Politics of Goan Historiography« Ideology […] is not apology, although it may andoften does entail it. Ideologies are world-views which,despite their partial and possible critical insights, preventus from understanding the society in which we live and thepossibilities of changing it. They are world-views whichcorrespond to standpoints of classes and social groupswhose interests in the existing social system and incapacityto change it make it impossible for them to see it as a whole[…] these ideologies are part of bourgeois ideology, notbecause they express immediate interests of the ruling class,but because they are limited in theory, by the limits ofbourgeois society in reality ; because their development,including even their criticism of bourgeois society, isgoverned by the development of bourgeois society andunable to go beyond it » (Shaw 1978).o write about Goa is to write about difference. Goan history has alwaysoccupied a marginal position within the field of Indian history. Goa’s economyand social practices though closely bound up with those on the South Asiansubcontinent have evolved a specific character and flavor.The year 1998 marks the quincentenary of Vasco da Gama’s landing in the westcoast of the South Asian subcontinent. This was perhaps the time first since Goa’sliberation in 1961, that Goa’s 451 year long colonial history became the focus ofnational attention. In the interim, Goa’s colonial past was articulated and became aunique selling point for the marketing of India as a tourism destination.While elsewhere in India the event created a sense of curiosity, within Goa1theissue crystallized into a dialogue between two visions of Goa’s past, Goa Dourada(Boxer 1961 ; Collis 1946 : 32 ; Remy 1957) and Goa Indica (Ifeka 1985 ; Newman 1988).Goa Dourada refers to the Portuguese colonial construction of Goa which sees Goa asa European enclave attached to the Indian subcontinent and Goa Índica refers to theanti-colonial construction of Goa which emphasizes the Indian contribution to Goansociety. The theoretical issues in the field such as the modes of production debate orthe subaltern critique that has shaped Indian historiography has not had a significantinfluence on Goan historiography2. This isolation of Goan historiography from the1. Much of the research related to Goan studies has been restricted to the discipline of historyand a few contributions from sociologists and anthropologists. Hence, the paper willdepend heavily on the works of historians.2. D.D. KOSAMBI, a native of Salcette, Goa, introduced a paradigmatic shift in the study ofIndian history with his book An Introduction to the Study of Indian History, 1956. KOSAMBI(1962) made some insightful observations about social structures of villages in OldT ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - Page 2 638La Chronique des livrescrucial debates related to the field has contributed to the dominance of the two maininterpretations of Goan society mentioned earlier and its history. The absence ofcritical assessment has rendered the history of the Goan majority mute.The title phrase of a recently published book, A Kind of Absence : Life in the Shadowof History, by João da Veiga Coutinho (1998), strikes at the very root of the problemwhich I will explore in this paper. I have interpreted « A kind of absence » to meanthe absence of a theoretically sophisticated critical account of Goan society and itshistory. This absence has contributed to the increasing dominance of teleologicallyconstructed assessments of history, assessments which focus on the activities ofindividuals or groups and constitute more a documentation of facts to rationalizecontemporary developments within the society rather than an interpretation of facts.Most of the accounts to be discussed later in this essay do not investigate the socialrelations that contribute to the constitution of the historical facts. Many among theexisting accounts of Goan history, be it a reinforcement of Goa Dourada or Goa Índica,have obscured and cast a shadow over the actual processes and struggles thatcontributed to the making of the contemporary Goan society and its history. GoaDourada and Goa Índica are class based ideologies. It is important that one recognizesthem as such and expose what they represent. The paper focuses on the criticalassessment of the dialogue between Goa Dourada and Goa Índica and attempts todestabilize these objects whose shadow obstructs our attempt to access, retrieve andunderstand Goan history.With this in view, I proceed with a brief discussion on Goa Dourada – the colonialrendition of Goan history.« Goa Dourada »« For Latins the city was a paradise, a lotus-eating island of the blest, where you couldsit on your veranda listening to music as the breeze blew in from the sea » (Collis 1946).Goa Dourada, or Golden Goa, is the image of Goa as conceived by the Portuguesecolonizers in their construction of the Portuguese empire. According to thePortuguese writer, de Freitas, « Goans have created a lifestyle that is sui generis,different in many ways from ours in Europe, but totally distanced, by the insolubleproblem of mentality, from that followed by the inhabitants of neighboring India »(Freitas n.d. in Newman 1988). De Freitas is obviously considering the Goans to bemore civilized by virtue of their conversion to Christianity and discontinuation ofHindu religious practices among the converts3. The « insoluble problem ofmentality » refers to the dominance of Hindu practices in the rest of the subcontinent.Golden Goa refers to an image of prosperity and leisure made possible by mercantiletrade and the appropriation of surplus from the rural labor force under theprotection of the Portuguese colonizers and their institutions.The image of Golden Goa was reproduced in Goa especially within the Catholiccommunities in the Old Conquest areas4. As enumerated, Golden Goa has beenarticulated in a traditionalist and in a modernist way within Goa (Siqueira 1991).Conquest areas of Goa (also see Kosambi’s letter dated July 4th, 1964 to Pierre Vidal-Naquetcited in THAPAR, 1994 : 105-106). For reasons unknown, there is hardly any reference toKosambi’s theoretical insights in recent literature, the only exception being an essaypublished in French by CAMILLERI(1986).3. In 1567, the Portuguese colonial administrators passed a decree which forbade marriages,cremations, investiture according to Hindu rites. Marriage had to be officiated by thechurch. This caused a migration of higher caste Hindus. However, for the sake of land, onebrother would stay behind to be converted along with his family. From then on, there wereCatholic Brahmins and Catholics of the lower caste. The caste mechanism was incorporatedinto a casteless religion as these classes were essential for maintaining the relations ofproduction.4. Old Conquest areas of Goa consist of three districts namely, llhas (now Tiswadi), Bardezand Salcette. These districts came under Portuguese control in the first half of the 16thcentury and have been subjected to the longest period of colonial rule in the Indiansubcontinent, and the harshest treatment by the Portuguese, including forced conversion toCatholicism. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - Page 3 La Chronique des livres639The Traditionalist View of « Goa Dourada »The bulk of Goa’s colonial history has been written from the perspective ofcolonial institutions such as the Portuguese crown, the religious institutions. Historywritten from this perspective was aimed at validating the Portuguese claims of Goaas « a tiny piece of Catholic Portugal transplanted onto tropical soil » (Ifeka 1985).For most of these colonial historians, or chroniclers to be more accurate, includingthose who were critical of the Portuguese administrative abuses and military failures,Portuguese presence in the East was by divine dispensation (Couto 1954). Theestablishment of Portuguese colonial rule was rationalized as an initiating of thecivilizing process. These colonial images of Goa were reproduced locally by thenative landed Catholic elite who controlled people’s access to land and tookadvantage of the access to education and employment in the colonial bureaucracy,which were open to members of the colonized population.The traditionalist view of Golden Goa was constructed during the initial phase ofPortuguese colonial rule. During the 16thcentury, the Portuguese were theundisputed lords of the sea controlling the majority of the shipments from Asia toEurope. Goa being the capital of the Estado da Índia, the Portuguese empire in Asia,played host to a variety of people. The traditionalist view of Golden Goa is based onthe prosperity of the merchants in 16thcentury colonial Goa. From among themembers of the colonized community, those who converted to Christianity wereallowed access to certain colonial institutions.The Portuguese administration offered incentives such as access to education,employment in the colonial bureaucracy. The people who availed of theopportunities, primarily the Goancar’s5, were encouraged to adopt European lifestyleand ethos which is encapsulated in the term sossegado (meaning relaxed andleisurely). On the one hand, the sossegado lifestyle of the Goankars was actually madepossible by the labor provided by the members of the subordinate caste. Theexploitation and appropriation of labor by the Goankars was based on the bhatkar(landlord)- mundkar (tenant) relationship which was ritually sanctioned and wasensured by the prevailing land-tenure system whose origin was origin pre-colonial(Kosambi 1964 in Thapar 1994 : 105-106). The bhatkar allowed the mundkar to stay onhis land at his discretion and in return the mundkar provided labor demanded by thebhatkar. Failure on the part of the mundkar to comply entailed eviction. On the otherhand, the sossegado lifestyle of the Goankars demanded the acceptance of andsubmission to the authority of the Portuguese colonizers. Today, this very idea ofsossegado has been appropriated in the contemporary discourses of tourism (Siquiera1991).The Modernist View of Goa DouradaThe modernist view of Golden Goa is essentially a reaction from the laboringsections of Christian population in colonial Goa, especially the sudhirs6. Throughoutmuch of the first half of Portuguese rule in Goa, the agricultural laboring class didnot have a choice but to be involved in their traditional activities. In the meantime,the increasing influence and power of Catholic goankars vis-a-vis the colonialadministration, reproduced and deepened the exploitative relationship betweenbhatkar and mundkar.By the middle of the 19thcentury, Goan economy had already touched its nadirwith the Portuguese grip on the Indian Ocean trade being loosened first by the Dutchand later by the British. This contributed to the constant migration of Catholic Goansduring the colonial period to British India, especially Bombay, in order to seekemployment. While some educated Catholic Brahmins did seek clerical employment,5. Goankars were members of the oligarchic families who were often referred to as the originalsettlers. The goankars were the only members within the village who were eligible to bid inthe auction for land for cultivation. As members of the families of the original settlers, thegoankars had special privileges within the village at the time of harvest, festivals, roofing ofsettlements, etc.6. Sudhir is the same as the varno (or caste) category Sudras. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - Page 4 640La Chronique des livresmost of the migrants were sudhirs, who sought employment as cooks, butlers,musicians, etc. The religious affiliation of the Catholic sudhirs and their apparentfamiliarity with European etiquette attracted the attention of European tradingcommunities in Bombay and other cities in British India. Soon job opportunities inother British colonies opened up, especially in East Africa. With every successivegeneration, the families of migrants enhanced their lifestyle in Goa. The sudhirfamilies started competing with the Catholic Goankars for social prominence. Thesudhirs appropriated the goankar’s social practices and incorporated their culture intotheir everyday repertoire ; they changed their patterns of consumption and tradedtheir traditional lifestyle for one European.The most important impact of this transformation was in the reduction in thelabor resources the goankars could have access to. The female members of sudhirsfamilies whose members worked abroad withdrew from the labor force. This,combined with the new income from outside Goa which was also beyond the controlof the existing social order, introduced drastic changes in the social relations withinthe village communities. The sossegado lifestyle which had been a reality for thegoankars was now appropriated by the migrants as a nostalgic memory of Goa itself.In the process of looking forward to such a lifestyle in Goa, the sudhirs also rejectedthe social hierarchy which had in the first place made such a lifestyle a possibility forthe goankars. The increasing affluence of the migrants’ families destabilized the holdof the goankar on the village community. The sudhirs’ ability to compete with thegoankars for prominence in village celebrations also contributed in changing thedemographic composition of the village communities in the Old Conquest areas. Theshortage in labor within the village communities was met by attracting labor fromthe New Conquest areas, predominantly Hindu sudhirs trying to better theirconditions of existence. This inflow of population reintroduced the Hindu presencewithin the Old conquest communities. That presence disrupted the spatialconfiguration of the colonial conception of Golden Goa for both the Catholic goankarsand migrant Goans.In the post-liberation period, the Catholic elite, which included the goankars whowere employed in the erstwhile colonial administration, found their political andsocial domination eroding. The social mobility of the subordinated caste madepossible by new opportunities (such as access to education, employment in thegovernment sector, etc.), and the government of Goa, Daman and Diu Tenancy Act of1964 eroded the power and control exercised by the Catholic elite. While someCatholic sudhirs7took advantage of political and commercial (legal and illegal)opportunities at their disposal in post-liberation Goa to cash in on the vacuumcreated by the crises that the Catholic landed elite found themselves in, others foundemployment within the Government bureaucracy and the private sector.With the development of tourism in Goa and its growing prominence withinGoan economy, the idea of Goa was given a new lease of life by the tourism industryand more significantly the Indian State through its public relations efforts to promotetourism in Goa. Though initially such activities were restricted to the coastal areas inthe Old Conquest areas, today they have expanded into the New Conquest areas aswell. For the coastal communities, the incoming tourists meant new opportunities forgenerating income, which in turn led to enhancing their status within theircommunity. The members of coastal communities now rent their houses as touristaccommodations, operate restaurants and as far as possible have withdrawn fromthe labor market8.While, on the one hand, the idea of Goa Dourada received a fresh lease of lifethrough the development of tourism, it also set in motion criticism from thetraditionalists and the migrant returnees who were upset over the construction and7. Catholic sudhirs were the most conscious of their position within the hierarchy of Goansociety (MONTEMAYOR1970).8. However variations were observed. Catholic families are involved in both renting roomsand operating restaurants, Hindu families have more reservations about renting rooms totourists and are more willing to operate restaurants. See SIQUEIRA(1991) in his observationsabout Candolim in 1988. I observed similar patterns during my fieldwork in 1995-1996. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - Page 5 La Chronique des livres641commodification of the authentic experience of Golden Goa for tourists (Siqueira1991). An example of the articulation of this displeasure is the Report of the Sub-Committee of the Diocesan Pastoral Council entitled, « Tourism in Goa : ItsImplications », (Diocesan Pastoral Council, 1988). This report, in the process ofcriticizing the commodification of the image of Golden Goa, in turn glorifies it invarious ways. The report laments the loss of traditional occupations, ridicules thenew job descriptions such as waiters and bus-boys, and reproduces erstwhilecolonial elitist sentiments.« Goa Índica »« There is an abundance of published work on Goa, but a critical look at them leaves uswith hardly anything that has any depth of analysis and is not tainted directly or,indirectly with the myth of "Golden Goa" and its implied theory of welfare that servedto quieten the guilt of the erstwhile rulers and few local beneficiaries » (Souza 1994 : 69).Goa Índica is viewed as a nationalist response to the colonial construction of GoaDourada, which emphasizes the Indian contribution to the construction of Goanidentity. The objective is to highlight the Indianness of Goan society because as insome cases, Portuguese rule was a mere « accident in history » (Priolkar 1967 : 46).Responding to a need for a history which erases the Portuguese colonial bias,research slides away from being an investigation into history to being an historicism– an imposition.The discourse of history and the patterns of communal politics in post-colonialGoa have encouraged and reproduced each other, and is evident during the firstcouple of decades after liberation. Most of the anthropologists and sociologists whoconducted research in Goa in the recent time also seem to have uncritically acceptedthese nationalist renditions of history. They have concentrated on viewing Goanhistory with the intention of encouraging the process of assimilation, post-colonialnation-building and State formation without subjecting these very processes tocritical inquiry. The argument I’m making here is not to undermine the efforts but topoint out the unintended ramifications of good intentions.Caroline Ifeka’swork (1985) fits squarely within this search for the formula forintegration of Goan society into the Indian nation-State. Ifeka, argues that thecolonial construction of Golden Goa has to be displaced and replaced by an image ofGoan society which « emphasizes the Indian contribution to Goan Identity – GoaÍndica ». Similarly, taking into consideration the immediate need for Goa’sintegration into the Indian nation-State and the violence inflicted upon Goan societyby the contradictory images of Golden Goa, Robert Newman (1988) hinds to anoverarching need to « develop an identity which can include all "sons of the soil" andgive them the confidence to meet other Indians on an equal footing ». But thequestion remains as to who develops the identity that Newman refers to.Considering the need for Goa’s integration within India, the responsibility of creatingan identity for the Goan people rests on the shoulders of the Indian state and thedominant class within Goan society. The exploited majority of that society and theirhistory have little influence over this process of identity formation, which is not thatdifferent from the colonial construction of Goa.Newman is able to recognize the antagonisms that hold Goan society together. Ashe states here :« Circumstances have always been against the emergence of Goa Índica as opposed toGoa Dourada. First, the society is divided by caste and class […] there is a long history ofcolonial oppression […] upper class (Brahmins or Kshtriya) landlords and governmentofficials during colonial times and landlords, industrialists and businessmen in recenttimes have exploited the lower or working class […] so that alternative images or viewsof Goa have been very slow to emerge. The class interests of the opposing groups havebeen far apart and some of the so-called freedom struggles of the past were reallyattempts by powerful landed clans to exploit their erstwhile "subjects" withoutPortuguese interference » (Newman 1988 : 17).In spite of the fact that Newman points to the existence of classes in Goan society,the brewing interclass, he has considered these issues as secondary and lessconsequential to the immediate need of identity formation. Newman’s concern was ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - Page 6 642La Chronique des livresto overcome the threat posed by the idea of Golden Goa. The problem in these worksis the failure to firstly recognize the dangers of conflating the politics of identity withthe politics of history, and secondly their inability to address the political economiccontent of the call for identity politics. Thus, instead of analyzing how the class ofcaste and class interests contributed to the construction of a Goan identity in the firstplace, the issues are raised merely in order to emphasize the need for theconstruction of an Indian identity for Goans. While the sustained emphasis on thepolitics of identity leads to a misunderstanding of history and co-option by thedominant class, undertaking a political economic analysis of identity politics mightactually contribute to exposing the class based exploitation and appropriation ofpopulist symbols within Goan society. Rather than viewing the recognition ofKonkani as the official State language9merely as a triumph of Goan society toestablish harmony between the Catholic and Hindu population within Goa, it isimportant to assess the class alliances that were forged for voicing the demand.Under the circumstances, Newman’s recognition of class/caste antagonisms (seeabove passage) but at the same time his inability to undertake a class analysis ofGoan society, point towards some fundamental methodological and conceptualproblems.Similar problems arise in historical research as well. The lack of theoretical clarityto the meaning of local initiative in the making of Goan history has turned the searchfor initiatives into a search for form. This form often presents itself as a rebellion orrevolt against the colonial administrators, the most popular among them being thehistory of the freedom struggle constructed around the Rane Revolt. Challenges tosuch a violation of historical data and of the misinterpretation of events, ofcustomizing them in order to fit them into a teleological construction and thejustification of the current order of things, though available were not made public10.While some Goan researchers were caught up in the problems mentioned above,other researchers working on Goan history but located outside Goa startedresponding primarily to the theoretical developments in history and the socialsciences, reevaluating Goan history. Anthony Disney (1986 :85) initiated hisdiscussion of 17thcentury Goa with the following questions :« Should Goa be studied mainly within the context of Indian Ocean trade ? Or shouldgreater recognition be given to the fact that most Goans lived by subsistenceagriculture, and more stress therefore be placed on the life of the villages and theroutines of the countryside ? On another plane, is it more appropriate to regard Goa asfalling firmly within the Portuguese political, economic and cultural orbits […] orshould she, on the contrary, be presented as indissoluble part of the mainland,overwhelmingly Indian in character and essence, throughout this period ? And ifPortuguese rule was never more than superficial and Goa derived little of herdistinctiveness from Portuguese associations, what, if anything, gives her a particularidentity as compared with neighbouring parts of India ? ».These questions when considered within the context of Goan historiography arerefreshing, but Disney’s response is problematic. For him, the answer to thequestions vary « according to the concerns and interests of those through whose eyesGoa is viewed in any particular period », for there are « several perceptions of Goa,each held by an identifiable interest group » (ibid.). While Disney’s answer suggeststhat the various identifiable interest groups are existing in isolation from each other09. In the backdrop of the traditional image popularized by the tourism industry, the agitationfor the recognition of Konkani as the official language spread – culminating in the riots ofDecember 19-23, 1986. Large-scale destruction of property, armed conflict, loss of lifemarked the event. The demand for declaring Konkani as the Official Language of Goa wasconceded with the passing of the Official Language Bill on February 14, 1987. Also seeNEWMAN(1988).10. See SOUZA(1994c : 154-159). Earlier published under the title « Feudal Lords Unmasked, »in Goa Today, March, 1987. De Souza starts, about the Ranes of Sanquilim (the ancestors ofthe then and current Chief Minister of Goa), as follows : « This essay was to be originallyincluded in a Goa University publication on Goa’s freedom struggle. This paper wasdeemed improper and […] rejected by the editorial committee of the official historianssubservient to ruling political interests who were only interested in paying floral tributes toGoa’s freedom struggle, or whatever they choose to understand by that. Unfortunately,even the institution that is meant to set the tone for our intellectual life, including historicalresearch, joined the chorus with "Goa wins Freedom". This is the state of intellectualsubservience and poverty twenty-five years after our liberation ! ». ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - Page 7 La Chronique des livres643and can have their own perception of Goa and Goan history without interfering withthe others, the situation can also be considered an ongoing crisis. Disney’s failure liesin his inability to realize that these views are class based and that the various interestgroups are not existing in isolation from one another. The interest groups or, in otherwords, classes in a society do not exist in isolation from one another. Their existenceis dependent on the existence of the other interest groups within the society, forexample, the bhatkar cannot exist without the coexistence of the mundkar. Theaspirations of the various groups thus are always in conflict with each other. Theconflicts among interest groups are not natural ; rather they emerge when each grouptries to be itself in the course of their everyday interaction within society. In a classstratified-society, it is the conflict between various groups in their attempt to upholdtheir respective view of society that should be a researcher’s primary concern.Primary because these conflicts lay bare the inner workings and expose thecontradictions inherent to that society.A few historians (Pearson 1973 ; Scammell 1980, 1988 ; Souza 1975, 1994) havemade the effort to change the course of Goan historiography. Pearson (1983) hasexposed documents suggesting the importance of local groups, especially merchantsin 16thand 17thcentury colonial Goa. Souza (1994c) has destabilized the rolepopularly attributed to the Ranes in Goa’s freedom struggle11.While these studies have contributed to reorienting the gaze of Goan historio-graphy, the methodological limitations inherent in these approaches have closed thepossibility for any radical break from the dominant trends. Pearson’s reasoning forthe economic and political power wielded by the vanias in the early phase of colonialGoa is a perfect example of the limitations of these approaches. Pearson (1983) arguesthat the vanias were influential in colonial Goa only because « the Portuguese simplylacked the numbers to achieve dominance in their colonies ».Teotonio R. de Souza is right in pointing out that there is a need « for a new andrectified historiography that will take care of past deficiencies of approach andevidence » (Souza, 1994b, emphasis original). Souza further states :« History of the Portuguese Goa-based empire needs to be truly Indo-Portuguese. Thenew approach that I have been advocating will alone make such historiographyrelevant to the people of the areas concerned, in the context of their new aspirations,new prospects and new challenges. Search for, and utilization of, indigenous evidencealone can help to reduce the over dependence on colonial European documentation andto write an Indo-Portuguese history from the inside ».According to Souza the solution to the problem that is plaguing Goan historio-graphy is a straight forward one. One has to replace a Luso-centric history of Goa,constructed on the basis of European documentation with a Goa-centric historybased on indigenous evidences and local perspectives. The only problem with thisapproach is that it is prone to the same problem which Souza has pointed out inLuso-centric history of Goa : that of being one- dimensional. The new approach thatSouza has been advocating requires the replacement of « colonial Europeandocumentation » with « indigenous evidence. » Thus, the crisis in Goanhistoriography has been reduced to a dispute over interpretation of data and factsfrom colonial or indigenous sources (Souza 1975). The failure to locate the native or,in this particular case, the Goan perspective is blamed on the sources referred andnot on the exploitative relations of power in place within the society12. Facts areassumed to be natural and are hence given an ontological status independent of theepistemology of their interpretation (Brown 1973). This approach overlooks theobservation that every interpretation, in this particular case data and facts fromcolonial or indigenous sources, is engendered with its own theoretical and politicalpresuppositions (Callinicos 1976 : 9-19).The solution to this impasse involves a detour. This detour is in the form of aschematic projection through which to perceive the facts. Facts are information thathelps us constitute a society, an articulated whole. Hence, one has to necessarily go11. The Ranes of Sattari are a politically influential family in post-liberation Goa. Recentaccounts of history (KAMAT1985) has viewed the Rane Revolt of 1895 as one of the earlyfights against Portuguese colonial rule.12. According to FOUCAULT(1980), the production of knowledge is not independent from theexercise of power. It is the position occupied by the people exercising power whichprivileges one version of history over the other. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - Page 8 644La Chronique des livresbeyond the facts to understand social reality (Garaudy 1970 : 42-43). The detour I amreferring to is the analysis of the social relations that determine the existence of factswithin society. Any effort short of this endeavor reduces the analysis to a partialdescription of society and confuses it with society itself (Anderson 1969 : 221-222).The method espoused is not completely alien to Goan historiography, as is evident inthe works of D.D. Kosambi. Kosambi’s (1962) analysis of village communities in Oldconquest areas is highly insightful. He was able to see through the opacity imposedon the prevalent understanding of the villages on Old Conquest areas of Goa. Hecritically examined the assumptions, real events and human interactions thatconstituted the facts that were presented in colonial and indigenous sources13. Hewas never concerned the existence of data or facts and his skepticism enabled him byto expose the contradictions that held the colonial Goan society together. Howeversurprising it may be, Kosambi’s core contribution, a method for the study of history,has been completely ignored by Goan historians to say the least.In the absence of any serious theoretical and methodological intervention withinGoan historiography, truth has become synonymous with the organic adaptation ofnew evidences. Its definition is reduced to its practical usefulness which is subject tothe observer’s manipulations. Thus, while historians have exposed the « facts » withregard to local dominance (Pearson 1973 ; Souza 1974) within to colonial Goaneconomy, the significance of this dominance for understanding Goan history awaitsanalysis.The point to be made is that the production of knowledge is a social process to beunderstood in the context of society, which is historically determined (Zinn 1971).Under the dominance of a given mode of production, knowledge is intended tolegitimize a particular historical course (Habermas 1970). In the context of Goanstudies, colonial historiography (Goa Dourada) denied Goan society history in orderto legitimize the process of lusitanization. Likewise, post-liberation Goan studiessought to resurrect the Goan past from the perspective of Goa Índica which did notelucidate, but instead obfuscated, the real impact of colonialism as well as thedeepening crises within post-liberation Goan society. Contemporary Goanhistoriography does not go beyond exposing the chauvinistic content of colonialhistoriography (Marx & Engels 1971).* * *If by Goan history we mean « Goan peoples’ history », the trend that has emergedover the past thirty odd years leaves much to be desired. Very often the colonizer-colonized problematic is turned on its head by Goan historians but rarely the rightway up. Thus, while history constructed around the idea of Goa Dourada is from thecolonizer’s perspective, the nativist history has shifted the focus of the spotlight onthe colonized. In that, the researchers are contented in treating the colonized as ahomogeneous group of people instead of exposing the mediation of colonial rule byvarious groups within the local population. Without exploring the socialenvironment of people’s interactions within society, the history of Goan society hasbeen reduced to a resurrection and vindication of the Goan past. The criteria for theconstruction of the peoples history are still to be ironed out.The failure to produce a history of the people has been attributed to a crisis in theavailability of information. Besides, the manner in which the problem is posed also toa large extent determines the answers. Consequently, postcolonial research in Goahas sought to transform the colonized people of Goa, who constitute the object oftheir research, from objects to subjects of history. In doing so the objective structuralfeatures of Goa’s colonial social formation articulating within the Portuguesehegemony have been reduced « to the intentions, motives and interpersonal relationsof individual agents » (Abercombie et al. 1979).In the face of the Goan societies response to the economic restructuring of theIndian economy, the world economy, and the accompanying crises, post-liberationGoan studies has become an accumulation of harmless platitudes with disconnectedand disjointed empirical additions. Post-liberation Goan studies as exist today13. In a letter elaborating his view on the Asiatic mode of production, KOSAMBI(1964) wrote :« The real difficulty here is the misleading documentation. Ancient Indian records derivefrom the brahman caste and those who read them pay not attention to the function of castein ancient (as well as modern and feudal) Indian society. » ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - Page 9 La Chronique des livres645surreptitiously justify the existing order, either directly, by pointing out the essentialharmonies of the system, or indirectly by pointing to both the preposterousness andthe barbarity of any suggestion of change. They obfuscate the real impact of thecolonial legacy as well as the on going process of contemporary globalization withinwhich Goan society articulates. Post-liberation Goan historiography’s languagesuggests a process by which the past is made to weigh « like a nightmare on the brainof the living » (Marx 1994) meant to intentionally or unintentionally glorify theprevailing political order. Indulging in such a dialogue without understanding itsmaterial underpinnings is to be enamored of fetishism (Marx 1974), and to be a partof the shadow that obscures a people’s history.March 1999Raghuraman S. TRICHURDepartment of Anthropology, Temple UniversityPhiladephia, USABIBLIOGRAPHYABERCOMBIE, N., TURNERB. & URRYJ. 1979, « Class, State and Fascism : The Work ofNicos Poulantazas », Political Studies, XXIV.ANDERSON, P. 1969, « Component of the national culture », in A. 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>From the archives of Gaspar Almeida, www.goa-world.com ===== Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way, when you criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes. Konkani Drama "NOORA" by Micheal D'Silva under the auspices of United Friends Club-Kuwait on 8th April 2005 with Olga Vaz, Menino Mario, Macxy, Comedians John D’Silva and Ben Evangelisto, Querobina, Jose Rod, Sylvester Vaz, Laurente Pereira, Donald Colaco, Cajetan-Marcus-Mario, Adrian, Bab Agnel, Bab Jonathan & Michael D’Silva. For details, [EMAIL PROTECTED] Goa's finest websites: www.colaco.net www.supergoa.com www.goa-world.com
