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Apartment for sale in Campal/Miramar area, Panaji, Goa. Spacious 3 bedroom flat (3BHK)available for sale in upscale area near Miramar beach Contact: goaengineer...@aol.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 18 August 2009 Dear Friends and Colleagues, We write to condemn, in the strongest terms, the recent activities of the Hindu Janajagruti Samiti (HJS) in Goa. Activists of the HJS have demanded that a painting by M F Husain, hanging in the Goa State Museum, be taken down. They have also demanded the closure of an exhibition of contemporary interpretations of Ganesha by the artist Subodh Kerkar. We would like to make three points in this regard. First: Such repression of cultural practice cannot be permitted in a society that calls itself civilised, and there is no reason why outfits like the HJS should get away with the claim that they speak for “millions of Hindus”. Among these millions of Hindus are communities whose popular art forms have consistently treated the gods and goddesses of Hinduism as normal individuals with failings and foibles, subject to critique, irony and mockery. The paintings and prints of Kalighat, the scroll and puppet theatre of Pinguli, and the ritual performance of the Gondhal, all emerge from this vast popular stream of Hindu cultural practice. These are worlds of the imagination with which the rootless postmodern Hindu bourgeoisie has no connection, which is why it needs to produce an idealised, uncontaminated, unreal Hinduism to defend. Secondly: It is tragic that Goa – which has for millennia been a multicultural, multireligious and multiethnic environment – should be subjected to such aggressive political mobilisations based on the politics of identity. Have the storm-troopers of Hindutva not learned the lesson of the 2009 elections: That the people of India are sick of their violent and repressive approach to life and culture? Thirdly: These attacks on cultural expression come at a very sensitive moment in Goa’s history. They gain urgency when viewed against the backdrop of escalating suspicion of, and violence against, the state’s Muslim population. Goa’s demographic profile has changed considerably during the last 30 years, and it now hosts large numbers of ‘outsiders’ who have come there to find work: among them, Muslims from north Karnataka, but also Kashmiris, Hindu Kannadigas, and Biharis. The cultural aggression of the HJS must be seen in the larger context of increasing Goan hostility towards ‘outsiders’ and ‘dissent’ generally. Such illiberalism cuts against the warm, welcoming and culturally receptive image that Goa enjoys internationally. This rhetoric of ‘insider vs. outsider’ sounds particularly strange in Goa: a region that has been nourished, through the centuries, by immigrants from Kashmir, Kanauj, Karnataka, Bengal, Iran, China, Portugal, and Eastern Africa, among other places. Ranjit Hoskote Naresh Fernandes Jerry Pinto The PEN All-India Centre * *The PEN All-India Centre* *Theosophy Hall (2nd floor)* *40 New Marine Lines* *Churchgate, Mumbai 400 020* india....@gmail.com ranjit.hosk...@gmail.com *