http://epaper.heraldgoa.in/viewpage.php?edition=oHeraldo&edid=OHERALDO_GOA&date=2023-05-30&pn=1#Page/15
On my recent visit to Pondicherry, the contemporary plight of Goa was constantly being referenced as the cautionary tale that former French India wanted to avoid at all costs. It is a strategy that has worked well since decolonization, when Paris cannily played “good imperialist” to contrast with Portuguese dictator’s Salazar’s deranged intransigence, and managed to get such an excellent deal from New Delhi that the French flag only finally came down in 1962, with umpteen benefits for Franco-Indians that Goans can only dream about. Today it is the nakedly criminal misgovernance in Goa, and the catastrophic demographic displacement underway in India’s smallest state, that stakeholders in Pondicherry seek to circumvent by any means necessary. They have seen how every environmental, economic, cultural and social advantage has been ground to smithereens by an incompetent, venal and selfish political cadre in just a few decades, and justifiably congratulate themselves for having evaded a similar fate. Again and again, from all different walks of society, I was told “we’re better off than you because this place remained a Union Territory. Your first mistake was becoming a state.” There is perverse irony to this conclusion, which labels democracy the culprit for Goa’s contemporary plight, because Goans have single-mindedly sought equality on democratic principle for hundreds of years, starting from the clear-eyed demands of my fellow-islander from Divar, the first Indian bishop Dom Matheus de Castro, who upset Portuguese relations with the Mughal court under Shah Jehan by unstintingly pointing to colonial discrimination, and kept demanding that Goans should never be treated as less than anyone else. This trait horrified the British, who kept the rest of India comfortably at-heel in their Raj, as you can see in Richard Burton’s entertainingly bilious 1851 *Goa, and the Blue Mountains; Or, Six Months of Sick Leave*: “The black Indo-Portuguese is an utter radical. He has gained much by Constitution, the “dwarfish demon” which sets everybody by the ears at Goa. Although poverty sends forth thousands of black Portuguese to earn money in foreign lands, they prefer the smallest competence at home, where equality allows them to indulge in a favourite independence of manner utterly at variance with our Ango-Indian notions concerning the proper demeanour of a native towards a European.” This week, India has Savarkar on its mind, so it’s useful to revisit the kind of language that British colonial subject deployed in his famous petition for mercy in 1913: “If the government in their manifold beneficence and mercy release me, I for one cannot but be the staunchest advocate of constitutional progress and loyalty to the English government which is the foremost condition of that progress. I am ready to serve the Government in any capacity they like, for as my conversion is conscientious so I hope my future conduct would be. The Mighty alone can afford to be merciful and therefore where else can the prodigal son return but to the parental doors of the Government?” Such craven supplication isn’t exclusive to Savarkar, of course, though it must be noted many Indians never grovelled to that degree, but contrast directly to how Francisco Luis Gomes expressed himself in the Portuguese parliament in 1861, when he roundly denounced slavery on moral grounds, and refused to countenance inequality in the imperial writ. Look at his letter to Lamartine, full 50 years before Savarkar’s prostrations: “I was born in the East Indies, once the cradle of poetry, philosophy and history and now their tomb. I belong to that race which composed the Mahabharata and invented chess. But this nation which made codes of its poems and formulated politics in a game is no longer alive! It survives imprisoned in its own country. I demand for India liberty and light; as for myself, more happy than my countrymen, I am free – civis sum.” Gomes illustrates a curious paradox that defines the singularity of Goan history. The terrific Lisbon-based historian Ângela Barreto Xavier summarizes succinctly in her landmark 2022 book, *Religion & Empire in Portuguese India: Conversion, Resistance, and the Making of Goa*: “the majority of the population of the villages of the Old Conquests consented to live under Portuguese imperial rule. This consent was essential for the invention of Goa as well as for the conservation of Portuguese imperial power. The manifestations of this consent were not limited to contributing to the economic, financial and military sustainability of the imperium: the consent was internalised to the extent that the imperial cause became, for many, their own.” This is super-important, because consent is at the heart of democratic principle, and the facts of our history present a conundrum that is perhaps best posed in question form. If we accept, per Barretto Xavier, that many Goans prior to 1961 “stopped seeing themselves as colonized” and saw the Estado as reflecting their aspirations, then how do we compute the reality that most Goans today see themselves and their homeland as besieged to breaking point, on the verge of extinguishment by forces of greed unleashed precisely under the “freedoms” following “liberation”? Here, the invaluable Goa University historian Parag Parobo’s 2018 paper *The State, Networks and Family Raj in Goa* skilfully condenses the relevant history: “The first election to the Union Territory of Goa, Daman and Diu was held in 1963, two years after Goa’s liberation from Portuguese rule on 19 December 1961. At that time, the Congress party had launched its campaign much before the election was announced and was confident of a win owing to its legacy and Jawaharlal Nehru’s role in the liberation of Goa. The United Goans Party (UGP) and the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP), created only months before the election, emerged as two important regional parties.” Enter the key player: “Dayanand Bandodkar, a Gomantak Maratha (stereotyped popularly as devadasi, a caste consolidating social groups skilled in poetry, song and dance, serving patrons/temples, and women intimately related to temple rituals) by caste and a mine-owner, led the MGP and launched its election campaign on the issues of land reforms, the empowerment of the bahujan samaj—a loose conglomeration of lower castes—and the merger of Goa with the neighbouring state of Maharashtra.” Parobo explains that “the UGP was led by Dr Jack de Sequeira, a Catholic Brahmin landlord who campaigned to counter the merger with Maharashtra and strove to protect a ‘distinct’ Goan identity. Goa’s first election surprised not only the Congress—which was not able to win a single seat in Goa—but also the victorious MGP and brought to power a government driven by the bahujan samaj and headed by Bandodkar. The UGP was the second-largest party and Dr Sequeira emerged as the leader of the opposition. The two would lead their parties again in the 1967 and 1972 elections, to perform the same responsibilities—government and opposition, respectively. Bandodkar and Dr Sequeira exercised considerable hold over their parties through extensive personal networks, and in doing so, perpetrated dynastic politics.” Those initial dynastic politics, although not at the hand of either the Bandodkars or Sequeiras, accompanied by pernicious feudalism and casteism, have persisted amongst the foremost banes of democracy in Goa, where it is a matter of considerable shame that women – who long since leapfrogged ahead of Goan men in educational and professional attainment – remain disgracefully under-represented in leadership. Just imagine - there are three highly qualified Goan women in the UK Parliament at this moment, including two Cabinet ministers, but only three in our entire state legislature, and all of those have minor responsibilities (at best) besides owing their seats to “strongmen” spouses. Even worse is the openly criminal nexus between Goa’s politicians and bureaucrats, and unscrupulous special interests – casinos, real estate, destructive mass-market tourism – that has rapidly brought democratic Goa to its knees. Parobo again: “The second phase of family raj in Goa begins with the attainment of statehood on 30 May 1987. From a Union Territory comprising a 30-seat assembly, Goa became a state with an enlarged 40-seat assembly. Statehood enhanced the administrative hold of politicians over the state. The advent of a neoliberal economic regime that began in the 1990s created new opportunities for economic control over the resources of the state. Ostensibly, the state has withdrawn from the economy through policies of delicensing and removing barriers to private sector and de-reservation. However, the state’s control has been relocated by its hold over resources such as land, raw materials, credit, entry into formerly reserved sectors and a favourable interpretation of regulations. Goa illustrates the pro-business state which is more of a facilitator of private businesses, rather than an overseer of a larger market where competitive market dynamics determine the allocation of resources.” There are pro-business states run responsibly (see Tamil Nadu) but that has not happened in Goa, where governance has instead been reduced to callous pimping of everything the Goans cherish. Would it have been different if statehood hadn’t been achieved? In my opinion it’s a blasphemous suggestion, because previous generations have striven for freedom and equality on sacred democratic principles. Nonetheless, it cannot be denied we have reached a desperate juncture despite democracy and statehood, with rogue politicians and their cronies running roughshod against the will and interests of their own constituencies. It’s difficult to figure out what might rescue Goa before all is lost, but we cannot shy away from acknowledging the comprehensive dereliction of duty that we are witnessing from the elected “leadership”. That plight has been clear for many years, as we were reminded by the High Court of Bombay at Goa in its 2018 judgement against re-starting mining: “we are surprised at the vehemence at which the State has asserted the right of the mining lease holders. We got a feeling that the dividing line was blurred. A neutral, balanced and measured response by the State would have been more appropriate and commensurate with its role. This sharp contrast in the State response in respect of these two ends of the mining spectrum, the Mining Affected and the Mining Beneficiaries, is too stark for us not to notice. We write it here because it pains our conscience.”
