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The Thought Police ... and the politics of exclusion in today's Goa
By Frederick Noronha
Minutes into meeting one another at a social event, a Goan
man asked me, "And you, where are you from? Madhya Pradesh?
Or Uttar Pradesh?" One was a bit taken aback, but recovered
to answer, "Oh, I'm just from Goa Pradesh!"
We have our stereotypes on what a Goan should be
like, who is acceptable and who isn't. Our
irrationalism seems to be getting us these days. As
suspicion levels grow, we bristle easily when
dealing with The Other, and let fly even when
there's no justified reason for it.
Should one be judged on the basis of ethnicity alone, rather
than the quality of a person? No wonder we end up with so
many made-in-Goa crooks, while we also fail to appreciate the
good in others -- even those who are willing to stick out
their neck for fighting, say, the real estate takeover of Goa.
By taking on such simplistic positions, we get ourselves
confused, fail to decide what Goa's real long-term interests
are, and become gullible enough to be easily taken for a
ride.
But why blame Goa alone? It's fashionable all over to go in
for paranoia. Going hand in hand with that is the trend of
acting like the Thought Police of the 21st century, and to
lay down how people should think, what is acceptable and what
is not.
Take the case of the recent of the outcry in
cyberspace over the cover photograph of an
in-flight airline magazine. This cover featured a
colourful Lamani woman in an article titled 'Beach
Goa'. She was overdressed, if artistically, given
the images of (mostly) women on Goan beaches that
we are accustomed to.
The emphasis of the image is clearly on her bright pink and
yellow top, the mirrors and coins embedded in it. And, the
beach, the water and the surf is quite out of focus.
It's easy to dash off an angry email. No wonder, a
controversy quickly got kicked off in cyberspace.
On the surface, it seemed that the protests were against the
Lamani woman from another part of the country being described
as Goan. But if one read things carefully, there was no such
description anywhere in the magazine!
So what were the protests about?
Are we being told that Lamani women don't exist on Goan
beaches? Or is the point that they cannot be depicted on a
beach here -- or, not on the cover of a magazine? Just
because one's origins lie elsewhere, does it mean there's no
space for them -- even in an image? Who decides what is apt
and what isn't?
The politics of exclusion are dangerous ones. Thought
policing is even worse.
Goa is a community which has so many of its members
living overseas as expats. According to
anthropologist Robert S. Newman, a long-time friend
of Goa who's currently visiting here, "the
experience of Diaspora, of being a total stranger
in a strange land, has quintessentially been a Goan
experience. Goa along with Greece, Ireland, Malta,
Lebanon and some small Pacific states must have one
of the highest rates of migration in the world."
Ironically, some strident protests came from
overseas Goans.
Are we also saying that nobody should photograph a Goan, say,
in a Toronto mall, and use that image to illustrate a local
publication? Should ethnicity be determined before before
publishing any photograph? Such approaches could reach
ludicrous levels. A friend, solidly "Goan", did his DNA tests
overseas recently, and found his ancestors had migrated out
of Africa probably some 50,000 years ago, and shared genes
with South Indians and Uzbeks!
Even, for argument sake, if the magazine had carried the
Lamani woman and identified her in print as "Goan", would
that have been a crime of sorts? Are we frozen in time, or
can we cope with Goa's changing identity?
We cannot deny it that Goa's identity has been always
changing. Neither can we choose convenient cut-off points. So
whom do we exclude? Those who joined Goa late, due to
accidents of history and the so-called New Conquests? People
from outside the original island-based 'Goa' that turned Old?
Or those who changed their religion in the sixteenth century?
With all this pre-election rabble-rousing already underway,
we can only expect worse.
Someone who has spent three generations out of Goa or even
overseas is a Goan, based on the accidents of genetics. On
the other hand, this is not the status given to someone who
has spent half-a-lifetime in Goa. We need an update on
concepts of identity in our fast globalising world, though it
might personally be convenient for us to pretend that nothing
is changing and simply stick to past views.
A friend, an expat Goan in Europe, wrote to say, "I have
always felt very strongly about Lamanis being shown as the
'face of Goan beaches.'" But then, why accept a sunbathing,
barely-clad Euro tourist but not a less-affluent Lamani?
Following the outcry, an editor for the magazine
told the cyber-protestors that the "professional
photo library image portrayed on the front cover is
that of a Goan hill tribe woman and not a
Rajasthani woman as claimed". This incorrect
statement only added fuel. Finally, the fire
diminished after an e-apology.
For what?
As a disclosure, I like to add that I write a modest column
for the magazine in question. But this is not the reason for
my stand, which should come regardless, as an attempt to
question the Goan fundamentalisms of our times. Of course,
such stands don't fit well with the dominant perspectives
that currently rule Goa. But why live in a frog's pond and
tolerate bias?
Let's move on. It's not only on our beaches that we have such
problems of definition.
UK-based Dr Cornel Da Costa
[[email protected]], a sociologist and
educationist, made an interesting point in one
debate recently. He pointed to a "distinct 'fear'
of the growth in Muslim numbers in Goa." Such fears
are exaggerated when it comes to selling land to
Muslims, whom, he recalled, were actually very nice
neighbours of his in the coastal belt of Kenya,
decades ago.
I think all those who try to exclude others from the frame
would one day end up feeling excluded themselves. One day?
It's already happening.
Visit this debate online: http://tinyurl.com/785mka It is
about Goan music, Bollywood and the like. One of the
sharply-argued letters beneath it questions the lack of
projection of Goan Hindus ("we... are over 70% of the total
Goan population"). It goes on to ask whether the author of an
article on the Goan Christian contribution to film music
really knows Hindi film music!
This is a game everyone can play. The faster we
concede the dangers of the politics of exclusion,
the better for all. Specially us (however one
defines that term!) ourselves.
FOOTNOTE: An earlier comment-piece titled 'Skin-deep
secularism' drew a rather detailed response. One is happy to
be reassured by Dr Santosh Helecar's article (Jan 2, 2009)
which suggests that we don't have grounds to fear a growing
polarisation in Goa. A consoling thought, and it would be
nice if my own concerns turned out wrong. But, from all signs
here, it's just too good to believe. The "evidence" Helecar
marshals notwithstanding.
[Earlier published in the Herald, Goa]
