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You have to look all the way back over sixty years ago to the last time
Goa’s borders were as critically important they are today, on the 37th
anniversary of the former centrepiece of the* Estado da India* becoming the
smallest state in the Republic of India.

Back then before 1961, there were customs agents posted at all the main
entry points, who tried to prevent contraband from being imported.
Fast-forward to 2021 and this time the border controls are our best attempt
to keep out the worst of Covid-19.

In identical ways, all over the planet, the pandemic’s mortal threats have
compelled humankind to once again raise up barriers that were once lowered
- or even outright removed – by previous generations. We have become
divided anew into barricaded islands: shut into our buildings, vaddos,
neighbourhoods, villages and towns, one state across the guarded line from
another state. The difference between one and the other is literally life
and death.

When the walls go up like this, who is an insider? Stranded away from home,
have you been transformed into an outsider? What determines belonging:
ancestral roots, proven commitment, or whatever and wherever keeps you
safe? And in the end, how do any of these factors result in the way
identity is nurtured in your innermost being?

The great laureate Bakibab Borkar was convinced the disparate peoples of
Goa have been moulded together by the undulating landscape. Using language
that strikes a chord with many contemporary neo-Goan migrants from around
the world, he insisted his ancestral home’s “scenic beauty has a
supernatural quality of refining the human mind, and of turning it inward
into the depths of creativity and spirituality.”

Borkar explained, “Tribals, Dravidians, Aryans, Assyrians and Sumerians
settled in this territory through the course of several centuries but Goa’s
scenic beauty humanized them all so insistently and efficiently that they
amalgamated into a single society, with one common language and one
cultural heritage. The kinship and co-operation forged unto them by the
aesthetic impact of Goa’s rich scenery taught them the art of living in
peace and friendship, and inspired them to strive for nobler ideals.”

What the famous poet is masterfully describing is *vegllench munisponn*,
the innate Goan humanism characterized by radically open minds and hearts,
and rooted in fierce independence of spirit. This bedrock quality
distinguishes the peoples of Goa – no matter their specific ethnic origin –
and runs powerfully throughout the many-layered culture they have built
together. There is an implied corollary: if you can relate, you might find
your place here.

 This uniquely inclusive aspect of our identity was wonderfully outlined by
Amitav Ghosh at the Golden Jubilee edition of Goa Arts + Literature
Festival in 2011.

The Jnanapith award winner, who has maintained a home in Aldona for many
years, said, “one of the ways that Goa is new is that it has invented a
kind of cosmopolitanism that is peculiarly its own. It is a cosmopolitanism
of lived experience; a cosmopolitanism of inner dialogues, where the
outsider becomes a part of an inner voice. Sometimes embraced and sometimes
excoriated, this voice is nonetheless not ignored as it might be elsewhere.”

Those are consequential insights. Post-colonial generations are accustomed
to thinking of Goa as finger-nail-tiny on the periphery of the giant
landmass of modern India. But if you pivot oceanward, the skein of history
unravels differently, revealing this location’s very long history as an
all-important entrepôt.

Full 1000 years ago, the Kadamba dynasty was sufficiently enlightened
enough to appoint an Arab prime minister, to encourage improved exchange
across the waves. Five centuries later, when the Portuguese headed to the
Mandovi, they faced off against a Polish Jewish admiral representing the
Adil Shah (himself from Georgia in the Caucasus).

In all this – and the tumultuous succeeding centuries – the record is amply
clear: what we now call globalization is fundamentally built in to Goan DNA.

Nowadays we suspect the whole world feels excessively free to land up in
Goa, but the flip side is Goans have poured out of their homeland in
ceaseless torrents since the 19th century, and happily made good in every
corner of the globe.

At this moment, the Deputy Mayor of London is Goan and so is Boris
Johnson’s Attorney General. Across in Portugal, the finance minister and
planning ministers are both Goan, and their prime minister Antonio Costa
constantly flourishes his Overseas Citizen of India card.

Costa is visibly and passionately proud of all aspects of his identity,
which is comfortably Margaokar, Lisboeta, Indian and Portuguese at the same
time. There’s no question of there being any contradictions. Every Goan
recognizes this reality, and you need to if there’s going to be any hope
for you.

It is the case that for much too long, Goa suffered at the hands of
ignorant, malevolent reductionists. The colonialists blustered Aqui é
Portugal as fact, and when they were expelled, another set of
assimilationists chorused that our language was an insignificant dialect of
Marathi, and we are actually Maharashtrians. They too were defeated, but
there is no denying that Goan identity is fraught with questions and
contestations.

Luckily some useful answers are embedded in there too.

Thus, deep in the annals of our jigsawed past, we find the persistent
presence of the Sanskrit name for this part of the Konkan: *Aparanta*. For
the landmark exhibition of that name, the curator and critic Ranjit Hoskote
translated it as “that which is at the horizon” which he says, “describes
Goa beautifully, conveying the spirit of a richly confluential society that
has been nourished by diverse cultural sources, among them, Indian and
Iberian, Kashmiri and Persian, Arab and Chinese, Mediterranean and East
African, Hindu and Catholic, Sufi and Bhakti.”

Those are our roots, but also aspiration. On this momentuous anniversary,
as we seek relief and healing from the dreaded virus, let us also pray for
our civilizational ideals to be restored and renewed. After all, statehood
is significant and meaningful, but what’s much more critical is the state
of Goa.

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