People's Democracy (Weekly Organ of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) Vol. XXIX No. 07 February 13, 2005
Goa Under Saffron Government Nalini Taneja THE BJP just cannot hide its methods of staying in government. It has to buy up some people and it has to divide most others along lines of religion and caste, if it has to stay in power. Its rule in Goa had been no different. It began that way when it came to form the government in the state and it continued till their last day in office, when their government had to be dismissed by the governor in the event of the farcical voting in the assembly to prove a majority. Its plans came unstuck and now they are trying to create ‘countrywide protests’ against the ‘murder of Constitution’ in Goa. There doesn’t seem to be much sympathy anywhere about BJP’s misfortunes, and their new ‘protests’ will go the same way as all their old ones since their defeat in the national elections. BJP has redefined the political map of Goa in such a way that the new Congress-led government of Pratapsingh Rane will have to take a similar route to survival. But why is it so important to the RSS to continue holding governments, if its work is mainly ‘in the field’? The answer is as simplistic as it can be: it needs to, and unscrupulously utilises and diverts major portions of social spending expenditure from government funds towards fulfillment of the Hindutva political agenda, and uses its clout in the administration to browbeat minorities and secular cultural expression. That has been pretty much the pattern since 1992 in all its tenures as government in the different states. It is for this reason, besides many others, that 1992 has been a watershed in our political life. BJP GOVERNMENT MAKING ITS MARK In Goa, where so much revenue comes from tourism, and where one would expect that their campaign for homogenising the state’s cultural profile would not cut ice because of the long association with Portugal, with so much interaction by the people of Goa with citizens of almost every country in the world as holiday makers, and the composite cultural heritage of the state, the BJP government has managed to make its mark in many ways. It has managed to carry out a campaign against Christians, at the same time, it has succeeded in showing individual members of the Christian community that its major antagonism is with the Muslims. All its national level baithaks and conventions have been diatribes against Muslims, on grounds of which it has managed support of some Christian MLAs. Yet, the consequences of a creation of a mass base for Hindutva will be detrimental to rights of all minorities, and above all for secularism. Each stint in a particular state has meant capture of administration and minds equally, which their electoral defeat in another round does not nullify. It helps in the creation of a conservative (politically and socially) world view, even as people may vote them out for various reasons. ANTI CHRISTIAN ACTIVITIES In Goa, the BJP, predictably, began its stint with spurious claims on various churches, held hundreds of hate filled meetings, but it also went on to communalise the educational system as in all other states under its rule, which cannot easily be undone should another government take over (details People Democracy, August 5, 2001). Christians form about 30 per cent of the population, but this has not deterred the Hindutva forces. It achieved the twin goals of privatisation and communalisation of school education through a spurious critique of government schools followed by handing over of many such schools to RSS affiliated bodies at the price of a token of rupee one. As the Goa Rajya Sabha Congress MP Eduardo Faleiro, had pointed out even then, these schools, being given at a rent of one rupee a year, amounts to “a gift of government property to the RSS”. According to an Economic and Political Weekly report by Frederick Noronha, June 30, 2001, and a Deccan Herald report by Devika Sequeira, June 11, 2001, over 50-plus primary schools were handed over to various front organisations of the Sangh Parivar. The aim was achieved through the instrumentation of the Vidya Bharti Educational Society, the RSS front in the field of education. VICIOUS EDUCATIONAL AND CULTURAL POLICIES As elsewhere, individuals with known RSS-links were nominated on the university bodies, and favourable demands were engineered for the introduction of the new courses sponsored by Murli Manohar Joshi’s education department: karmakand, astrology, etc., although their success was negligible as compared to the schools. But the atmosphere was vitiated and the autonomy of statutory bodies undermined. The issue of conversions was raked up to link with a rewriting of the history/cultural profile of Goa, and to prepare new school texts. Soon after the BJP formed the government, the ideologues of the Parivar released a six-page brochure called Konkan Kashi, claiming that Goa had been a major pilgrimage centre of Hindus in western India before the Portuguese transformed it into a pilgrim centre for Roman Catholics. “ Goa is the Kashi of the west coast India,” according to this brochure. Not surprisingly, they roped in leading local industrialist Ashok Chowgule, president of the VHP's Maharashtra and Goa units, to conduct the campaign, who also brought in two other leading mine owners – Dhempo and Salgaoncar – into the camp. DISTORTING HISTORY OF GOA’S LIBERATION More recently, the Goa Directorate of Education made compulsory the screening of a film on Goa’s liberation financed by the BJP government of Goa, produced and released by the Directorate. Goa’s Struggle for Freedom, shows the Church in poor light, begins with the arrival of the Portuguese in the 16th century and goes on to show scenes of ‘forced conversions’ by the colonisers and relates tales of atrocities they purportedly perpetrated against the indigenous population. Scores of copies were made and distributed to all schools and institutions for screening on December 19, to coincide with the 43rd anniversary of Goa’s liberation. Due to public protests, including Christian organisations which run 50 odd schools in Goa and did not screen the film in their schools on the grounds that it depicts too much violence, blood and gore and would destroy the communal harmony in the state, the government was forced to withdraw it, which it did on January 4. According to a UCA news report “The 68-minute-film tells the history of Goa under Portuguese rule by way of an elderly man narrating the story to his granddaughter. About 20 minutes is dedicated to the Portuguese Inquisition in Goa in the 16th century. Another 20 minutes shows the Portuguese invasion of Goa, including Catholic Portuguese attacking local Hindus with batons and swords. The film also talks about the Portuguese destroying thousands of temples, with images of one temple destroyed. In one scene, three priests are seated in a dimly lit room, a cross lit up with red lights on the wall behind them. Speaking in deep voices and laughing, they condemn a Hindu couple to brutal assault. In another scene, a woman is forcibly baptized. The film also shows soldiers assaulting a man and raping a woman. The film projects Bom Jesus Basilica in Old Goa as the headquarters of the Portuguese regime, with important decisions against local Hindus taken in front of the altar.” Most of it is fiction rather than history, and if the film is not anything, it is simply not anti-colonial, it is only anti-christian, with picturisation of specific ‘incidents’ that have been imagined in order to show up the cruelty of Christians. And of course it is the RSS types that liberate Goa! ................To be continued........