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Goan, Goan...
Maseeh Rahman
FOR the last four years an extraordinary people’s stir has been on in
Goa. As this movement against a politician-decreed idea of economic
progress consolidates itself, a united front of grassroots groups will
be formed at a rally in Panaji on Thursday.
The movement began in 2006 in opposition to a regional development plan
that proposed to sell off huge swathes of land to big Mumbai- and
Delhi-based developers. The buzz in Panaji then was that prominent
politicians stood to collect Rs 1,000 crore in kickbacks. Though many
projects were frozen as a result of the stir, others are still on, while
the development plan remains in limbo.
But one thing is for sure: a middle class-led people’s movement of this
sort could only take place in Goa. Goa, as novelist Graham Greene and
countless advertising copywriters have said, is unique. But Goans never
tire of complaining that the rest of India often misconstrues the
state’s special character. Extended Portuguese rule (450 years and 23
days, according to a local historian) is one reason why it’s different.
But there are other factors — the most important of which has to do with
pre-British, preMuslim, Brahminical India.
As photographer and cultural theorist Richard Lannoy points out, Goa’s
distinctive culture has been shaped by its unique communal system of
agricultural land ownership, a leftover from ancient Brahmin-dominated
times. This is particularly so in the three coastal districts of Bardez,
Tiswadi and Salcette: the Old Conquests area, the territory first
occupied by the Portuguese in 1510. It is primarily villages in these
districts that provide the setting for the popularly-imagined Goa of
today — cosmopolitan, carefree, lush, exotic.
Since ancient times, the “gaonkar” or “comunidade” system has ensured
that the best rice-producing land was common village property. As a
result, in a quirk of history, Goa bypassed feudalism. Village produce
was shared between different castes, a system that was retained by the
Portuguese colonisers. It is Goa’s unique relations of agricultural
production that helped create an educated village middle class. Jesuit
and Franciscan schools also helped. “Nowhere in India does one find such
a substantial middle-class presence in a rural area,” Lannoy wrote in
1980, well before economic liberalisation began changing the rural
landscape in the rest of India.
Greene noticed it during a visit shortly after the Portuguese left in
December 1961. “There are few extremes of poverty and affluence” in a
Goan village, he observed. But as he crossed the state border, though
the landscape remained verdant, shanties and other signs of
impoverishment appeared.
It is this well-provided and educated rural middle-class, closely
connected to the international Goan diaspora, that admitted and
tolerated the hippies in the ’60s. Forty years on, much has changed in
Goa. Calangute is a concrete eyesore. The foreign “freaks”, who are also
largely middle-class, have fled to smaller enclaves. Hordes of men from
other states regularly invade the beaches to ogle or harass women in
swimsuits. And crimes against tourists get more lethal.
Arambol Beach, where a nine-year-old Russian girl was raped last month,
is regarded in today’s counter-culture universe as “one of the last
resorts for an alternative lifestyle in Goa”. Just before the outrage,
it hosted the third Indian Juggling Convention, attracting jugglers,
musicians, dancers and “wellness” gurus from across the world. It is the
kind of place where women can not only get an Ayurvedic massage but also
attend workshops to “discover a new Lover/ Queen/ Goddess archetype.”
But both the quaint imported beach culture and the very special
indigenous village ethos are under threat.
Goa is India’s smallest state by area. In its villages it is also the
most exceptional. Jawaharlal Nehru, writer Maria Couto once told me, did
a lot for Goa, but made one mistake — he forgot to give it protection
from land sharks. Is it too late to enact laws similar to those in
Himachal and Uttarakhand, where outsiders cannot purchase land?
Goa’s politicians will probably be the first to oppose such a move. It
may be trite to blame politicians for all society’s ills. But in Goa you
cannot escape them. “Every MLA is involved in making money illegally,
and in a tiny assembly if you touch even one he or she threatens to
bring down the government,” said a former officer in the Goa police.
Though Goa’s police are as venal, one cannot but agree with the officer.
Someone I knew was organising a “rave party”. How does he intend to
ensure that the police don’t bust it, I asked? No problem, he replied, a
foolproof system: he had paid the local MLA one lakh rupees for
“protection”. “The rave organiser would’ve made three times the money
from selling drugs at the party,” said the officer.
Maka naka gho is the cry from the villages, the refrain from a famous
Konkani folk song, “I don’t want it!”
The writer is a Delhi-based journalist
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/goan-goan.../579710/0
