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By Vivek Menezes/VM
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
In the oldest part of Mexico City, the Plaza de Las Tres
Culturas, is an amazing historical site surrounded by urban
sprawl. This is the ancient Aztec city of Tlatelolco, the
last significant holdout against the Spanish invasion led by
Hernan Cortes.
Just a few years after Goa had fallen to the
Portuguese (in 1510), the same thing happened on a
much more devastating scale to the giant Aztec
empire. On August 13, 1521, the Spanish overran
Tlatelolco, slaughtering perhaps 40,000 warriors, a
massacre so bloody that even the Conquistadores
were shaken. Wrote Cortes himself, "So loud was the
wailing of the women and children that there was
not one man among us whose heart did not bleed at
the sound."
A few years ago, I stood on that very spot with bright
sunlight dappling the surrounding buildings. In front,
original Aztec ruins, on one side a rugged colonial-era
church (dedicated to Santiago, the patron of the Spanish
invaders), and all around us the sounds and sight of snarled
traffic that characterizes modern Mexico.
All of us present were riveted by the message on a plaque
that marked the spot. Roughly translated from Spanish, it
read "heroically defended by Cuauhtémoc, Tlatelolco fell to
the power of Cortés. This was neither a triumph nor a
defeat. It was the painful birth of the nation that is Mexico
today."
Reading this, my mind immediately turned to my own
homeland that had fallen to the Iberians in the
same era, and I could not help but be struck by the
wisdom displayed in those last two lines written in
the name of the Mexican people. They display
maturity which is still largely absent on all sides
of the Goan identity divide.
We Goans are still beset by the most fundamental questions,
and cannot agree on the answers. Who are the Goans? What is
Goan culture? Nearly 50 years after decolonization in Goa,
and more than 60 years after Independent India came to life,
the ideological divides show no signs of fading away, and the
sides arrayed against each other have only increased their
bitter attacks.
Even as we move into a hopeful new millennium, even as
information technology erases the significance of borders,
Goans are still divided into camps which will pelt each other
with the same old canned accusations -- like "liberation" and
"invasion" -- without pausing to understand the real
validities of each other's position.
But the truth is never a zero sum game.
It is not our fault alone. Until very recently, it has been a
very great failure of the Indian intelligentsia to comprehend
and assimilate the Goan colonial experience, which was
markedly different and occasionally diametrically opposed to
the variant exercised in much of the rest of India during the
British Raj.
Ironically, the main substance of the Indian intelligentsia's
response to the Goan experience is directly cobbled and
cribbed from British prejudices against the Estado da India,
(as articulated in Richard Burton's bilious, hilarious 1851
book, 'Goa and the Blue Mountains'), ugly and simplistic
stereotypes which have been sustained all the way into
Bollywood's perennially louche Makapaos.
To a large extent, this caricature is the mainstream Indian
view: Goans are inauthentically Indian, deracinated,
denationalized and pitiable. And of course -- especially if
they have Catholic names -- they can never ever be "really
Indian" no matter what.
Un-amusingly, this is almost exactly the same viewpoint taken
by Portuguese colonialist propaganda . Throughout 451 years
of occupation by Portugal, the authorities attempted to
insert a wedge between their subjects (especially, but not
only, the converts) and the rest of India.
These attempts never succeeded no matter how zealous or
heavy-handed the efforts .Thus, Hinduism was not stamped out
but instead flourished. And rather than eliminating Hindu
customs from the convert, these customs (such as caste)
actually became centrally significant to Goan Catholicism.
Even the mother-tongue bounced back with great vigour,
despite scorched-earth policies against it arguably emerging
stronger than before to enjoy full official status as a
national language of India, with a resurgent literature. The
record of resistance and refusal to capitulate is long and
detailed and inarguable.
Our story, the Goan story exists at the margins of
much grander, and perhaps more compelling,
narratives. The nuances and twists of the Goan
tryst with destiny can thus seem quite
insignificant and even opposed to the blockbuster
Indian nationalist story, which comes complete with
patriotic soundtrack and that familiar, stirring
narrative of satyagraha, self-reliance and the
saintly, charismatic leadership of Mahatma Gandhi.
But these are just perceptions which do not even come close
to accurately representing the historical reality. The truth
is that Goans have generated nationalist heroes aplenty --
like Francis Luis Gomes, who was talking about an independent
India to a European audience a solid 50 years before
Vivekananda.
Besides, the Goans have taken a back seat to no one in the
making of modern India before and after 1947. And their role
is especially visible in the formation of a post-colonial
cultural expression for modern, independent India. To
understand why, we have to explore the seeds of globalization
which were planted in the Konkan. After all, the Estado da
India was not simply the passive object of a "civilizing
exercise" by the Portuguese. It became a "civilizer" in
turn, and Goans have played the role of sophisticated culture
brokers ever since.
A ready-made example is available for our analysis thanks to
the painstaking efforts of Dr. Pedro Monteiro, graduate of
the Escola Medica Ciugica de Goa, now Goa Medical College,
the very first institution of its type in Asia.
From the 1850's onwards, Dr. Monteiro notes that trained
doctors flowed out of the Estado da India to serve overseas
across the arc of Portuguese colonial outposts stretching
from Cabo Verde and Sao Tome e Principe to Guinea and Angola
and Mozambique all the way to Timor. But even before that, it
was trainees from Goa's Hospital Real who opened the first
western-style hospital in Japan, and several similar
institutions in Osaka, Nagasaki and other cities, thus
introducing allopathic medicine to Japan.
It is impossible to ignore the differences between British
and Portuguese colonialism. The Goans have intimate
experience of both, absorbed cultural influences from both,
and with particular devotion followed the former power (which
could much better afford their services) around the world for
more than two centuries. The primary difference from the Goan
perspective is that the Portuguese came to India possessed
with a fearsome religious zealotry which repeatedly disrupted
life in the territory with the equivalent of pogroms and
ethnic cleansing.
Unlike most previous invaders, there was no modus vivendi
offered to most of the early subjects -- the choice was
conversion (and retention of lands and privileges) or
expulsion (or worse).
To make matters more interesting, the new Estado da India was
awash in profits from the new sea routes to Europe. With push
and pull factors like these, it is not surprising that many
stakeholders of sixteenth-century Goa chose to stay in their
homeland. Within the span of a single generation, these
individuals became the first Westernized Asians. Today, we
should celebrate them as great pioneers of the globalized world.
After everything, this is the legacy of the colonial period
in Goa. It brought hardship and heartbreak, and there can be
no excuses for the crimes committed on our soil, but the
story does not end there. Because of the colonial experience
the Goan was thrust into contact with Europe (itself entering
a period of centuries of global dominance) long before the
rest of the subcontinent (the Portuguese held Goa before the
Mughals took Delhi), and the nature of this experience led to
unusual, even uncanny, cultural fluidity.
If the Goan had to be fully Portuguese while in
Panjim, and wholly Konkani while at home, it was
not too much to assimilate other cultures, even to
become exemplars and standard-bearers of other
cultures! Thus we begin to understand Pio Gama
Pinto and Aquino Braganza, African nationalists who
died for identity politics that had nothing to do
with Goa, or Dinesh D'Souza , who became an
American in adulthood, yet occupies the vanguard of
the nativist right wing of the Republican party.
Fascinating and rich as it is, the global diaspora story of
the Goans is minor in comparison to the Goan dispersal in
India itself. During the Raj, combination of powerful push
and pull factors again came into play, with the result that
Goans poured out of the state in significant numbers in order
to take advantage of increasing British demand for their
services -- cooks and tailors and clerks, but also seamen and
clerks and musicians. Goans took to English education and
Western certifications very early, and their proximity to the
Raj's rulers gave them opportunity to develop close
familiarity with yet another European culture.
The example of my beloved maternal grandfather, W. X.
Mascarenhas is illustrative. He was a rare native member of
the Indian Corps of Engineers and presented himself
impeccably as a brown sahib to his colleagues, while
continuing to play the favoured son in fluent Konkani to his
mother.
When nationalist politics became pointed, and egged on by his
fervently patriotic brother, the priest H. O. Mascarenhas, he
and came out on the side of the Congressmen seeking to rule
an independent nation. Perfectly accoutred once again in
resplendent bandgallah, we have favourite family photos of
him stalking through the site of the NDA in Khadakvasla
(Pune) with Nehru. This time the images project a wholly
different persona -- the nation-building Indian nationalist.
And then in his old age, there he was, wearing a linen suit
and solar topee to his club every day.
Rather then seeing these images (which are plentiful in all
of our memories) as evidence of cultural schizophrenia, or
worse (like that obsolete concept, "denationalized"), they
emerge as a great strength of the Goan character.
An amazing adaptability allows him to shuffle and
restructure his projected identity almost at will.
This is not unknown in the rest of India -- Nehru
comes to mind, the Harrovian and Cambridge-educated
millionaire's son who quite accurately described
himself as "the last British ruler of India" but
for parochial reasons the Goan cultural fluidity is
derided, while Chacha Nehru and his ilk are
iconized as great Indians. The double standard is
palpable, and it still hurts.
It was during Nehru's own time that the Goan provided his
greatest services to modern India. The nation-in-waiting came
into being, and there was an immediate need for a clean break
from the past, for self-confident, post-colonial voices to
emerge to speak for this new country.
Very often, it was the Goans who seized the day. Already
comfortable with shifting identity roles, already fluent in
European languages and comfortably global in outlook, they
were perfectly situated. Looked at this way, it is only
natural that Frank Moraes took over the reins of the Times of
India after the last British editor, or that the nascent
Indian advertising sector was dominated by Goans, or even
that the BCCI came into being as the personal fiefdom of A.
S. de Mello.
The outsized role played by Goans in the development of
contemporary Indian culture comes most sharply intro focus in
the case of art, as also the perennial problems of denial and
obfuscation.
Look at the case of Antonio Xavier Trindade, a prodigiously
talented painter who managed to gain a prized position in the
faculty of the J. J. School of Art in Bombay at the turn of
the 20th century.
Trindade was celebrated as 'Rembrandt of The East' for his
portraits. The rest of his work is startling to view even
today -- his approach is far more modern than you might
expect, and his technique and chosen themes very strongly
reflect his Goan upbringing. But no one seems to have
perceived this (other than his family, and now 21st century
viewers) so -- typically for a Goan artist -- his very
obvious identity is flat out denied. For all intents and
purposes in Indian art history, Trindade has nothing to do
with Goa and is instead the best-appreciated member of the
Bombay School of painting.
It's not much different for the powerhouse pair of Vasudeo
Gaitonde and Francis Newton Souza, who remained friends for
life, an are two of the handful of Indian artists whose works
now break auction records.
Souza gained notoriety as the so-called "enfant
terrible" of Indian art, but he died without ever
selling a painting for even one-hundredth of the
price some of them get at auction today. Souza's
work reflected Goa and his Goan childhood all
through the fifty years of his career -- his most
recent big-seller at auction is a straightforward
rendition of the Saligao-Calangute road. You
cannot even to begin to understand his work unless
you spend time exploring his ancestral village, yet
this has never been done by any of the
establishment critics who have emblazoned his
status as "Indian Master".
Much worse is Gaitonde's case, where conventional wisdom has
it that he isn't even Goan! Though born to a family in
diaspora in Maharashtra, no one was more aware of his
connections and debt to Goa than the artist himself. He
acknowledged this by dedicating his painting 'Monsoon'
(embedded with images derived from the prehistoric rock
carvings of Goa) to Souza, and you can literally see the
tones of the Konkan countryside in his work.
Gaitonde is now classified as part of the Progressive Artists
Movement, and that is meant to be the final word. Goa and the
Goan connection wasn't even mentioned when he died. What is
more, even today the Indian art establishment is highly
resistant to reminders of the Goan connection.
And so to Angelo da Fonseca, whose life and death in
obscurity neatly encapsulates the urges and energies, and
failures and humiliations, of the Goan Indian nationalist.
Born to one of the richest land-owning families of Goa,
Fonseca was swept along with nationalist sentiment while
studying medicine at Grant Medical College in Bombay. When he
decided to become an artist, he spurned offers to study with
Trindade at the JJ School, instead dedicating himself to
being a truly Indian artist by becoming a sisya of the
Tagores at Shantiniketan. Fonseca was a prodigy, a prized
pupil of both Abanindranath and Rabindranath Tagore, as well
as the head of the art department, Nandalal Bose.
Fonseca did everything a Goan could do to become an Indian
painter -- he studied miniatures, and absorbed the lessons
inherent in the paintings of Ajanta and Ellora. He slowly
developed his own formal style within the Shantiniketan
school of Bengali painting.
All of this was to bear on what he considered his
life's work -- a wholly Indian Christian
iconography that is organically derived from the
ancient artistic traditions of the subcontinent.
It is an eye-popping and unforgettable oeuvre,
which has caught the eye of significant individuals
including Gandhi, and, believe it or not, Adolf
Hitler.
Alas, this attention was a rarity in a life spent in
near-total obscurity. For the first thing that happened to
Fonseca upon his return home to Goa, after Shantiniketan, is
that the colonial church objected to his Konkani Madonnas and
sadhu-looking saints.
The resultant clamour led to his ignominious flight from Goa
-- all for being too Indian for the Portuguese. Alas, his
treatment in British India was not much better; the Catholic
Church still hounded him wherever he went, and he soon found
that he was too Portuguese for the British, and
simultaneously too Western for the Indians. Instead of trying
be all things to all people -- also a common Goan trait--
Fonseca found himself ignored, and treated as disreputable by
all sides.
It would have destroyed a lesser man. But Fonseca turned back
to the work, and upto his death in 1967 he produced one of
the greatest, most unique and powerful bodies of work of any
artist anywhere in the 20th century. In the light of 2008, he
appears to be a great genius whose importance in the
development of early modernism in India is rivaled perhaps by
only Raja Ravi Varma.
Fonseca was lucky. His legacy heroically defended
by his widow, Ivy. She held on to his work, as
doggedly as he pursued it.
In a magnificent gesture, she has endowed the entire
collection into the safe hands of the XCHR in Porvorim, which
has undertaken to establish a world-class museum in Fonseca's
name. The XCHR has already begun to acquire important works
by other Goan artists. The intention is to start to reclaim
our story from the narratives that have intervened to subvert
our own.
This is essential spadework that the Goans have lacked in the
contemporary era. The lack of it has contributed to the myths
that bedevil us, and confuse those who attempt to come to
terms with Goa. The lesson is that we have to write our own
story, because no one else has any interest in getting it
right. This compilation of essays and images is one attempt
to do just that.
--
This article was written for Semana de Cultura, Goa, 2008.
