Spectres of Goa and haunting return of a lost future

 Herald, 06 April 2022 - Author is Fr. Victor Ferrao

Elections have come to an end. The results are declared, yet a cold sense that makes us feel that time is out of joint in the Shakespearean sense has gripped us. Most Goans are sensing that something is not right. It makes us feel that we are standing on the wrong side of time. Things are felt to be in disarray. We are experiencing a sense of a disruption of state of affairs. We feel being pushed out of time and out of place. A kind of anxiety of being displaced has taken hold over us. A desire for new life seems to have had a stillbirth and a sense that Goa, Goans and Goan-ness seems to have been dragged on the edge of mere survival is haunting us. We are facing a new politics of time.

The BJP and its supporters that have won Goa, view the situation with a triumphant air that seems to say ,’yeh waqt hamara hai’. To the rest of us, it triggers fears of doom of Goa, Goans and Goan-ness. The fear of devastation of Goa through the three linear projects and Coalolization of Goa has come back to haunt us. We may think that this haunting is afflicting the BJP as it seems to be hesitatingly inching towards govtformation. While we know that the reign of BJP or any other party is not set in stone since the anti-incumbency before the elections remains hauntingly present in BJP’s win. We feel that something is not adding up and fear of loss of future of Goa is staring into our eyes. While Francis Fukuyama celebrated the end of history in the progressive march of democracy, we in Goa have a melancholic sense that history has come to end crashing down on us through the election results. This sense of that history has reached its end point seems to have triggered a panic that we are facing a condition of lost future.

This sense that time is not on our side is typically Indian. It is because of this that we are calculating the auspicious time for weddings or any other event of beginnings. We are told that the formation of Government in Goa and other States that BJP had won was held up due of the prevailing inauspicious time. We felt that BJP was certainly experiencing adverse time due to inner struggles for the CM’s chair. BJP in Goa seems to be haunted by conflict for the leadership chair. Given all this a time has lost its equilibrium is also haunting the Opposition in several ways and levels.

The State president of Congress had to put down his papers while rumours circulated that some of its MLAs were thinking that their tenure as Opposition members is nothing but a waste of time and were trying their luck with the BJP. May be these were rumours circulated to damage the already sinking ship of the Congress as Vijai Sardesai of Goa Forward seems to indicate about his own personal experience. A sense of reluctance to accept the present state of democracy has hit us. May be this uncanny condition has aggravated because of the unprecedented victory of AAP and the unimagined number of votes pulled by Revolutionary Goans Party. A sense of imminent destruction of Goa has put us in mood of deep angst. We are anticipating its destruction and are hit by spectres of Goa. The future of Goa has become a hauntology to us.

Goa is immersed into anachrony. It has become spectral. As a spectre or a ghost, it presents to us what is left of Goa after its destruction. The spectrality of Goa consists of the haunting of the coming of what is left of Goa after the event of its destruction. A sense of loss of the future of Goa is animating the spectres of Goa. The spectres of Goa are haunting all. May be RGP played on the loss of the futures of Goa and portrayed the MLAs that constituted the then legislative assembly as the villains that are accelerating that loss.

We may say the same about APP and even GFP, TMC-MGP combine. The figure of Goa on the path of destruction was exploited by the Opposition which failed to play this fear of death of Goa or the loss of the futures of Goa effectively. BJP has always played the politics of hauntology. It accentuated the fears of the Hindus and presented the minorities as its enemy in chief that will cancel its (Hindu) futures. Goa politics is marked by hauntology. The ghostly anticipation of what remains of Goa after its destruction is haunting us.

The poll results are haunted by the spectral return of Goa in the reign of the BJP. The spectre of Goa destroyed by the three linear projects, handling and transport of coal, corruption, the sale of govt jobs, the rising prices, the land tangles, etc is disturbing Goans. The new assembly that is formed before the installation of CM is a haunted one. It was haunted by the delayed installation of the CM as is haunted by discontent within the ruling benches that may lead to its final fall. The spectres/ghosts of Goa are howling in the assembly halls challenging the Opposition to work to save what is left of Goa.

Not just eyes and ears of Goans in England but also those left in Goa are directed to observe keenly what is going to happen to Goa. We may have to grudgingly grant that a great tourist destination like Goa that welcomes everyone with broad shoulders has become a haunted place for Goans. The spectres of Goa that represent lost futures of Goa are haunting all Goans and stand for all losses that Goans foresee. These losses include the loss of land, natural and green heritage, cuisine, demography, opportunities for education, etc. We have come to experience an anxiety that everything that we consider sacred to our Goan-ness, Goans and Goa in on verge of extinction. None of us are free from these haunting disturbances. Being aware of these hauntings, we can emancipatively shape the future of Goa by vision-centric collective shaping of the present of Goa.

(Fr Victor Ferrao is an independent researcher attached to St. Francis Xavier Church, Borim, Ponda)

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