Ecological Mandalas: Aesthetic Notes from Portugal

From the 18^th of this month, the Instituto Camões in Panjim has had on display images of the works of Alberto Carneiro, a prominent Portuguese artist. This particular exhibition represents the latest of a series of exhibitions that the Institute has been organizing for some time now, representing a reopening of dialogue between two cultural spaces that were suspended, somewhat uncomfortably, subsequent to the actions in 1961. What is refreshing about these exhibitions, and in particular the exhibition of the works of Alberto Carneiro is that they introduce us to a Portugal substantially different from the Imperial representations of the colonial era.

The works of Alberto Carneiro do not draw from the Imperial Portuguese tradition, and with the sole exception of a work titled Vessels Ploughing Never Before Navigated Seas, make no reference to the Age of Discoveries or similar imperial imaginations. On the contrary, the imagination that Alberto Carneiro employs is one from the agrarian heartland of Portugal. Carneiro was neither born and nor raised in the Portuguese metropole or former centers of the empire and presents therefore an alternative perspective into the Portuguese mind and the sources of its inspiration. A Field After The Harvest For The Aesthetic Pleasure Of Our Body is
an installation composed of dried sheaves of corn tied into bundles, arranged upright on the floor. It celebrates the cycles of agriculture suggesting an alternate source for aesthetics and sensorial pleasure. Beyond agriculture though, it is nature (that is if one wants to see the two as distinct) that forms the inspiration for Carneiro’s work and the materials with which he crafts his art. The Cane Plantation: Memory-Metamorphosis of an absent body is presented to us as one of the works that marked a fundamental departure from his earlier works. Subsequent to this work wrought in 1969, Carneiro would work primarily around ‘ecological’ themes and their relation to our bodies and the relationship of our bodies to these ‘natural’ stimuli. Indeed, thanks to his authoring of Notes for a Manifesto of Ecological Art Carneiro is hailed as a pioneer in encouraging the utilizing of an ecological idiom in contemporary art. In doing so, Carneiro’s work opens up a mystical path toward contemplating contemporary existence and its relationship to nature.

The opening of the doors of mysticism in ‘69 seems to have Carneiro towards explorations of the traditions of the East through the 80’s and the 90’s. The ‘Eastern’ influence is manifest through his utilizing the motif of the mandala to structure his installations. A Tree Is A Work Of Art When Recreated In Itself As A Concept For A Metaphor is a particularly impressive work of this category, which one wishes one had a chance to encounter first hand and not merely through the photograph of the work on display in the exhibition. Arranged in a vaulted cellar, Carneiro has arranged a mandala-like placement of mud, tree roots, branches and twigs to make the meditative point rather elaborately articulated in the title of the work. Despite his acknowledgement of Eastern influence however, one can sense the urge towards expression in the form of a mandala in his work entitled A Forest for Your Dreams wrought in 1970.

It is a real pity that the Goan audience has to encounter Carneiro primarily through photographic representations of his work, since the scale of a number of his works are significant, more easily absorbed through immediate and intimate encounter. Indeed, it appears that this is the manner he would wish his works to be encountered. Since the late 90’s it appears that Carneiro has taken his art from out of the confines of the gallery space and released it into the expanse from which he drew inspiration. We have as a result the Mandala of the Forest in Ireland, and the Mandala of the Landscape in Quito, Ecuador, and the House of Earth and Fire in Ordino, Spain. These mandalas are truly monumental; the first two composed of tree trunks rooted in the ground in conversation with the environment around them. These installations would perhaps also serve the larger role of prompting popular contemplation of our relationship to the environment. The Mandala of the Landscape for example, is one that forces our contemplation of the devastation of natural forests in countries of the Third world.

While Carneiro’s works are prompted by an ecological ethic, the works prompt certain questions. I was lead to these questions when viewing the image of his work entitled The Orange Grove.

In this work the spectator is confronted with a triple representation of an orange grove; in sketch, drawn and projected - and also with the orange tree itself and its fruits, all of it arranged on a bed of earth that includes an audio recording (an auditory representation of the orange tree) that speaks of the relation between the earth and the orange tree during the different seasons of the year. What was troubling was the extraction of the orange tree from its ‘original’ context and placement within the space of the gallery. Does this whole arrangement of ecological art not lead at some point to making a fetish of the natural environment? Rather than exposing ourselves to the aesthetics of the agrarian life, arguably more rooted in the earth, do these art forms in fact suck ecology into the cycle of capitalist consumption? For example, what is the manner in which the materials for the installation are procured? Do they come via an anonymous transaction, or are they sourced from a landscape and community one is in communion with? Do such installations then merely act as token acknowledgements to the need for an ecological sensitivity, in that process maintaining these aesthetic and the cultural patterns they emerge from perpetually on the periphery?

The Carneiro exhibition is a wonderful example of the manner in which the Goa-Portugal dialogue could be resumed. It manages to avoid the exclusivist parameters of earlier dialogue, and open new ground for a democratic conversation between related cultural spheres. One hopes though, that photographic images of originals will soon lead to more substantial exhibitions from the Instituto Camões. The Carneiro exhibit is on display until the 2^nd of September and open to viewing weekdays from 10 am to 5:300 pm. Catch it while you can!

(Published in the Gomantak Times 27th August 2008 as Ecological Mandalas)

(All images courtesy Instituto Camões)

Calling for a Mystical Renewal of the Goan Condition

This column appears on the eve of the Konnsacho Fest, the great harvest festival of my adoptive village Taleigao. Tomorrow the gaocars of the village will march to the field from which the corn is traditionally cut and subsequently distribute it among themselves. The feast however is being celebrated alongside rumors that dark forces seek to purchase the traditional field of corn, even as the physical context within which this field now sits is sought to be transformed. There are plans to plunge a ten-metre wide road into the heart of green that surrounds the field of the konnos. But it is not just the operation of speculative real-estate development that threatens the continuation of the Konnsacho Fest of Taleigao. For some years now the corn that is distributed among the gaocars of the village is not corn from the field of the konnos or from the fields of Taleigao, but grain purchased from outside of the boundaries of Taleigao. Materially this may not affect the celebration of the feast, but the feast is not just a material event. It is also an event of spiritual significance when the villagers give thanks to the deity for the bountiful harvest and maintaining the environmental order and the social order that rests on it. More crucially, it is a feast that reaffirms the bonds of the villagers with the land that sustains them. To obtain corn from outside the village is to retain merely the material aspect of the festival, asserting a certain social order, without asserting at the same time the spiritual aspect, the bonds between the village and the earth that the festival sanctifies.

In these days of Goan upheaval, much noise is being made about the need to also preserve Goan culture. Without going into that elusive debate of what exactly constitutes Goan culture, we can safely recognize that as with any culture, it is a spiritual base sustained by a physical environment that one is in communion with that sustains a culture. As in the case of Taleigao, it is this spiritual rot that threatens the Goan, her environment and culture. This spiritual rot stems from a near total divorce of the Goan from the local environment, the environment being debased to a mere saleable commodity, not regarded as a landscape replete with spiritual significance. The challenge before us therefore is not merely legal change, but simultaneously, a spiritual one.

It is in this context that the recent statements of the Goan church must be viewed as providing appropriate direction to the Goan Catholic, and inspiration to other Goans resident in the territory.

The first statement, is the more recent, where the Church of Goa, through the Council for Social Justice and Peace has asserted that it supports the right of the people to participate in planning sustainable development in their respective villages and towns, while at the same time committed to motivating the people to fulfill their duties. This statement lays the material basis for the re-establishment of our relationship with the land, the physical environment. Early in the environmentalist movement conservationists in India were faced with a dilemma. How was it that groups that had a culture of caring for the environment now plunder it mercilessly? Decades of research and policy experience has revealed that when the right of decisions over land are divorced from the people, no matter what their earlier culture, they begin to see the land as a commodity to be exploited. Any sense of communal spirit is simultaneous destroyed, in the dog eat dog world that follows. Restoring the balance with nature and within the social order thus depends on asserting the rights of local people to communal stewardship of the local resource base. As the Church has rightly pointed out therefore, the step toward reanimating the Goan spirit lies in asserting the right of the village/town over its resources. This was the spirit of the gaocarial system, and while we cannot in today’s democratic age re-create the inequalities of the gaocarial system, we can imbibe its spirit.

The second statement of the Church that merits consideration is the Pastoral Letter of the Archbishop for the year 2008-2009. The Pastoral letter lays the spiritual ground for the rejuvenation of the Goan condition, filled as it is with ecological imagery. The Letter compares faith to the fonddaro/ onddo; ponds that dot the paddy fields of Goa, to the paddy field and to the golden grain that the field produces. Indeed the very grain that we celebrate this month. Disappointment was expressed in some quarters with the choice of imagery in the Pastoral letter. The fondarro is not something nice. It is seen as the location of chickol (dirt and muck). I choose to disagree with this point of view. The letter has taken the ubiquitous feature of our landscape and converted into a sign worthy of contemplation. No longer is it merely the giver of water (important in itself). Further, the letter urges us to change our attitudes to the fondarro. Falling into the muck of the fondarro, is no longer the falling into muck, but a process of being enveloped in the life-giving waters and soil of our land. To move to this position is to be unable to see the field and its ponds as merely a saleable physical entity, but to see it as the giver and creator of life itself!

In itself the statement of disappointment is indication of how far we have fallen from a respect for the land and the person enveloped in its life-giving water and soil. The Letter does not merely point to the physical features of our land as signs worthy of mystical contemplation. It points also to the figure of the farmer as worthy of contemplation. It is true that despite Christ having lived his life among fishermen, we don’t have much respect for them, but it is possible that the genuinely mystical contemplation of the figure of the farmer will allow us to generate the respect that this figure genuinely deserves. This respect is perhaps at the bottom of the key to Goa’s solutions, since it is the disdain and disrespect that we reserve for the farmer that is in part responsible for the abandonment of the Goan paddy-fields. A result of this contempt for physical labour has ensured that even if we may not have any other work to do, we will not step into the fields for fear of the lowly status that we will then earn. An abandonment of the ideals of the farmer, indicates also our abandonment of a spirit of humility and poverty that allows the farmer to depend on forces larger than oneself. As we can see all around us in Goa, we are today animated by the spirit of fast-money-here-and-now. Nothing could be further from the spirit of the monsoon dependent farmer who earns from the sweat of her brow.

The two statements of the Goan Church should be seen as articulations of a single position. The change required in Goa is not merely legal; it must be accompanied by a spiritual renewal. The key lies not only the realization of the oft-touted 73^rd ad 74^th amendments to the Constitution, but in simultaneously rebuilding a spiritual relationship with the land and its produce. When that is done, our task will have been complete.

(Published in the Gomantak Times 20th August 2008)

Resignations, Popular Politics and the Force of Law

Dr. Oscar Rebello, formerly Convenor of the Goa Bachao Abhiyan is reported to have made the following statement while announcing to the Press his decision to resign his position in the GBA; “So on the one hand you have GBA members insisting that the spirit of these two amendments be included; on the other hand you have a situation where no one is willing to say how this can be accomplished”.

I can scarcely believe that the GBA lacks the imagination to operationalize the 73^rd and the 74^th amendments to the Constitution. Perhaps there is a lack of will to translate the radical visions of democratic planning, but then that is another matter altogether. Let us take Dr. Rebello’s statements as fact though, and attempt an injection of imagination into the body of the GBA.

We must remember that it was GBA’s amplification of the cry for Participatory planning that got the GBA a place in the Task Force for the Regional Plan 2011. Realizing the ideal of participatory planning within the Constitutional framework rests on the elaboration of the idea of the Village Development Plan contained in Article 243 G of the 73^rd amendment to the Constitution.

Art. 243 G indicates to us that the plans prepared by the panchayat should be concerned with economic development and social justice. That the two words appear together is significant, since it also points out to us the manner in which economic development must be achieved. From this point on, principles of planning take over and provide a base from which to articulate participatory planning for Goa. Participatory and sensitive planning models would argue that such a village development plan would first require the mapping of existing land uses. This is to say that we first figure out what is going on on the ground. Who is cultivating what and where, where are buildings located, which are the open spaces and what are the multiple uses they are being put to. Once this is done, you engage in a projection of how these existing demands will increase in the future, owing to population growth. Once this is figured out, you are now in a position to determine which new developments you can introduce into the area. Since you now have your facts and figures in front of you, you can predict with a good amount of certainty, the impacts that new developments will have on an area. Since you can predict some of the impacts, you can now ensure that the numbers impacted by new developments will be provided appropriate rehabilitation. For example, if we know that there are a good number of villagers using firewood, we know that we need to make adequate provisions for this firewood-using community before we axe the village forests for a government project.

Once we recognize this logic, a logic already recognized by the Goan people, we need to push it into a mechanism that will see this logic democratically articulated. The Constitution already recognizes that the Village Development Plan (VDP) needs to eventually merge with the District Development Plan. So we know what to do once we have the VDP. However, how does one articulate the VDP? This is where the ward committees come in to play. The Ward committees need to be supported by technical staff, who help them map out the various socio-economic aspects of the life of the ward, and their demand on various resources. Once this is done, the draft plan is submitted to a general body of the ward, and refined through the process of a ward level public hearing. Once articulated in this manner, the ward level maps are reworked into a village level map, once again refined through a village level public hearing process. As with the earlier process, any decision taken by the Panchayat, or the ward committee, has to be justified with elaborate reasons. The reasoning will allow the decision to stand the test of a court of law, or of the people. In other words, prevent any hanky panky. To prevent the marginalization of vulnerable groups, it is normally recommended that the mapping of these groups be commenced prior in time to the mapping of other dominant groups. This ensures that the marginal groups have the space to articulate and claim their rights to resources. While crunched and simplified to fit the demands of a column, it should nevertheless be clear that we do have a mechanism to ensure participatory local planning. This method ensures that not only are existing uses of local people recognized in a plan, but it is also possible for the State and private developmental interests to identify spaces for development with minimal resistance. When first attempted, this process will take time. However, it will lay the foundations for proper planning, which will be well worth the time.

And yet, if it is as simple as this, if this vision is now commonplace with even marginally well-schooled planners, how come this imagination has not percolated into the GBA? Perhaps the answer lies in what the Task Force sees as its goal, and not really in the lack of an imagination for popular participatory planning. While the demand of the Goan people was clearly for holistic socio-economic planning before land-use planning, the Task Force is apparently under the impression that it is required to engage only in land-use planning. As such, even if it does see this process as relevant, it does not see a role for itself in translating it into law. Since it seems to think it cannot translate it into law, or that the process of proper planning will involve a substantial amount of time, it has decided to stick to the easy bit. Take out the coloured pencils, and sketch away furiously. This may be well-intentioned, but it will not meet the demands of the Goan people. We have to recognize that the Task Force resulted from a demand of the Goan people and it should find its mandate in that popular demand. Its mandate is not to tell us what our land should be zoned as, but to set in place a legal mechanism to articulate this participatory planning process year after year. This is its primary task, one that it seems either unwilling, or unable to perform. Perhaps it is the conflicts that emerge from this situation that has had something to do with the resignation of the former convenor of the GBA?

Law exists in a tense relationship with popular politics. While law seeks to preserve and maintain the status quo, popular politics seeks to reframe the status quo. To do this, it challenges the law, seeking to empty out the obnoxious contents and fill it with processes and principles that will realize a new vision. A popular movement therefore almost inevitably stands in opposition to the law, its agenda based on recognition of the illegitimacy of the status quo framed by law. When co-opted by the State and its legal process, popular movements often flounder seduced by the ‘naturalness’ of legal process. It is time for the GBA to wake up and smell the coffee burning. A wholesale revision of planning legislations in Goa is what was effectively demanded by the Goan people, and if it is not to let us down, the GBA should stick to this agenda and demand the Task Force fall in line.

(Published in the Gomantak Times 6th Aug 2008)

Citizenship and the Right to move…

“God did not create boundaries. He gave us the world to live our lives on. He did not create boundaries to marginalize us.” I was watching “Assaulted Dream”, a film documenting the desperate attempts made by men from the Central American republics, who unable to find decent employment in their own countries, embark on perilous journeys in search of work in the United States. These words rushed out at me, and I was aware instantly of the singular truth and power of the words “God did not create boundaries”. Ecological readings of the Abrahamic faiths; Judaism, Christianity and Islam, emphasize the fact that God gave us dominion over the earth; he did not give us ownership of it. Indeed, God did not create boundaries. He gave us the world to satisfy our needs. It was man who erected the borders that operate to marginalize us.

It was perhaps the acknowledgment of this basic fact that caused me to recoil when I read the following in a column two weeks ago. Speaking about the Goans who apply for Portuguese passports, the author argued that “Surely, those Goans’ sudden love for ex-Estado da India's 'Patria' and clamour for Portuguese passports is but an undisguised attempt to infiltrate the European Union job market for low-end positions which have no native takers”. “Most of those 'patriotas'” he continued, “know nothing about Portugal, and do not intend to live in Portugal. Many of them are ready to beg, borrow, bribe and cheat to achieve their ends”.

The statement is a clear example of the many boundaries that men have built in order to marginalize each other. The boundaries in operation in the sentences are the boundaries of race, nationality, caste and class. God created no boundaries, and this was the way the colonizer found the world, a world populated by individuals bearing multiple identities and moving easily from one space to another. The colonizer to a large extent allowed that world to continue as such; indeed they actively encouraged the migration of populations from one part of the colonized world to the other, until the beginning of the 20^th century, as the era of decolonization began. It was when the colonized started changing the direction of movement and arriving in large numbers on hitherto white shores, that this world came to an end. It was at this moment that the restrictive international regime that we take for granted today came into operation. International travel would no longer be a simple matter of jumping into a boat and seeking your fortune elsewhere. International travel now follows definite rules. Capital and citizens of the former colonial world travel with practically no difficulty. Those from among the formerly colonized, like Goa, the Central American republics and North Africa have severe restrictions placed on them. When they do travel, they are seen as infiltrators, defilers of paradise and treated as terrorists.

Regardless of the legitimacy of every human being to free movement across the globe however, can this Goan applicant for the Portuguese passport in fact be seen as the infiltrator? The Goan travels to Portugal not through any favour extended by the Government of Portugal but by a right that dates from before the Liberation of Goa, from a time when all Goans were citizens of Portugal, and who lost the right to Portuguese citizenship as a result of the Indian action. The Goan applicant is in fact not applying for Portuguese citizenship; but merely initiating a process to reassert their eclipsed right to Portuguese citizenship. To brand them as infiltrators is not merely a grave misrepresentation, but belies a sinister agenda. Labeling as illegal those who migrate by right to Portugal serves not only to delegitimize their presence in Portugal and Europe, but goes further to delegitimize the very process through which they go to Portugal.

What is baffling however is that it is not a European or a Portuguese who is branding the Goan as infiltrator, but a Goan himself. The puzzle falls in place when we realize that the author is implying that only those who know about Portugal, intend to live there, and who do not have to beg, borrow, bribe or steal, have a natural right to get Portuguese citizenship. In Portuguese-Goa, this meant the upper-caste and upper-class Goan (across religions) who spoke Portuguese and knew about Portugal. While from 1910 all Goans regardless of religion were Portuguese citizens, the same was effectively realized only by this small group of ‘assimilated’ folk. They were members of a coterie that incarnated the Empire in Africa and considered Portugal another home. The veiled thrust of this argument is that it is this class alone that must benefit from Portuguese citizenship. What this argument is doing, however, is to also employ the logic of nationalism. The logic of nationalism turns the logic of citizenship on its head. It is not the state that exists for you, but you who must exist for the state. Thus, you must love your country, know all about it – and yes, promise to never leave it. A perfect case of man being made for the Sabbath. The logic of nationalism however, is also the logic that is used by the internal elite to control the masses of the state. Thus, you have this argument: “Don’t let all of them go to Portugal, restrict this ‘benefit’ to only those who know Portugal.” That is to say, allow the freedom of travel to those of us who are one of you – the elite who matter. Colonialism did not end with decolonization, it merely opened up another, more subtle front of exploitation. An external elite left, to allow the space for a local elite to work in tandem with the former. This was the compromise of decolonization. We’ll leave, and as long as you control your teeming huddled masses, we’ll recognize your right to travel freely when you want to. And clearly, this is exactly what is happening.

The Goan leaves Goa for a plethora of reasons. She leaves because there is no work to be found in a nepotistic banana republic governed by a few families. She leaves to take any menial job abroad because there is no respect for labour in Goa-India, and you don’t have to suffer casteist humiliation on a daily basis. That they would beg, borrow or steal is testament to their desperation to get out. That we would condemn their desperation speaks for the callousness of our regime. And at the end of the day, is it a sin to want a better life?

God did not create a world with boundaries. He created it so for a reason, so that we could go forth and satisfy our wants, enrich ourselves, share it with others and hand it over to others when their time comes. The boundaries have been erected by man. And boundaries fall. They fell in Jericho, they fell in Berlin, they will fall in Palestine, and through the movement of Goans and other emigrants across the world, they will inshallah fall all over God’s earth. And I know that I will live to see the day. Amen.

(Published in the Gomantak Times, 30 July 2008)

Rethinking the Goan 'Revolution'

Some weeks ago, in the heat of the summer, I heralded a revolutionary moment. As citizens took to the Gram Sabhas, I was sure, that coming on the heels of the opposition to the Regional Plan, we could expect revolutionary change in Goa. Via our raised voices in the Gram Sabhas, we would challenge a State that withdraws into silence when it comes to safeguarding our interests. We would also challenge a State that was colluding with the forces of global capital, as they sought to enrich themselves even as they pushed us into poverty. This challenge, would involve the assertion of the right of the people to ultimately determine the location of projects in their immediate locality. It would involve the assertion of people to the recognition of their basic rights to life and livelihood over the rights of speculative capital and obscenely disproportionate profits. It would, above all, lay the foundation for a reorganized State marked by dialogue at all levels, rather than diktats from the top. Reviewing events unfold however, I have for sometime now, been contemplating if it is possible that I erred in heralding this revolutionary moment. Was it a possible misdiagnosis, where what we see occurring in Goa is no revolution at all, but a fitna?

An Arabic word used in Islamic legal thought, fitna has a wide range of meanings – schism, sedition, defection, desertion- invariably used as a term of disapproval. The disapproval was the result of Islamic jurists who viewed negatively the crumbling of the Caliphate and the establishment of regional and local powers. In a marvelous work on the Maratha svarajya however, Andre Wink argues that we should understand fitna as a socio-political upheaval, one that in the original context implied the ‘forging of alliances’ and was the ‘normal mechanism of state-formation’. In the context that Wink examines -the Maratha challenge to the Mughal Empire - he argues that the Maratha svarajya was not a rupturing of the Mughal Empire, or a movement in protest. It was in fact a fitna; a re-altering of alliances between the Maratha state and the Mughal empire, with greater powers now being handed out to the regional power. The fitna was a mechanism of state-formation that saw ‘management by conflict’, rather than the ‘management of conflict’, as the key to political success.

Like the fitna a revolution also involve upheaval and conflict. However, it demands more than these aspects of instability. The Persian and Urdu word for revolution, Inquilab, allows us some insight into the demands that a revolution makes of us. Inquilab which signifies an overthrow has as its root the Arabic word for heart, qalb. It is the constant act of the heart, of overturning, pulsating, pumping with blood that allows qalb to be used as a root for inquilab. Qalb has however, also been translated to mean the mind, the spirit, or something that is innermost, something deep within. All of these multiple meanings rather than contradict each other, contribute to our understanding of what a revolution, or inquilab really is, or must be. It asks us to get to the heart or the essence of a matter. It asks us to turn things around, not only systematically, but to also view things from as many perspectives as possible. A third meaning, is akin to the act of ploughing, where we are exhorted to turn the soil of society, the soil of culture, or the soil of our soul. Those of us familiar with Christian symbolism will realize that it is only if the soil is turned, that is able to receive the seed that heralds new life. And so it is with the revolution that requires an overturning, not merely for the sake of opposition, but for the creation of a new order. This new order eventually asks not for superficial changes but for changes deep within the innermost recesses of our soil, and likewise of society.

Goa, I would now correct myself, is in the throes not of revolution, but of a fitna. Consider the fact that rather than focus on issues of equity, what we constantly seem to get drawn to are issues of outsiders/migrants taking over our land. If this is, as many of us keep arguing, not the real issue, why is it that we keep coming back to the outsider issue? One way of explaining this is to understand the events in Goa as born from the challenge being posed to our internal elite by a national and global elite. The social order in Goa is changing, and changing drastically. Old hierarchies are increasingly under challenge. One has only to look at the manner in which former establishmentarian newspapers that would block out significant events in Goa are being forced to change tactic owing to the arrival of the Times of India. If mining money was earlier being used to control state and society in Goa, today this monopoly is being challenged by money that pours in from the ‘outside’. If the local elite is to continue to retain its hold over local society therefore, it is imperative that they create a unified local opposition. There is no better way to create this unified local opposition than creating the bogeyman of the outsider.

While the Goan unrest will dissuade external investment in the short term, it has definite benefits to the local elite. The local elite displays its continued relevance to external elites wishing to invest in Goa by displaying its ability to mobilize the masses under the call to protecting our land from outsiders. The message is clear, cooperate with us since we hold the key to maintain the environment necessary for profitable investment. It seems to me that if we understand the unrest in Goa, as the mobilization of popular discontent, by existing elites we would understand the situation in Goa much better. For the sole reason that issues of livelihoods (that include employment) are heard less frequently than the calls to keep Goa beautiful, and that the outsider/migrant issue dominates, we can be sure that the popular discontent in Goa is a manipulation of popular discontent. There can be no doubt that there is popular discontent that is struggling to find utterance. The tragedy is that this discontent is being effectively manipulated by the dominant groups within the State. What we are currently witness to in Goa is really a management by conflict, as less relevant or non-issues are pushed forward as the bases to fight on.

The moment of both inquilab and fitna are moments of change. The moment of inquilab however allows for radical and equitable change, while fitna allows for conflict to be used as a management tool. As with the Maratha svarajya the model of governance does not change, it is merely one ruler that gets more power than the other. The peasant sees no difference. Goa will see revolutionary change if only we don’t get sidetracked by the non-issue of outsiders (conveniently identified in the past few days as the Muslim) that is propelling us, even exhorting us, toward violence.

(Published in the Gomantak Times 9 July 2008)

Majoritarianism and the Fascist threat to Democracy

Let us begin by thanking heaven for the miraculous growth of various groups in opposition to the corruption and autocracy that marks the Indian Republic in Goa at this point in our history. They push through the debris of our society, just as the mushrooms will soon push through the deadwood, providing flavourful nutrition to our meals. One such group was stuck on the name that it should adopt. A faction within the group suggested one name, while another proposed another divergent name. A member of the minority group indicated that she had firm ideological reservations with regard to one of the names and would find it difficult to participate in the operation of such a group. She pointed out that a name is not merely a name; it is also a statement of our politics and priorities. There was an uproar; pleas were made to her that we should all be united in our opposition to the challenge that Goa is facing. And yet she stood firm in her opposition. Regardless of her sentiments the issue was put to vote and the first name won the vote. It was now held that since the majority had won the ballot she should, in the democratic spirit acquiesce to the winning name, her reservations notwithstanding.

It is on this issue that I would like to intervene. Does the voice of the majority in fact constitute the democratic option? Or is there another more meaningful way in which we could contemplate democracy, especially in the context where via our ‘Revolution’ we are attempting to create a democratic Goa.

On the 27^th of May, the newly created Nehru Centre Goa, hosted a lecture by Mridula Mukherjee, Director of the Nehru Library in Delhi, and an acclaimed scholar. In the course of her lecture on Nehruvian Universalism, Mukherjee made a crucial observation. Never forget, she said, that Hitler was voted into power in the course of electoral politics. Fascism she pointed out rides on the energies of the people, it gains power from the collective voice of the majority people. And yet, not for one moment can we assume that fascist politics is democratic. If therefore, majoritarianism is not democracy in action, what is? And what role does the minority play in it?

Democratic politics is ideally not about the establishment of a final line, but about opening up the space for socio-political dialogue. It provides a dialogical basis for decision making. In the case above then, in the event of a majority, and the existence of a principled opposition to a point, is this majority capable of engaging in dialogue with the minority? If need be, is the majority capable of accommodating the minority position, if it does not violate any fundamental principles of the association? This would be an ideal democratic position. Unfortunately however, the Indian democracy has rejected taking to such a notion of democracy. Such a position as I argue for, has for a long time now, been called ‘minority appeasement’. This appeasement is deemed against the spirit of democracy, and it is this spirit that has shaped the Indian democracy into a simple game of majority politics.

Rather than the engagement in dialogue, the Indian democracy, has become the exercise of achieving goals. Those who stand in the way of those goals, by dissenting, even if for good reason, from the majoritarian position, are seen as threats to our unity and ultimately the nation. And so it is that we blame the Muslim who wishes to retain his beard, the tribal who refuses to give up her livelihood for the good of the nation, the ‘slum’ dweller who refuses to move out so that a high-rise can be built over her home. These dissenters are now seen as the problem, when in fact all they ask for is space to be different. These are dangerous trends in a democracy, especially when both in the electoral sphere, and the social, the majority is seen as having the right to determine the final position (solution) to issues that vex us. This position is a lot closer to fascism that we would like to admit. And yet, tragically, not a few of us are willing to acknowledge that the Indian democracy is in fact a society tethering on the brink of fascism

In our illustration for this discussion, the lady with the objection was asked to agree to the majoritarian position. We must be united, the majority argued, in the face of the opposition we face. And similarly are various minorities silenced into accepting the majoritarian position. These majorities, we should realise are produced, not by invoking unity, but enforcing uniformity.

This discussion on democracy, fascism, majorities and minorities is not without relevance to our Goan ‘revolution’. Those of us who are participants in this revolution realise that we are faced with decision-making at every step. In the course of this decision-making however, are we producing consensus by pushing some issues to the margins? Are we manufacturing consensus by creating priorities of threats? For example, as we unite Goa on the basis of the threat of real-estate scams, destruction of our environment and mega-housing projects, are we turning a blind eye to the communalization and the silent destruction of our society? In many cases in the attempt to create this ‘unity’ we are promoting people whose position on religious and other minorities are frankly fascist. When attempting to rally people to our cause, are we taking the easy way out and projecting the enemy as the outsider (the migrant) rather than exposing the class and caste divisions within our society that are creating the ground for the destruction of land in Goa?

The unity that is being created to pass Gram Sabha and other resolutions is tainted because it leaves the interests of Muslims, who are hounded in Salcette, it excludes the rights of tribals to land in Goa, and blames the migrant for the mess we have created for ourselves.

Democracy is about dialogue. If the upheaval in Goa is to lay the foundation for a Democratic Goa, it is imperative that we be open to dialogue, and constantly wrestle with the complex problems presently posed before us at. We ought not to simply squash it in the name of unity. There would be no space in our republic for an enforced uniformity in the guise of unity. Unity should mean the maintenance of space for difference and even conflicting opinions, and keeping open the space for dialogue. Uniformity on the other, asks that a particular point of view be silenced so as to create the image of unity in the likeness of the majority. This uniform agenda of the majority cannot be the basis for democracy it can only usher in a fascist polity.

(Published in the Gomantak Times 2 July 2008)

Thinking about Political Violence

Once again Manohar Parrikar has displayed his contempt for the democratic process. A false and irresponsible statement when sitting in a position of responsibility, without having any evidence to back up his statement, underlines his contempt for the citizens who he feels will gullibly swallow everything he says—and, even if they don’t, since there is no way they can curb him, who cares! This episode underlines his constant attempt to overthrow any existing government so that he has a chance to take over power. The role of an opposition is to wait out its time, and act as a watch-dog of the democratic process, not to take over power by engineering an unstable socio-political scenario. There is no doubt that Parrikar will continue with these irresponsible statements, since this is really the nature of his commitment to democracy. He may still get elected, but it is gradually becoming clear that if we do vote for him, we vote for his promises of autocracy, not the reign of a democratic rule of law. There is good cause to believe that the People’s movements have gotten as far as they have in Goa because Parrikar is not Chief Minister. He would have, as Chief Minister, dubbed us all Naxals and terrorists and thrown us without rights into jail.

Parrikar’s latest statement has nevertheless fulfilled an important task by introducing the idea of Naxalism into the Goan context. He has forced us to contemplate the place of acts of political violence as a way to address the injustices we are facing.

Any contemplation of acts of political violence must necessarily begin from the recognition that the act of political violence by the revolutionary or the activist is really the act of counter-violence. This fact was clearly pointed out at the multiple press conferences after Parrikar’s statement. The Goan people are victims of State terrorism. This is particularly true for those Goans in the mining belt who have silently borne this violence since Liberation. They are victims of State terrorism because the State refuses to recognise their right to a decent and dignified existence, and their rights to common property. The State encourages the privatization of common lands for the benefit of a few who effectively control the Government. When people protest peacefully and persistently, the violence of the State is unleashed on them, as has been done by the police in Colamb and Advalpal. Parrikar’s identification of Seby Rodrigues as a Naxal was another attempt to violently intimidate the people of Goa, and make one individual an example for the rest. Not enough importance has been given to the fact that Naxals are treated as terrorists, and regular rules of criminal procedure, that ensure the basic rights of the individual, have long since ceased to apply to the suspected terrorist.

The Goan State is the perpetrator of violence because it has emptied the State of the rule of law. The reason Gram Sabhas went on the rampage all through the summer, and the reason people are protesting on the streets on an almost daily basis, is because the State has stopped following the rules and regulations that it ought to be the guardian of. The State has shown us in numerous examples that it does not respect democratic processes, and acts only when it confronts violence. Thus the work on the IT Park in Dona Paula was stopped after active (though cowardly and reprehensible) acts of violence on the site. Similarly, the SEZ and the Regional Plan was stopped when the State was faced with the power of angry crowds. We must not forget that it was not regular procedure that got us the breathing space that we now enjoy but the threat of violence; revolutionary violence in the case of the SEZ and Regional Plan, and plain violence in the case of the IT Park.

Very clearly then, Goa is already in the grip of the logic of political violence. Initiated by the State this logic allows only violent acts to attract the attention of this bully State. We should not however, therefore presume that this violence by the State necessitates the shedding of blood or the destruction of physical infrastructure. Political violence is not limited to the act of blowing up people and buildings. Where silence is deliberately imposed on a people, it is an act of violence. The mere act of speaking up and gaining the attention of the State is therefore, in the context of a rogue State – the Goan State being prime example- an act of political counter-violence.

When Parrikar says that there are groups instigating people to violence, he continues to show his contempt of the intellectual capabilities of the citizen. One can be instigated only if one is not used to, or incapable of thinking. If people do take to more violent political acts, it is because they find no other way to express their anger and frustration toward the State. Parrikar himself does not deny that these feelings are rife in the mining area. The political establishment would do well to take note of this growing frustration in the State, and take steps necessary to prevent our collective slide into a spiral of bloodshed. Unfortunately rather than attempting to address the situation, they are still trying to maintain the status quo, where the system of an elected government responsible to the people is a farce. We have instead an elected government that is totally allied to the local capitalists in the State and does their bidding.

There are two broad options before the angry citizen in such a situation. One is the way of the mob, the other the way of the revolutionary. The violence of the mob is an unthinking violence. The mob does not really know why it does an act. It just knows that it is angry and does as it is directed. This violence eventually gets us nowhere, and is a violence that we do not need. It only serves as an opportunity for continued and heightened State repression and an eventual return to the status quo. Revolutionary violence on the other hand, is the conscious act of transgression by an individual or group that has an agenda for change. Such actions don’t necessarily call for destruction or bloodshed; in fact these may not even be necessary as Mahatma Gandhi, the greatest of the guerillas showed us. Consciously chosen acts of transgression of the rules that enforce silence is the way of the revolutionary. Every such action is no doubt prompted by the repressive State, but every action of the revolutionary disables the capacity of the State to act; it frustrates the logic of the State. An accumulation of a multitude of such conscious acts of transgression with a clear agenda in mind will get us a renewed Goa.

If Goa does see Naxal type violence, the State and its elite must be held wholly responsible for it. The role of the activist within this violent environment, is to direct the frustration of the citizenry toward revolutionary acts of transgression, away from the option of the mindless violence of the mob.

(Published in the Gomantak Times, 25 June 2008)