Politics of manufacturing majoritarian insecurities -Soter

 Lead Article published in oheraldo on Sept 28, 2026

The theatrics of inter faith meetings has not resulted in an inter community backlash against such divisive tactics

For decades, local politics has always told a different story from what gets portrayed in tourism brochures and social media. The unspoken games of a disguised majority versus minority politics continues to frustrate any efforts for consensus on key policy issues. Any political movement which enjoys support from the minority community witnesses a counter movement from the majority community, under the disguise of protecting Goa’s culture from Moghul and western influence. Goa is caught in a deep cultural contradiction, fiercely romanticizing an identity while actively participating in its erosion.

In the theatre of modern Goan politics, there is no greater vulnerability than a short memory of citizens. An uncomfortable truth is that the current misery of Goans is, in many ways, the bitter harvest of profound political blunders committed post-liberation. No lessons learnt to this day on manipulative political patterns. With the prevailing denial and refusal to objectively introspect, can the 2027 electoral outcomes be any different from old wine in a new bottle?

Goans, minorities in particular, have entertained fiction and failed to recognise the dark socio-political reality lurking in the shadows. A community repeatedly fed with nostalgia of the past is left emotionally charged with a feeling of victimhood but clueless of the larger menacing political truth.  A decade later after the seismic political shift of 2012, a year that fundamentally altered the political fabric of the State, the contribution from minority communities to the anti-corruption movement and the subsequent dream for a ‘Congress-mukt Bharat’ (Congress-free India) is now backfiring. The romanticization of history under the catchphrases of ‘Asmitai’ (identity) and ‘Goenkarponn’ (Goan-ness) projects an image of effortless syncretism to the outside world. This tool has served a repeated denial of an underlying toxicity which remains unaddressed and keeps raising its ugly head time and again.

The latest weapon in the dark tactics of majoritarian politics is a ‘Goa Prohibition of Unlawful Religious Conversion Bill, 2026’. Call it anything from a ‘red herring’ to ‘throwing a dead cat on the table’ to divert the narrative away from the crisis resulting from gross failures in governance. For a government to suggest that an 80% majority needs State protection from "allurement" is an insult to the majority community. It paints a community as gullible and vulnerable to coercion and allurements from a 20% minority community. It implies that the majority, despite holding the reins of State power, the police force, the administration, and the sheer force of numbers, is essentially a fragile collective easily susceptible to being preyed upon by a micro-minority. But what is not surprising is that the theatrics of inter faith meetings has not resulted in an inter community backlash against such divisive tactics of this government.  

The introduction of an anti-conversion Bill and its withdrawal was in no way a miscalculation, as was the impression sought to be created by the media. This Bill is neither an aberration nor a story about a State listening to its citizens. It is a textbook demonstration of how majoritarian policy experiments are introduced, normalized, and strategically calibrated. The Bill, no doubt, represents a localized adaptation of a broader national political strategy aimed at systematically reshaping the State’s multi-faith social landscape. Such laws have rolled out across some other Indian States, creating a clear regional blueprint.

The timing in proposing such a Bill in an election season appears to have achieved its dual objective. As expected, the predictable knee jerk reactions from self-publicity seeking elements fed the fundamentalist game-plan. The noise against the Bill remained nothing more than a formality of beating around the bush with stereotyped ‘pravachans’ (preachings) on infringement of constitutional rights, and some alien threat imported to disrupt an otherwise perfect paradise. Such projected nervousness in minorities helped reinforce the myth of a proselytization threat as perceived by the majority. The withdrawal of the Bill was an unspoken message to the core voter that we tried to bring the law, but the internal arithmetic stopped us this time. Give us a more absolute mandate, and we will finish the job. It allowed civil society to feel righteous in its opposition while preventing everyone from asking a much harder question: Why does the majoritarian political laboratory find such a fertile ground in Goa in the first place?

Until Goans collectively acknowledge the disguise of majoritarianism masquerading as cultural assertion, which has subtly manipulated the political choices since 1961, they are simply rearranging deck chairs on a sinking ship of State identity. Over the last six decades, these fissures have been managed, monetized, and manipulated by successive political regimes. Opposing a bad bill or policy with dishonest arguments and half-truths does not save Goa. It merely ensures that citizens remain comfortably numb while the foundation of society continues to decay. When a community is made to feel under siege, dissent is silenced, and conservative, opportunistic elements within the community seize control of the narrative. It keeps communities politically segregated, ensuring that voting blocs remain predictable, defensive, and easily manipulated when elections approach.

The minority community, and indeed civil society at large, can no longer afford to remain in the drama triangle of manipulative politics. The pattern of infringement on constitutional rights to politically disempower minorities needs to be understood from a wider perspective, not as isolated events. The anti-conversion and the FCRA issues are not distinct from the imposition of language, script, medium of instruction, and food choices, the rewriting of history, Vishal Gomantak vision, CAA/NRC/SIR, the insult to saints and claims on historical places in a display of majoritarian entitlement. It is in such a political climate that citizens cutting across caste and religion need to be seen collaboratively rejecting such divisive politics, if the claim of social harmony in Goa is not a myth.