of Poppies, the latest offering by the sometimes-Goa-resident Amitav Ghosh. In this novel, Ghosh uses in relevant portions what some would call a gibberish-English proper to the sailors and persons of early British India, and by and large makes no effort to translate it. That English represents a milieu. The tambdi-Inglis of the Goan youth similarly has a milieu. It shares a similar fragrance that is often attributed to Konkani. It is often structured by Konkani grammar, it is powered by the life experiences of those who stem from Goan soil, it is a uniquely Goan English. It can emerge in no other place in the world, from no other experience. If we committed not to fetishize Konkani but to respect the ‘common’ Goan people who speak the language, then we would also respect their English.

To be sure, for those comfortable with a standard English, this Goan English may present its challenges, either when spoken or when written. But the point to social communication is the effort we put into understanding the Other. The object is to understand the point that they are trying to put across, rather than merely the form in which they put it across. An obsession with form is a commitment to the social snobbery that maintains the hierarchies of society. It is not necessarily tied with the value of that content. As an example, consider the situation where at a conference in Pondicherry on urban planning, RaviKumar an MLA from the Viduthalai Ciruthaikal Katchi (VCK- or Liberation Panthers Party), was invited to speak. Not comfortable with English, he spoke in Tamil to much rolling of eyes (myself included). It was when we heard the magic words ‘Utopia’ and ‘Foucault’ that we sat up and realized that there was more to the man than his apparently inability to speak in English. It turned out that RaviKumar was one sharp mind, versed in a host of thinkers from Marx, Gramsci, and Althusser, Foucault and Derrida; and Periyar, Ambedkar and Tiruvalluvar; and an articulate ideologue of the Dalit movement in the South. It exposed in one fell and nasty sweep, the superficiality of our democratic commitment and the depth of our social snobbery. If we are committed to creating a better Goa, one not marked by daily humiliation, then it would behove us to put some effort into understanding the form in which the Goan youth speak.

To our Tambdi-Ingliss then, let us raise a toast, and hope for the articulation of a multitude of ideas, imbued with the famed fragrance of our Konkani-speaking land.

(First published in the Gomantak Times 23 Feb 2011)

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)