Hi Eugene and Selma, Thanks for reminding us of those issues, and raising this issue. I think to understand Tristao Braganza Cunha's stand, we need to keep firmly in mind his ideology and the influences that shaped this scion of a prominent Goan family into a radical campaigner against the last embers of direct European colonialism in Asia.
Even if the Hindutva Right today attempts to incorporate Cunha -- see the interesting article by Dr Nishtha Desai, questioning their logic http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg51664.html -- his politics were clearly to the Left. He grew up in Republican times. Because of the close pro-colonial stance the Portuguese-dominated Church and its equally Portuguese-dominated (but also with local participation) hierarchy took in favour of Portuguese colonialism, to be a nationalist then also meant being anti-religion for someone of Catholic origins in those times. Tristao rubbed shoulders with top nationalists (of the level of Ho Chi Minh, it is said) in France, and those were revolutionary times indeed. Cunha could have not but taken the stand he did. It would have been rather surprising otherwise. Some of his comments strike one as being emerging out of his politics and ideology. Even his criticism of other Goan leaders of the times, their professional attainments and not being "trained journalists" (we had no place to train us formally in the Goa even of the early 1980s!) strike me as being more out of ideology than any personal differences. I can understand his ire at having to cope with a largely conservative, politically disinterested community in his times. The way expat communities were carrying on with their life-as-usual approaches, it probably was more than embarassing for Cunha and those on his side of the fence to show the world that there was a movement against Portuguese colonialism going on anywhere. The Goan Catholic has -- for the large part -- long been more caught up in emotive issues rather than the real concerns that affect daily life. Public opinion has been easy to manipulate there. Now, it looks as if the Goan Hindu is fast catching up with this trend; and for someone pushing a line of radical politics like Cunha, nothing could have been more frustrating. Personally, I doubt if a Cunha would have judged social change in Goa by the same yardstick that conservative public opinion here often does. The corruption-and-looting-politicians perspective alone, without looking at the other changes happening at the societal level (not all of which are negative, even if chattering classes might like to portray things that way). If Cunha wanted to hang on to his priviledge, all he needed to do was just continue with the substantially comfy lifestyle that history had endowed on him ... (I happened to visit his now desolate but obviously once-grand home at Cuelim recently, and see it for myself). Frederick Noronha :: +91-9822122436 :: +91-832-2409490
