A COMMUNITY OF WEALTH By Wendell Rodricks In 222 Goan villages, during the month of May, small lines crawl at the Comunidade offices. Goan men, meekly like sheep to slaughter, awaiting their jono. Some years, this distribution, the wealth of the land, is merely a hundred rupees. "It's not about the money" they say. It's about being the descendants of the original inhabitants of the land. As in Garcia Marquez' famed novel "A Hundred Years of Solitude", the Comunidades or Gaunkary of Goa, were the first settlers who tamed the land and created our villages. With love. With pride. With responsibility. With justice. Above all, with integrity.
The word "COMUNIDADE" is a Portuguese appellation for GAUNKARY. A Gaunkary means an indigenous ancient association as a community of villagers and represented by men from the first settlers or inhabitants of Goa inter alia with inherited common contractual responsibility in a given locality. Rules were made to be obeyed and to carry out common duties / obligations in order to promote their own welfare and that constituted its society or Gaunponn. So sacred was the governance of these private village lands that even the Portuguese did not undo nor violate the natural life of the Gaunkary system. Realising that the 222 villages had an enviable administration in place, the Portuguese colonizers honoured the Gaunkary system under the law providing a "Codigo das Comunidades". All that changed in 1961; further abused in 1968. Today it is almost romantic to imagine the workings and honesty of the Gaunkarys. In a world exploding with greed, corruption, illegal behaviour and casual disrespect for any law, the Gaunkary system appears the only answer to save Goa from ruin. Imagine a Goa where honest villagers mark out land for farming and animal husbandry. As per Gaunkary laws they marked out grazing areas for cattle, maintained village dams (bunds) along rivers and settled disputes. In this ideal village life, spaces were marked for places of worship, graveyards and crematoriums. New areas were brought under cultivation. All this was done without much help from the rulers, yet contributing a share to the king. As kingdoms rose and fell over thousands of years, what stayed was the continuity of the villages. It is a shame that the Government of India, in direct violation of the charter of rights of indigenous peoples, as set down by the United Nations imposed rules of land and administration on the Goan people in the 222 Comunidade villages of Goa. What was obviously an unintentional but flamed transition of Portuguese to Indian law must now be rectified. We Goans cannot blame any single person as this was an unusual event for its time. In this cultural genocide and ethnocide, Goans lost their voice and courage; confused in large part emotionally, wondering if they were being anti-national. There are many issues at stake in the legal reinstitution of the Comunidades of Goa. Top of the list are the administrators and politicians, at both state and national level, who want control and power, thereby completely ignoring the thousands of years of Gaunkary system in the Deccan and Konkan coast. Within villages, personal greed has polluted village minds to rob them of a birth right. Corrupt Comunidade clerks contort rules. Even Comunidade members are unaware of their rules. Some succumb to illegalities. New settlers do not want to accept the Gaunkary system because they wrongly believe that the system is based on a male dominated lineage which outsiders cannot be a part of. While the former is true, the latter is not. Comunidades have accepted into their Gaunkary list, people who contribute to the village. In the past, specialized labour, skilled artisans, educationists and persons of contributing value to the village have been added to the Comunidade. What is special about the Gaunkary system is the ancient form of respect for both man and environment. For me it is a unique trait in a Goa that is suffering presently from ethnocide due to imposed Central rules and a rapid population growth. Hopefully, one day soon India and Goans will realize the truth and support the Comunidades of Goa. For that, knowledge is crucial. Log onto www.geocities.com/newagegoa. Championing the cause legally Adv. Andre Pereira and in print Savio Herman D'Souza are optimistic about the Comunidade system. More power to them and to Goans, in Goa, and worldwide, who support the cause. Our ancestors formed our villages. With passion, love for the land and for Goa, they cared for our land and homes. It is our duty to respect those intentions. It is our duty to honour and perpetuate the honourable intentions of our ancestors. It is time to repay their honour. With dignity and love. It is time to revive the Comunidades of Goa to their rightful glory. By next May, I hope to see (at village Comunidades) not a line of shuffling, meek Goan men but a battalion of gaunkars who are informed and proud to be the responsible owners of their villages. That will be a summer to rejoice and raise a cheer for the reputable and time-respected cultural tradition of the Goan Gaunkary system. -------- The SyleSpeak column above appeared in the June 2008 issue of Goa Today magazine =====