Re-presenting and Inventing Goa
by Jason Keith Fernandes
When Goa was still a toddler as a country newly liberated from colonial
oppression, debates raged in various fora over the matter of her identity.
Was she as the Portuguese colonial establishment averred a part of
Portugal, Goa Portuguesa, or was she an integral part of India, the land
mass of which she was physically part of, Goa Indica? Much anger was
vented, much ink spilled, and in time the debate lost political relevance
when Portugal herself found liberation from dictatorship. Forced
themselves, to suffer a repressive regime, the newly liberated citizens of
Portugal disavowed the colonial dream and that was the end of the
Portuguese empire. Goa Portuguesa now lived on only in the dreams of a few.
But the cultural debate is perhaps far from over, and there is still a
substantial majority who live in the belief that Goa is a part of Europe, a
charming little Mediterranean outpost in the heart of the Oriental third
world. Strangely though, I realised only the other day that perhaps the
heavy weight votaries of this view live not in Goa, but outside of it!
I was leafing through the local newspaper when a strange image caught my
eye, framed by an even stranger caption. It read 'Showcasing Goan Culture:
Traditional Goan dancers perform at a press review of the Republic Day
parade in New Delhi...' I stared hard at the image, it showed some nubile
young things in Hawaiian print shirts and for the life of me, in all my 28
years in Goa, I had not come across this peculiar tradition or dance in
Goa. Now why and how was Goa as a part of the west, being celebrated right
at the very heart of the Indian democratic republic? What does it mean,
when year after year Goa is depicted as a land of perpetual Carnival
makers, simple fishermen and primitive tribals. A land solely of fun and
frolic, dance and drink and wild abandon that few can imagine in the rest
of India?
Given that the Republic Day parade is the most symbolic of state events, we
could argue that what these tableaux represent is nothing short of the
official sanction given to the project of systematically converting Goa
into the pleasure periphery of India. The piece of the West/Europe in India
where rules of Indian morality don't apply and everything goes. Goa
therefore is officially the opposite to India, existing as some sort of
Neverland, the anti-thesis of everything Indian. And this does not cater to
any cultural constituency in Goa, for few Goans recognise this
representation to be the land they live out their lives in.
The result of this policy is that while those in the tourist business are
laughing all the way to the bank, they are the only ones laughing! The
cultural implications of this project are nothing to laugh at. This annual
and constant representation of Goa curbs the manner in which Goa can be
thought about. You can only 'rock in Goa' or get smashed out of your mind;
Goa or Goans are hardly things you can take seriously. One only has to look
at the manner in which a perfectly sensible film festival is turned into a
free for all carnival to grasp the point. Is it surprising that cerebrally
challenging employment options don't get located in Goa? Or that while any
amount of academic retreats take place in Goa, academic institutions
themselves languish in this otherwise culturally and intellectually vibrant
state?
This representations of Goa as the exotic 'Other' of India sets up power
equations that is generative of profound inequality. The use of the
physical space of Goa is determined overwhelmingly by economic forces
outside of Goa, and the capacities of the Goan except for entertainment are
undermined which go toward the creation of a weaker bargaining position in
the market driven world of today. The power to be able to represent oneself
is therefore crucial to the recovery of power. Perhaps the act of
contesting the current process of representation would bear more fruit if
we had an eye to the dynamics of India as a whole, rather than limiting our
gaze solely to the backyard politics of Goa.
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The column above appeared in Gomantak Times dated 26th January 2006.
Please send feedback to Jason at <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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