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!

FLEXING ITS MUSCLES

The Panaji Nagrik Kruti Samiti, an RSS linked organisation, has been flexing its muscles at the Corporation of the City of Panaji (CCP). It has asked the civic body to rename 14 streets in the capital that bear any record of the Portuguese presence in Goa. Targeting Portuguese street names like the “Rua Armada Portuguesa” and the “Rua 31 do Janeiro”, the saffron group renamed them “Vithal Rakhumai Marg” and “19th December Marg” (Deccan Herald, June 2, 2004).

A group of over 30 people led by some BJP councillors stormed into the compound of the Bishop's Palace on Monday, after a sponsored rumour had it that an excavation had unearthed a “shivalingam”. There is no excavation on in the palace precincts, and the flat, granite slab with a chiselled spout which is suddenly at the centre of attention, has been lying in the compound for over 35 years). The state's director of archives and archaeology Manohar Dicholkar who arrived at the spot on his own, actually arrived to take over but was stopped from “taking possession”. The Bishop's Palace is across the road from the chief minister’s official bungalow at Altinho, Panjim. Spotted among the crowd of agitators were the chief minister's staff and policemen in mufti… According to Fr Pereira, the Bishop's Palace was built in 1894 at the meagre sum of 36,000 escudos (Rs 90,000). Stone similar to the pedestal was carried from Old Goa and Divar and used for the palace’s archways. (Deccan Herald, January 3, 2004).

WHAT KIND OF TOURISM

And what is the kind of tourism this government has been promoting? Saffron clad sadhus, om shanti chants, hash from Manali, and Israeli tourists, Hebrew banners, restaurants serving Israeli food on Goa beach shacks. But, the predominance of Israeli vacationers in Goa does more than just… “lend a hedonistic international flavour to the scene - there's an unmistakable stench of racism that filters through all the ganja and patchouli. Despite the warm fuzzy hippie rhetoric, clearly, Indian visitors are not welcome at Israeli-hotspots like northern Goa, …and can only be treated as second class guests.” (Anjali Kamat, Shalom Goa, on South Asian Literature and Arts website, Winter 2003). In many small guest houses Indians are told they are full, while Europeans and especially Israelis get taken in just after.

Anjali Kamat goes on to describe further: “It's New Years Eve and the DJ war at one of Goa's beachfront shacks is taking on distinctly racial shades. The Europeans and Israelis are easily united in opposing the growing Indian presence at the shack. "This is OUR place. We don't want this fucking Indian playing Bollywood shit." An irate English folksinger threatens the DJ before she storms out. The rival French DJ sulks in a corner because he has been replaced by this New-York returned Delhi-wallah wanting to play some African music. "The ambience here is just not good anymore," warns an Israeli armed with a beautiful guitar. He returns half an hour later, this time with a group of tough-looking fellow Israelis. And heads towards the DJ behind the bar to settle the music question in a 'peaceful' way …for war-weary Israelis in particular, there's no messing around with their post-service vacation.

Goa's beautiful beaches, drugs and music offer the perfect ambience to recover from the trauma of serving in the army - especially if one was unlucky enough to be posted in the Occupied Territories. Peace, aggressively marketed through drugs and kitsch spirituality, is the buzzword.” On the other hand Mongini pastry shops and specific hoteliers and NGO workers are targeted for representing the Portuguese in India! So much for BJP’s espousal of promoting bhartiyata!

POLITICAL DISCRIMINATION

On the administration front, the BJP government in the State has been systematically and consistently discriminating against the minorities in recruitment to government jobs including the police force. (Goan Observer, March 25, 2004). There are numerous times that Parrikar has upgraded a post or changed the recruitment rules to ensure that a secular candidate is denied the rightful promotion.

Scores of computer programmers were brought in from Mumbai to analyse the electoral rolls, and interpret them with the help of the BJP and RSS cadres at the constituency and even the booth level. The BJP formed booth level committees formed during the elections play a crucial role in the Hindutva campaigns. “The booth level committees are armed with detailed information…The community and caste-wise break-up of the voters. In the case of minority community voters, details have been provided as to how many are away in the Gulf, how many are at sea and how many actually exercise [d] their franchise.

The few Muslim minority pockets in Margao and elsewhere have also been identified… “The cadres of the BJP and the Sangh Parivar at the constituency level, the taluka level and even the booth level, have precise data on the number of migrant workers, the number of slums, the identity of the slum lords. The number of Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe workers. The number of voters who have benefited from the Dayanand old age pension scheme. The names of those who have been given jobs in the police and other departments in the recruitments carried out since Manohar Parrikar became the chief minister. The names of those who have completed their pre-employment training and the others who are in the process of being trained. No party in Goa has bothered to keep itself as well informed of the minutest details of the electorate as the BJP has done.” (Goan Observer). The data has been used to woo/buy/intimidate/prevent voters from exercising their right during voting, and in campaigns thereafter.

These details go to show why BJP must be defeated in every state, and why we need to support other political groups even if we do not like them, to defeat the BJP.