Published in oHerald on 27th September 2018
In the month gone by, the Goykars woke up to the news that their once glorious capital city of Panaji, which detached itself from the Portuguese name ‘Panjim’, has now been rated a poor 90th in the ‘Ease of Living Index’ list from among 111 cities across the country. It’s no surprise that the city which got tom-tommed by the saffron fan club as the ‘Lisboa of the East’, after it received a BJP government’s facial make-up for the IFFI in 2003-04, has now slumped to a state of disgrace.
This degeneration has not been resented because Goan society has been rendered so dysfunctional that it can no more differentiate healthy politics from dysfunctional politics. The very fact that Goans have submitted to caste supremacists and nationalists governing via hospitals in USA or Delhi reveals the pathetic condition of democracy in this State. Goa is fast sinking into a ‘bimaru’ State. Such an outcome is inevitable when society chooses to look the other way while ‘the baby gets thrown out with the bath water’ in the guise of nationalism.
This rank of honour bestowed by the Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs upon saffronised Panjim was expected when the Hindutva nationalists went around town with hammers and crowbars plucking out Portuguese sounding name plaques and renaming streets in 2004. This decay of Panjim was ensured when the Ponjekars persisted with the icons of caste supremacism and Hindutva as people’s representatives and indirectly collaborated in the agenda of rooting out the Christian and Muslim influence in the political and social fields. The story of Panjim is no different from what is happening to the rest of the towns and villages in Goa which have traces of a western or Christian influence. It is about the moral compromise of Goans with a casino culture and a caste supremacist and religious fundamentalist politics.
What plays out in Goa is the modern version of an ancient Indian history which believes that the depressed masses have no rights other than a spiritual duty to be subservient to the privileged castes. All it requires of a Goan to become conscious about this social and political dynamics is to stop swallowing the propaganda of the Janus-faced caste supremacists who claim that corrupt politicians are responsible for the destruction of Goa, in order to distract Goans from the real cause. It is these supremacists who switch masks between Hindutva and Secularism and cultivate this brand of politicians, depending on which way their selfish political and economic nests will get feathered. This is exactly why the political issues in Goa are made to oscillate between Hindu supremacism and xenophobic Goenkarponn. The political divide between the Christian and the Hindu communities is also a construct by a media driven by these supremacists. The capital city of Goa wonderfully encapsulates this social and political reality of caste opportunism and Hindutva bigotry which is destroying social harmony for power and monetary gains.
In the background of these caste machinations one needs to question the political activism of eternally saving ‘Goa, Goenkar and Goenkarponn’, when actually just the reverse happens on ground. It is the caste supremacists who dirty Goa’s tourism for reaping quick profits while creating an impression in tourists that these evils are about Christian culture. Unfortunately, the Catholic community’s naivety and reactionary, or sometimes even populist, response to Goa’s socio-political issues does not help the Goan cause. The fact that Catholic leaders feel the compulsion to react to hate spewing Sadhvis and Swamys, when for any rationally thinking person it must be Goa’s Hindu social leaders who should speak their minds, is itself reflective of a dysfunctional thinking. Similarly, the occasional blackmail from the media accusing the Church of not taking the initiative to Save Goa, that too in a 65% Hindu dominant State, reflects the bias. When have Goans heard criticism of temples and mutts for not doing enough to Save Goa? The Catholic community, which ought to have possessed political wisdom and prudence and emphasised its individuality, shamelessly falls for such political blackmail from the caste supremacists in its concern not to be seen as doing nothing or to appear as being cooperative with Hindus, and ultimately lands up with egg on its face.
Tiny Goa may boast of a high per capita density of social activism when compared with other States, but this activism appears nothing more than the caste supremacists taking Goans around in circles. And it is not difficult to understand that the activists and issues which get viral and trending - with these magnified issues often far from the core problem - are those convenient to the political and economic interests of these caste clubs. In this politics, the Goan Christian is just that mere number for the crowds at occasional public meetings. The wishy-washy social warriors contracted by these elitist caste clubs present what is music to the ears of the masses and display rainbows with no definite colours. And while it may be said, “more the merrier” in the battle to save Goa, let us not forget that too many cooks may be the recipe to spoil the Goan case. Sometimes, for Goans to consciously not respond to such emotional appeals about a ‘threat to Goa’, after closely examining all facts and motives, could prove equally therapeutic in remedying this dysfunctional politics and extortionist activism which is progressing with time.
Till such time that Goans do not stop falling prey to such caste engineered and colourfully packaged alarmist politics, which appeals to base instincts and does not give scope for rational choices by individual Goans, the dream of peace and prosperity will only continue to evade Goa.
(The author is a social worker.)
https://www.heraldgoa.in/Edit/Opinions/Goans%E2%80%99-declining-%E2%80%98ease-of-living%E2%80%99-amidst-caste-supremacist-politics/136699.html
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