MYTHS ABOUT GOAN CULTURE
"If Goa was ruled for over 450 years by Portugal, is it not reasonable to expect and accept that the Goan way of life would be influenced by the foreign rule? Why make a big deal about Goa's Portuguese past when the Goa state and the Indian governments are pushing tourism in Goa precisely because of its Latin flavour?" The debate on the Goa-Portugal link continues... BY BEN ANTAO. MYTHS GALORE have been perpetrated about Goan culture over the past 30 years, myths that are directly forged by Indians from outside Goa and mostly from northern India. One such myth widely circulated by the tourism industry is that Goa is a fun place for sun, sand, sea and sex, booze and drugs, music, dance and good food. Another myth about the Goan way of life is generated by the Bollywood industry that continues to churn out movies showing Goan women as easily available floozies and men as pimps and drunks. Yet another myth concocted by writers of Indian origin - Salman Rushdie, Rohinton Mistry, Nirad Chaudhury, and V.S. Naipaul - has projected Goans not only in a bad light, but also in a pejorative manner designed to invite ridicule and derision. Take the tourism promotion of Goa. Who has been writing the publicity material emerging from the Goa government's publicity department? Most of it, if not all of it, is written by non-Goan Indians with axes to grind and make hay in the tropical Goan sun. Can you imagine the state of West Bengal or Tamil Nadu or Maharashtra giving the job of promoting their respective cultures to Goans? No way! Then why is the Goa government allowing non-Goans to project distorted images of Goa in the name of tourism, both domestic and foreign? DISTORTED IMAGES IN the 80s the tourism ads and billboards showed Goan women in see-through, half-naked forms that clearly insulted the women and degraded their dignity. In the Punjabi Village restaurant in Toronto that I used to visit in the early 80s, a Sikh waiter said to me with a lewd smile, "I've heard Goan girls are hot and easy." I shook my head negatively and told him he'd more likely find such women in Toronto. He never mentioned it again. There are many reasons for such negative images of Goa and Goans. But I don't wish to go into detail in this article, except to say the fault lies with the successive local governments that have encouraged this, beginning with the first CM Dayanand Bandodkar, who wanted Goa to merge with Maharashtra. Soon after assuming power in the 1963 elections, Bandodkar began recruiting Maharashtrians and other Hindu Indians to manage the government departments of the then Union territory. Even the head of the publicity department in 1963-64 was a non-Goan when qualified Goans were available. Bandodkar, with a pedigree of the kolvontam clan, was dead set against the Kshatriyas and Brahmins, both Hindus and Christians. Thus began the non-Goan invasion in the civil service, and today, 40 years later, the population of native Goans in the state is reported to be only 25 percent. Rane, the present CM, is an inspired Maharashtrawadi and was the CM in the 80s when the false and seductive images of Goa and Goans were projected in the name of boosting tourism. The wrong and banal images of Goa are still being publicized. What action, if any, did the freedom fighters take to correct such erroneous images? Did the editor Lambert Mascarenhas rage and rant against those tourism ads? Did the journalist Flaviano Dias lead a morcha through the Fontainhas area to the Azad Maidan and protest against the betrayal of Goan womanhood and correct the lies written by writers like Chaudhury, Naipaul, Rushdie and others? Instead, so many Goan writers and journalists seem to have accepted the malicious propaganda of these writers. As recently as two months ago, I was engaged in dialogue on the Internet with the well-known journalist Fredrick Noronha of Saligao on the issue of publishing. Fred wrote: "Having worked with the outstation media (mainly for news though), I appreciate how much of an uphill struggle it can be to get a story published *just* because it comes from Goa. On the other hand, people sitting in Delhi can afford to write books and get it published on just about any topic!" I replied as follows: "Yours is not only a perception but a reality. Personally I feel there is a prejudice against Goa stemming from the mainstream Hindu mentality that views Goa as a place for fun, sex and a good time. Sadly this prejudice has been fueled by the successive governments in Goa since Liberation and the tourism industry (remember the sexual tourism ads of the 80s?). So much of the Goan identity has been shaped by non-Goan writers from Delhi and other places as if they know Goa better than resident Goans themselves. Pity!" Fred replied: "Ben, I won't blame any mainstream Hindu mentality' here. It's just that cultural minorities tend to get misunderstood, regardless of what their religion is, and not just by Hindus. (sic) It happens to Muslims in the West, Buddhists in Kashmir, Hindus in Bali, and Goans, North Easterners, Andaman and Nicobar Islanders, and a whole lot of others who come from non- dominant cultural groups. Even Oriyas feel swamped by the Bengalis, Tamils by Keralites, etc. So we need not claim victim status exclusively for ourselves. (sic)" See what I mean? Instead of showing a readiness to admit, if not to correct the false impressions, Fred points to the minority situation, as if that makes it right if minorities are abused and derided, as if minorities should accept the wrong images contrived by majorities anywhere in the world. This is precisely what is happening in Goa since 1963. The government departments run by non-Goans are spreading false stories and the journalists are taking them lying down. I can imagine them talking and laughing out loud about this over chai at Café Prakash, the unofficial press club in Panjim at the edge of Azad Maidan. But if the reporter dares to write the truth, he knows full well that he will be fired by the employer whose first priority is to make a profit, not to upset the minister or the official of the government. And so the native Goan journalists, smart and intelligent as any in India or abroad, are constantly working in and out of a conscious dilemma, whether to write the truth as they know it or be fired. This predicament, seemingly, has surfaced once again to taunt Goan journalists and opinion dispensers in the recent unhealthy noise created by some non- native Goans and supported by a couple of politically inspired freedom fighters that the Portuguese influence on Goan culture must not be encouraged. This must indeed be the lowest point that politics has sunk in Goa today. Have these rabble-rousers and recipients of "freedom fighter" pensions nothing better to do? Are they happy that the garbage mess has been cleared?Are the roads free of potholes? Have Goans been getting uninterrupted supplies of electricity? What is the status of bribery at the village panchayat level? Is the Hospicio in Margao less filthy today than when I saw it in 2004? Has police corruption been brought under control? Whatever happened to the child labour and molestation case involving the editor of an English newspaper? Has the Heraldo newspaper fired its editor for plagiarism? So what's the problem with Goan culture? Are these new fanatics so ignorant and narrow-minded to deny that a culture is influenced by the governments of the day? Is Indian culture today not influenced by Microsoft and IT industries? If Goa was ruled for over 450 years by Portugal, is it not reasonable to expect and accept that the Goan way of life would be influenced by the foreign rule? Why make a big deal about Goa's Portuguese past when the Goa state and the Indian governments are pushing tourism in Goa precisely because of its Latin flavour? Or are the Hindu fundamentalists of the Sangh Parivar so blinded by self-righteousness that they would turn India into a Hindu nation, even if they cannot see beyond their noses? Thankfully and mercifully, the majority of Hindu Indians are a sophisticated people, educated and wise, tolerant and compassionate, in the moulds of a Mahatma Gandhi and a Rabindranath Tagore. Last week I saw an exhibition of Tagore's works at the John Robarts Library in Toronto. It was a celebration of Tagore's writings after 60 years of his death in 1941. What an irony that in Canada we are upholding and celebrating the best in the Indian consciousness, whereas in Goa, the BJP and Hindutva adherents are bringing the name of India down. Shame! Shame! These Hindutva converts should go to Delhi and view the Red Fort, a fort that Akbar the Great built in the 17th century, a Muslim emperor whose wife was a Hindu! What a fusion of Muslim and Hindu, eh! A true Tantrism! These Hindutva lemmings would even demolish the Taj Mahal, if given half a chance by the politicians, and find a Ram temple underneath the mausoleum, just as they claimed in Ayodhya! This is a road to madness but fortunately the real Hindu Indians, a vast majority, have not lost their senses and would never allow such a reversal and revision of history. So, too, must the true Goans fight to keep Goan culture as is. They must not allow non-Goans to define Goan culture and what it will be. Goa is a unique part of India. And the non-Goans who happen to be in the majority in the state today, only because of political expediency and business opportunism, should accept Goa as is and enjoy it. (ENDS) The above article appeared in the December 17, 2005 issue of the Goan Observer, Goa and has been reproduced with permission from the author. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Goa - 2005 Santosh Trophy Champions | | | | Support Soccer Activities at the grassroots in our villages | | Vacationing in Goa this year-end - Carry and distribute Soccer Balls | --------------------------------------------------------------------------
