https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/why-goa-cm-is-talking-about-wiping-out-portuguese-influence/articleshow/100897928.cms?from=mdr
Earlier this week on June 6, at an event in the coastal village of Betul that commemorated the 350th anniversary of Shivaji’s coronation, the chief minister of Goa declared that “after 60 years we are trying to wipe out the traces of the Portuguese and start afresh. This is the need of the hour.” His bellicose posturing quickly garnered national headlines, along with some international attention, but the reality in India’s smallest state is completely different. For just one example, this very weekend on June 11, the filled-to-capacity Portugal Day celebrations in the state capital of Panjim will be hosted at the 17th century Palacio dos Maquinezes premises of the Entertainment Society of Goa, which is chaired by the very same chief minister, Dr. Pramod Sawant. That is only the beginning of the ironies and contradictions, because Portugal and India have been close allies for decades, and – entirely to the credit of the diplomatic corps in Lisbon and New Delhi – actually present the best model of post-colonial partnership anywhere in the world. The main reason is precisely the unique history forged in the crucible of globalization that was the 451-year colonial Estado da India in Goa, but there is also exceptionally warm personal rapport between prime minister Narendra Modi and his counterpart António Costa, who is not only Goan, but also the first major world leader to proudly possess overseas citizenship of India (with two additional Goans serving in his Cabinet for most of his tenure). Make no mistake: it is only the profound impact of Portugal in India (and vice versa) that cemented the remarkable bond between Modi and Costa, with innumerable spillover effects for their two countries. Thus, when the Portuguese PM made his first official visit to the land of his ancestors in 2017 as the chief guest at that year’s Pravasi Bharatiya Diwas, both countries released stamps “to commemorate 500 years of diplomatic relations”. Later that year, on his own first official visit to Portugal, the Indian PM hailed Costa as “the best of the Indian diaspora across the world” and took visible pleasure in handing over his OCI card. Two years afterwards in 2019, at the specific request of the PMO, the Portuguese leader once again visited India to serve on the Organising Committee overseeing the global commemorations of the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi (Bapu@150). It should be noted all this is an ideological anomaly, that is firmly grounded in “the traces of the Portuguese in India” which Sawant finds objectionable, because António Costa’s Socialist Party (or PS for Partido Socialista) is on the opposite side of the political spectrum from Narendra Modi’s BJP: unshakeably liberal and progressive, strongly pro-immigration, and friendly to refugees. When the PS swept past the right to win big in midterm elections in 2019, the Indian PM tweeted “Congratulations to @psocialista and my friend @antoniocostapm. Looking forward to continuing working together to further enhance India-Portugal friendship” and got this response from Costa: “Thank you Prime Minister and dear friend@narendramodi. Also looking forward to continuing deepening the friendship between India and Portugal and our Peoples.” If such celebratory “bhai-bhai” has become the bedrock of India’s contemporary relations with Portugal, which Sawant has also enthusiastically participated in – most recently during the 2020 visit of the President of Portugal to Goa – why is the chief minister grandstanding about issues long resolved by the passage of time? The first thing to remember is that is his job: the main reason this notably weak and constantly beleaguered CM has maintained his position against aggressive challenges from his own party is his willingness to mouth these kinds of extremist talking points to satisfy his bosses from outside Goa, no matter how damaging to his own reputation, or contrary to the sentiments of citizens of the state. This has played out many times, to the obvious horror of most voters, but seemingly to some gain for Sawant from his political handlers and the “high command.” That is why he keeps on doing it, especially appalling Goans last year by proclaiming he wanted to be like Yogi Adityanath - “he inspires me with his method and style of functioning” - and then railing against religious conversions “even by mistake”. Then, when he took office again after barely retaining his own seat in the most recent elections – his main challenger was reportedly bankrolled by a Cabinet colleague – he began ratcheting up the rhetoric. The CM flamboyantly set aside 20 Crores in the state budget for “rebuilding” temples destroyed in the 16th and 17th centuries, before declaring that his government was unable to find official records (which are actually in the state library) so would proceed to act on “information in the public domain.” There is dark comedy to Sawant’s shenanigans, but they also illustrate the deeply unfunny collapse of democratic governance in Goa, which has once again become the poster child for party-switching and corruption, after some decades of relative stability. There is a fundamental fragility in a state legislature of only 40 seats, where an entire quarter of them tends to turn on razor-thin margins of less than 1000 votes. Here, instead of consensus it is coercion that holds sway, and the BJP has only managed to stay in power by strong-arming independents and engineering defections: in 2019, it swept in 10 out of 15 legislators from the Congress, and in 2022 it took in another 8 out of 11. This widely disparate grab-bag of turncoats and opportunists is inherently unruly, and Sawant has proven incapable of keeping them in check. Incompetence now reigns in Goa, and all state indicators are plummeting dramatically, as highlighted this week by the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE). which warned the state unemployment rate has increased from 11.6% to 15.5% in the last 3 months alone. The absence of accountability has unleashed an orgy of criminality, as the BJP’s own ex-Governor Satya Pal Malik, admitted to Karan Thapar a few weeks ago: “I even told [Narendra Modi] about Goa corruption and the very next day he called me and told me that my information is wrong. When I asked the source, he mentioned someone’s name, and he [that person] himself was sitting at the house of the chief minister and taking money. You can ask every kid in Goa, what the chief minister is like.”
