Life

A World Without Alito

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I was first introduced to Prof Alito by Dale, to speak on a panel at Goa University discussing the language conflict in Goa. Though the panel never happened, I was enrolled in the long list of mentees that Alito chose to mentor voluntarily. I was never his student but that hardly mattered. Upon almost all my longer vacation spent in Goa, a meeting with Alito, at his residence was almost always fixed. However, it was never an easy conversation with Alito. He, unlike many academics of his age and repute, would not bombard you with his intellectual prowess. Rather, the onus of continuing the conversation was on you and he subtly played the devil’s advocate, often to provoke you. And he didn’t do it out of some spite, though it took me a while to get used to his manner of conversation. Notwithstanding some acute differences of opinion with him, Alito was always forthcoming in helping in all possible ways he can. He wrote me my first recommendation letter, for the DD Kosambi fellowship. He asked me to speak to his batch of sociology students and work with them on improving their dissertations when I had barely finished writing mine.

But, the most endearing thing about Alito was his persistent activism that manifested in various forms inside as well as outside his classes. He guided several students from marginalized backgrounds, helped them get fellowships, jobs and even fought to get them tenured lecturer posts through the reservation, even at the cost of his job. One could always have a grudge against Alito for not producing academic papers given that his command over Goa’s socio-cultural world was rare and impeccable. But he (over)compensated this lack of writing on his part by investing all his energy into his students. In a way, Alito wrote people, helping them to find ‘their’ voice.

Towards the phase in his career that I knew him, he was challenging the very methods of producing academic scholarship. After early retirement from his teaching obligation, he was engaged in thinking through pedagogic practices of teaching sociology and the challenges of negotiating the social stratifications of caste, gender, religion, or language that find their ways in the classroom. And I guess that is a crucial point for us to think for the future. How we approach and understand the very idea of knowledge. We live in a society where not just the right to produce knowledge, but the authenticity of it and its ability to propagate itself rests heavily on social stratifications that we come to inherit. In other words, knowledge is a function of caste. If there’s one takeaway from Alito’s illustrious career as a teacher of sociology, it is his persistent effort to democratize the access to producing knowledge, not merely consuming it. Academia has a robust gatekeeping system that keeps a check on what kind of knowledge gets produced in university spaces. And it is not only the market forces that influence this, but also a certain brand of academic feudalism that still wants to keep people away from producing knowledge. Alito not only challenged this feudalism but also explored diverse forms of producing knowledge that was not necessarily considered academic.

As we transition into a world without Alito, we need to bear this in mind. That knowledge comes in forms. Knowledge is an experience. And it can be experienced. It is not merely text that can be reproduced in a journal for market gains. It has a function to play. To empower the one who is creating it.  If and when we become pedagogues, how can we ensure to create an environment in our classrooms where such an understanding of knowledge finds adequate space to thrive and sustain? That would be a fitting and long-lasting tribute to Alito’s career as an academic.

Food

Simple Prawn Curry recipe with Coconut Milk

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Sharing a very simple and easy to make prawn curry recipe, taught to me by Meera. This is closest to what Goan Prawn Curry tastes like but not exactly. Neverthless, it’s a tasty recipe and easy to try out.

Ingredients:

Tomatoes, Garlic, Red Chillies, Curry Leaves, Coconut Milk, Chilli Powder, Haldi/Turmeric powder), Coriander powder, Prawns

Procedure

  • Heat oil, add the red chillies and curry leaves.
  • Then add the finely chopped tomatoes and garlic.
  • Sauté.
  • Then add haldi, chilli powder and coriander powder and fry well till it all forms a nice masala.
  • Then slowly add prawns and fry gently.
  • Add water, according to the requirement to thin the curry.
  • After the prawns are cooked, you can addd the coconut milk and bring it to boil well.
  • Garnish with the coriander leaves

Done.

Diary

Jivi Sethi and an undelivered postcard

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This is in May 2017. I was scheduled to travel to Lisbon for a conference. The invite came almost at the last moment and I had to organize my travel within two weeks before departure. I was scheduled to appear for a visa appointment at the Portuguese Consulate in Altinho. But due to heavy rains on the scheduled day, I could not reach the consulate in time and came back and postponed my interview for the next day. But for some reason, my appointment letter retained the original date. I still went thinking that it is how perhaps the system works. When it was my turn to get in, the consul general saw that I had the previous date printed on my appointment letter and didn’t let me inside. I kept telling him that I have a fresh appointment but he didn’t pay any heed. He asked me to get a fresh appointment for the next day which seemed like a doable option, except that I was already scheduled to appear for my JNU entrance exam on that day. I had a bad anxiety attack. It almost came to a point where I would have to make a choice between appearing for the JNU entrance or going to Lisbon.

A week before that, I had met Jivi at Cafe Sunaparanta and shared with him that I am travelling to Lisbon. He casually happened to mention that Rui Baceira, the then Portuguese Consul, was his dear friend. I just needed someone who knew Mr Rui personally so I, very anxiously, called up Jivi to explain my situation. Though he patiently heard my situation, he scolded me for not acting swiftly. He even said I’ve never sought personal favors from the Consul General despite their friendship. I explained him the situation that this was a last minute invite and putting my travel papers took some time. He said let me see what can be done. It almost seemed like I would have to cancel my Lisbon trip.

When I reached back home, Jivi called and told me that he had spoken to Mr Baceira and that Mr Baceira realized it was an error on their behalf to have turned me away. He asked me to write an email to the Consul General explaining my situation and see if anything can be done. I did and to my surprise, instantly received a reply from the consul himself asking me to appear for the visa process that very evening or the next day, once I am done answering my JNU entrance exam. I wasted no time and drove from Ponda to Panjim on my scooter (in 25 mins) and completed all the required formalities for the Portuguese visa. The next day I went and answered my JNU entrance exam too. And that is the story of how I went to both Lisbon, and to JNU thanks to Jivi. He risked his personal relation with Mr Baceira and helped me, who he hardly knew beyond couple of meetings, to get the visa.

On my recent trip to New York, I sent him a postcard recollecting the incident and how much I was dreading the US visa process but it went smoothly. I guess the postcard never reached him and now it never will for he won’t be found at the intended address, even if they ever deliver it. Rest in peace, my friend. You will be greatly missed!

Diary/Travel

Reading Pessoa

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This is no critical take on Pessoa. I have not even read him exhaustively but I am increasingly falling in love with his writing so much that I want to expedite my Portuguese learning and read him in Portuguese. While I was in Lisbon (mandatory bragging for Europe travel), I would read his poems on the internet while sitting in a café or at a bar. Since the Lisbon trip materialised rather at the last moment, I couldn’t pick up his Lisbon: What the tourist should see beforehand, nor I was inclined to read it while I was there. But I managed to read some of his poems. After coming back, I have been occasionally reading his The Book of Disquiet (TBOD), as and when I find spare time. I think TBOD is a book I want/ed to write. It is deeply internal, incisive and arresting. Just thoughts, with no compulsions of narrative, linearity or structure and is inviting. And the format too, of short musings is something I myself have been writing. And in my mind, I thought I was making a breakthrough in the literature scene by experimenting with this form, until I came across Ravish Kumar’s LaPreK and finally Pessoa’s TBOQ. Nevertheless, now that I’ve learnt Pessoa has already written what I have been deferring to write, I am planning to gift copies of TBOQ to friends.

I usually read it on my way to the university or before sleeping. In it, Pessoa writes about mundane reflections that are simultaneously existential. Apart from its beautifully flowing prose, I also relate to the subjective position that Pessoa has assumed as a first person narrator in the book, that of a quiet observer of himself and everything else in the chaos of everyday. Every now and then, Pessoa throws in some of the most brilliant one liners and metaphors. Consider

To express something is to conserve its virtue and take away its terror.

Or

Everything was sleeping as if the universe were a mistake.

And what is interesting is the book is as much about Lisbon as it is about Pessoa. He doesn’t fetishize the city yet brings out Lisbon in his writing in most evocative ways. Growing up in Ponda- a small town of Goa, and having lived in Pune and Delhi, I have always wondered if I could locate myself in a cityscape (in a broader sense). I can perhaps write about Goa that nobody wants to read. I am repulsed by Delhi these days and I spend my time here as if I am doing a favour on the city. Pune is the only place I have desired to go back to but I am not sure if I will like it either. In that sense, TBOQ is a great example about how to write about a city without giving it any extra emphasis. I started reading TBOQ to regain my momentum in reading fiction but it is becoming a primer for me on how to write.

Uncategorized

The Woman and the Doctor

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(A poem from Sudirsukta by Vishnu Wagh. Translated by me with help from Preeti Nangal)
 
 
Doctor,
It’s been four months now…
Oh that’s a good news!
God has blessed you
You are pregnant and
You shall be a mother soon
 
But doctor
We don’t even have a house
 
The world is your abode
Claim any corner
Bear the pain
Lighten your womb
And let the funis be buried there
Don’t worry keep calm
You shall be a mother soon
 
Both of us are unemployed
We do menial jobs
He labors in farms
While I do the dishes
Earth pierces our stomachs when we sleep
Pray tell us how would we raise a kid?
 
You fulfilled your desires
And had your share of fun
Why are you worried now
About feeding your son?
Hunger shall be satiated
One way or the other
Son will grow up
And look after the mother
 
Doctor, with rising inflation
It is expensive to even survive
 
Agreed that death is cheaper
But has the world come to an end?
Your significance in this world
Lady you do not understand
 
I do not understand you, doctor
 
Let me explain
The nation needs workers
To do its labor
To operate the machines
We need daily wagers
And nation needs voices
To sing its praise
God gave you a belly
To satisfy the nation’s hunger
He blessed women with motherhood
So you may produce well in number
Your womb is but a factory
That’ll breed workers for nation
Bear this burden and stay mute
For you are going to be a mother soon
 
Doctor
To bear this life even
Is impossible now
Where living itself is undesired
How do I borrow the strength to bear the child?
 
Why do you lose hope?
Darwin said that a man survives
despite adversities
You must concede
For the mother earth is calling you
You give birth to a child
To sons that shall shoulder the earth
Live happily ever after
Keep breeding future workers
The nation will get its workers
Our machines shall run
Our fields will blossom
While your body will be satisfied too
Go lady….
Let your first motherhood
Be happy and prosperous
Let the nation progress
And may you be a mother
Over and over again!
Diary/Life

D.D. Kosambi Fellowship

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I have been awarded the D.D. Kosambi Research Fellowship by the Directorate of Art and Culture, Government of Goa for the year 2016-2018. Under this fellowship, I will be researching the genealogies of Maratha and Marathi identities in 20th century Portuguese Goa.

The assertion and presence of Marathi in Goa has always been looked at with certain degree of suspicion. The popularity of Marathi in Goa was the basis on which Goa’s merger with Maharashtra was argued in sixties. The debate was laid to rest following a referendum, popularly known as the ‘Opinion Poll’, wherein majority of the Goans voted to remain as an independent union territory instead of merging with Maharashtra. Goa’s affinity towards Marathi was further seen in the official language movement where Konkani (written in Devnagari script) was instituted as the official language of Goa and Marathi was approved for official purpose.

Goa’s relationship with Marathi is deeply linked to the peculiar networks of caste and colonialism that marked the early 20th century Goa. Several Goan Hindu communities were engaging with Maratha history and/or Marathi language to make space for themselves in the upward mobility race. There were several lower caste communities that adopted a Maratha past and identity. This adoption was as an assertion of a certain caste consciousness. Marathi had a strong presence in the vernacular print as well, alongwith the Romi Konkani, in Goa and Bombay. From the late 19th century till 1961, there were around 82 Marathi periodicals that were started either in Goa or by Goans in British and Independent India. Another major factor that fostered the popularity of Marathi and Maratha history in Goa was Marathi theatre. Goa was part of the larger circuit in which Marathi theatre that was produced in British India was being performed. But more importantly, Goa has had a long standing tradition of Marathi theatre that was at its peak for the major period of the 20th century. These plays were staged in the temple premises itself since the majority of the temples in Goa extend into performing spaces. The themes were predominantly mythological or based on the life and times of the Maratha king Shivaji Bhosale. Marathi also was, and still is, the language of spirituality and worship among the Goan Hindu communities.

‘Region’ exists as a notional construct and not merely as a geographical terrain contained within arbitrary boundaries. Thus, if regions too exist as ‘imagined communities‘, it is imperative to reiterate Partha Chatterjee’s emphasis to define the locus of these imaginations. Goa is site whose histories not only can offer fresh perspectives on colonial empires in South Asia, but also highlight the imperial manner in which post-colonial nations operate at the impulses of its ruling and elite class. This project is driven by the pursuit to locate these genealogies in general, and those that claimed Goa as an extension of Maharashtra in particular.

The Goan Column

Bahujan leaders, not Bahujan faces

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bapsa

The student union elections at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in Delhi recently concluded with the Left Unity Panel, a political alliance between Student Federation of India and All India Student’s Association, winning all the four posts on the student panel. The student politics at the JNU campus has always been a closely watched affair and following the national attention that JNU had garnered after controversial slogans raising events in February this year. In this election, both left and right wing parties on the JNU campus jostled to capture the field after the highly acrimonious and divisive scenes following the state’s crackdown on JNU in response to the aforementioned events in February.

While these two factions battled for their dominance on the JNU campus, the Birsa Ambedkar Phule Student Association (BAPSA) emerged as the show stealer, despite not being able to win any of the central panel posts. BAPSA was the single largest party to be voted in the JNU student union polls. BAPSA gave a clarion call for the unity of the oppressed, ensuring that Dalits, Bahujans, Adivasis, Muslim students came together to consolidate a formidable opposition not only to the Hindutva forces on the campus, but also to the leftist political outfits that otherwise claim to be in solidarity with the struggles of the oppressed.

BAPSA positioned itself as a political force of the minoritised sections of the students, with opposition to caste as a fundamental basis on which its politics was founded. The rise of BAPSA in JNU is in tune with the various caste based movements emerging from different parts of India, such as the resistance of the Dalit communities in Gujarat under the leadership of Jignesh Mewani, or the nationwide movement that was spurred after the institutional murder of Rohith Vemula, a research scholar at the University of Hyderabad. These political uprisings are indicative of a pattern wherein Dalit-Bahujan and minoritised communities are altering not only the narrative of the Indian politics, but its grammar too.

One manner in which BAPSA has been able to do this is to launch a vocal critique of the Indian leftist political outfitswhich, for decades, have been positioning themselves as the vanguards of secular and liberal politics in India. However, these left political outfits are very much plagued by the caste hierarchy with upper castes holding (onto) key political positions. Moreover, the anti-reservation stance of these leftist groups during the implementation of the Mandal commission report or even their unfounded critique of Ambedkar and Ambedkarism is also indicative of their outlook towards caste politics. The newer Dalit bahujan political outfits, such as the BAPSA, have been consistently highlighting the inherent casteism within the left parties, arguing that they are no different from their right wing counterparts.

In this context, the takeaways from BAPSA’s politics offer some interesting insights to rethink bahujan politics in Goa. The bahujan communities within Hindu and Catholic communities, have played a crucial role in shaping Goa’s political scenario. All parties field bahujan candidates to ensure maximum success. However, this representation of Bahujans within the political outfits in Goa has often, if not always, been reduced into mere tokenistic representation.A look at the recent political outfits that are gearing up for the upcoming assembly elections in Goa would tell you that though all these parties are promising assured representation of bahujan and minoritised communities, their supreme leaders are predominantly upper caste individuals. Most of the parties have their bahujan faces in cadre that does the groundwork but when it comes to assuming leadership positions, it has always been dominated by the upper caste leaders of these parties.

big_wagh_parrikarThe implications of such usurping of positions of power by upper caste leaders are many. Firstly, while most of the parties will claim that they represent interests of all communities, the interests of the upper caste communities get preference by the virtue of them being led by the upper caste members themselves. Secondly, it renders the bahujan leadership within the party ineffective; the bahujan leaders lack the power to counter the assertion of upper caste interests because they understandably try not to rock the boat so as to maintain whatever position of influence they have within the party. Thus, the bahujan leaders are rendered as baits to garner bahujan support while the upper caste power structure does not allow them to safeguard political interests of the bahujan communities.

BAPSA’s act of distancing itself from the left parties on JNU campus is precisely to overcome such usurping of power. BAPSA has no qualms about clearly indicating whose interests they are representing and remain committed to foregrounding the struggles of the oppressed communities. Similarly, Goan bahujan politics needs to be reinvented to distance itself from the political outfits that operate not in the bahujan interest, but to serve upper caste interests disguised as those representing a cross section section of the Goan society. Instead, a bahujan alliance that brings together both, the Hindu and Catholic bahujan communities in agreement of sharing power can go long way in changing the fate of bahujan communities in Goa. Otherwise the upper caste leaders will continue to remain in positions of power, not only through the support of aforementioned bahujan faces but also at the cost of bahujan communities’ access to social and political empowerment.

This article was first published in The Goan on 22nd Sept 2016. 

The Goan Column

Unburdening the language from motherhood

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The debate over Goa’s language issue continues because the conflict is far from being resolved. The passing of the much controversial Official Language Act (OLA) in 1987 did anything but resolve it. In my previous columns, I have argued that the passing of the OLA was an act to impose Hindu Saraswat hegemony onto the Goan people, particularly the Hindu and the Catholic bahujan communities. In a book published in 2004, bahujan activist Ramnath Naik termed Nagari Konkani as ‘Bamani’, indicating the caste location from which the Nagari Konkani assertion emerged and is sustained till today. BJP MLA Vishnu Surya Wagh, in his op-ed article in a Marathi daily few weeks ago, also made a similar assertion, attracting sharp reactions from the Nagari Konkani camp.

Screen Shot 2016-08-03 at 1.32.23 PMEvery time the legitimacy of Nagari Konkani as an all encompassing cultural marker for Goans is challenged by Romi Konkani and Marathi supporters in Goa, its proponents religiously argue against it. Instead, they assert that Konkani as the sole Goan language since it is widely spoken in Goa. They would put forth the idea of Goa as the ‘mother’land and Konkani being the ‘mother’tongue of all Goans. By Konkani, they of course mean Nagri Konkani.  What distinctly marks the responses of the Nagari Konkani proponents is the manner in which they cover their defense with seeming emotional overtones, when in fact they are solidly reasoned out to assert their cultural supremacy. To nuance these conversations, one needs to undo a lot of generalized assumption about Goan history and language politics.

It is crucial to remember that there’s nothing natural about the languages we speak, contrary to what is often believed. We pick up languages that are being spoken in our environment. If speaking ‘a’ specific language was as natural as having a biological mother, we would have been hardcoded into speaking only the language that our mother would speak, irrespective of the social context that one would be born in. In a multilingual environment such as South Asia, one is bound to know more than one language with equal ease and proficiency. Further, this patriarchal fixation with defining languages as ‘mother tongue’ needs to be critically scrutinized. Characterizing language with the chaste figure of a mother, as something which needs to be protected is a pattern often observed in proto-nationalist movements. Such political movements not only restrict the role of woman as a passive symbol of political discourses which are largely driven by men, but their underlying masculine nature often tends along the lines of fascism.

deleuzeguattari1French philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guttari, in their book A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia (1987), argue that “there is no mother tongue [but] only a power takeover by a dominant language within a political multiplicity”. This is to imply that the project to naturalize languages (and script) as ‘mother tongue’ is essentially an attempt in fixing the language of the most dominant social group as the sole vehicle for cultural identity for those under subjugation. So, when Naik or Wagh refer to Nagari Konkani as Bamani, they are not merely hinting at the specific caste location of ‘official’ Konkani but also targeting the resultant fixing of the Hindu Saraswats in Goa as the ideal bearers of Goan identity, by the virtue of their dialect of Konkani being the official language binding onto the entire state.

Screen Shot 2016-08-03 at 3.15.41 PM
Bharat was a bilingual weekly (Marathi and Portuguese) published from Portuguese Goa. In early 1920s, it also started a supplement in Romi Konkani. Govind Pundalik Hegde Desai, also known as Bharatkar Hegde Desai, was the editor of Bharat.

It also needs to be emphasized that contrary to the claims of existence of one single Konkani since antiquity, history indicates otherwise. As Jason Keith Fernandes has argued there could have been several proto-Marathi and proto-Kannada dialects in use prior to the arrival of Portuguese. These dialects must have been largely confined to speech and associated with various caste communities. One must also remember that the access to knowledge was a privilege available only to the upper castes. Thus, even if there existed any tradition of writing in proto-Konkani prior to the arrival of Portuguese, it wasn’t a democratic tradition to begin with. A transition of a dialect to language is marked by its dissemination and popularization through networks of circulation. In Goa too, as argued by Fernandes and recently by Wagh, it was the work done by Catholic missionaries in codifying and disseminating Konkani through the Church that enabled the emergence of Konkani as a language. It is imperative to note that this version of Konkani predominantly used the Roman script. Rochelle Pinto’s Between Empires (2008), an inquiry of print and politics in nineteenth century Goa, also hints at the glaring absence of Nagari Konkani in the networks of print circulation while Romi Konkani, Marathi and Portuguese were thriving in Goa as well as in colonial Bombay. Thus, this false assumption that Nagari Konkani as a language was always present in Goa – even before the arrival of the Portuguese – has no basis in history.

Languages do not operate solely on impulses of emotions or identity, especially for communities which are displaced to the margins.  Rather, people adopt languages that will provide them opportunities and social mobility. Multi-lingual practices are important to facilitate social mobility in a caste and class setting that would diligently deny this mobility. Marathi, Romi Konkani and Portuguese have historically played that role for various Goan communities and therefore are very much the languages of the peoples of Goa.

Performance Studies/The Goan Column/Theatre

Tiatr and the Goan Public Sphere

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The emergence and evolution of the Goan public sphere has received very sparse attention, despite its potential to nuance the larger debate over public sphere, owing to the multicultural stratifications that are observed in the Goan polity. The Goan public sphere was being conceptualized not only from Goa but from colonial Bombay too. These attempts started consolidating towards the end of nineteenth century and early twentieth century owing to the resurgence of print. But print was not the only medium through which these publics were being consolidated. Often, studies on public sphere base their analysis on the emergence of print culture. As Janelle Reinelt has argued, in her article Rethinking Public Sphere for the Global Age (2011), studies on public sphere focused mainly on print cultures run the risk of eliding the presence of multiple channels of communication that employ aurality and visuality.

Nancy Fraser, in her essay ‘Rethinking Public Sphere’ (1990), has put forth the idea of a subaltern counterpublic. Subaltern counterpublics are parallel discursive arenas where members of subordinated social groups invent and circulate counterdiscourses, ie the discourse that challenge the dominant discourses, which in turn permit them to formulate oppositional interpretations of their identities, interests, and needs. Subaltern counterpublics have a dual character. On the one hand, they function as spaces of withdrawal and regroupment; on the other hand, they also function as bases for agitational activities directed toward wider publics. It is precisely in the relationship between these two functions that their emancipatory potential resides. This dialectic enables subaltern counterpublics partially to intervene the unjust participatory privileges enjoyed by members of dominant social groups in stratified societies.

Tiatr has been a mode to disseminate counterdiscourse, that challenge the dominant discourses originating from mainstream public spheres populated largely by socially dominant groups. Thus, tiatr has been influential in consolidating a subaltern counterpublic. In colonial Bombay, tiatr was a mode of contesting the shaming of the bahujan Goan Catholic communities by the Goan Catholic elites. The attempt was to build a positive identity through tiatr. In post-colonial Goa, the major function that tiatr has played is to create discourse asserting the differences of the Goan Catholic communities as a Catholic populace in a polity that is majorly dominated and governed by Hindus. Let me elaborate.

Francis de Tuem’s kantar in his tiatr Reporter (2015) begins with eulogizing Mother Teresa for her charity work and ends with a critique of ‘Ghar Wapsi’. Tuem’s kantar was in response to the statements made by Mohan Bhagwat in June 2015 where Bhagwat had said that Mother Teresa’s work was motivated by a desire to convert Indians to Christianity. This statement by Bhagwat was made around the same time that  ‘Ghar Wapsi’, a series of religious conversion activities were being carried by Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in various part of India. The prime objective of ‘Ghar Wapsi’ was to convert Dalits and Muslim Dalits into Hinduism and had become a topic for emotionally charged public debate. Tuem begins his kantar elaborating the work that Mother Teresa has done for the orphans, refuting charges of ulterior motive laid on her by them.  To the RSS and VHP, who sought to convert non-Hindus to Hinduism, Tuem asks, ‘we are Kunbi Catholics! Will you convert us to Bamon Hindus? The Bamons do not allow lower caste Hindus to enter their temples, will you allow us [the Catholics] in your temples?’ He ends the kantar on a note that says ‘my forefather might have been converted by Portuguese but I have become a Catholic by my own choice. I guarantee that all Catholics in Goa will die but as Catholics’.

This is a very crucial counter that Tuem poses to the narrative of ‘Ghar Wapasi’. It emanates from the daily shaming of the Goan Catholic communities as ‘living under a colonial hangover’ or as ‘anti-nationals’ by those who claim affinity to Hindu nationalist rhetoric. The presence of Catholics in Goa is always seen through the frame of religious conversions that were carried out in late 16th and 17th century. What needs to be highlighted here is that the conversions are predominantly believed to be ‘forced’ onto the natives by the Portuguese missionaries. However, there is enough evidence to contest such rhetoric by exploring other possible reasons that initiated the native residents to convert to Catholicism. Tuem’s kantar not only reclaims agency from a lower caste Catholic identity, but also refutes the narrative that essentially renders Catholic communities as disenfranchised population in Goa.

These counterdiscourses that make their way into the public imagination through tiatr operate at a scale where they have the potential to make or break governments and mobilise mass support to influence policy decisions. Tiatr does not merely act a mediator between the state and the public but also as a ombudsman. Thus, there have been attempts to stifle the tiatr artists for their sharp and incisive critique on the state. Reinelt argues that counterpublics change the face of the socio-political representation of the nation and its citizens and therefore create new sites for democratic struggle. Tiatr exemplifies creation of such ‘sites’ for a consistent struggle, and perhaps embodies the promise of a true democracy.

Issues/Music/The Goan Column

The Myth of ‘Unity in Diversity’

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This campaign emphasizes unity among all Indians by employing a rhetorical strategy that erodes the contradictions in imagining India as a singular nation.

The phrase ‘Unity in Diversity’ is periodically invoked to express the spirit of post-colonial Indian nationalism. What this phrase seeks to assert is that irrespective of varied religions, ethnicities, linguistic affiliations and other such differences, India and Indians stand united. Following Ernest Renan’s argument that ‘unity [in the context of nations] is always brutally established’, the Indian narrative of ‘Unity in Diversity’ too needs to be critically scrutinized. In post-colonial India, several policies and programs have been formulated that seek to emotionally invoke the idea of ‘Unity in Diversity’ among people in India. In the wake of recent events that have sparked off debates over ‘nation’ and ‘nationalism’ in India, I was reminded of the national integration campaign Miley Sur Mera Tumhara, produced in 1986, that still evokes a feeling of a unified Indian nation.

Mile Sur Mera Tumhara was a campaign produced by the Council for Public Service Commission, an undertaking of Government of India, and promoted by Doordarshan, the state-owned television at that time. This video is intended to represent the true Indian spirit: the diversity in Indian languages, costumes, regions, religions, ethnicities, and celebrities. It starts with a slow Hindustani classical rendering by vocalist Pandit Bhimsen Joshi, then picks up speed and moves across many languages, cultures, and musical variations, fading at the end into a harmony with the final notes of India’s national anthem. All the participants sing Mile Sur Mera Tumhara, Toh Sur Bane Humara, meaning, if my tune synchronizes with yours, then the tune becomes ours, making it indistinguishable.

The Indian nation, in its post-colonial avatar, was confronted with the immediacy to address the linguistic differences across different regions in India. A Committee for Emotional Integration with a mandate to ‘‘study the role of education in strengthening and promoting the processes of emotional integration in national life”. This committee was responsible to introduce Hindi in school curriculum so that it becomes a common medium of communication binding the whole country together. This imposition of Hindi has received severe criticism as it imposed North Indian norms onto the rest of the regions, inorder to discipline them into nation-subjects. This song too starts with a Hindi couplet first, thus establishing that the ‘Mera’, or the first person privilege within the Indian polity is for the Hindi speaking community while ‘Tumhara’, or the ‘othered’ ones are communities with regional languages. What must be noted is how the Hindi language here is elevated to an all-encompassing representational category, embodying the ‘Indian’ nation, while other languages are reduced to categories that merely represent India’s regional ethos.

What is interesting to note here is how two regions, Goa and the states in the North East of India have been shown in this campaign video. While all other regions are represented through individuals singing the Mile Sur… couplet in their respective languages, the sections where Goa and the North Eastern states feature only have background music and no words. For the North Eastern region, the camera pans over a group of people holding each other by their waist. The video provides no other markers apart from their racial features and costumes to suggest that this group represents the North Eastern states of India. Similarly, for Goa, one can see people waving their hands and a family descending down the stairs of an old house with Indo-Portuguese architecture. The scene closes with noted Goan cartoonist Mario Miranda in the frame sketching a boat, fishermen, and coconut trees. There is something peculiar about this muting of voices from Goa and the North Eastern regions of India. It shows the discomfort that the narrative of Indian nationalism encountered to integrate these regions, with their own distinct histories, into its fold.

This campaign overtly emphasizes unity among all Indians by employing a rhetorical strategy that erodes the contradictions and cultural diversity inherent in the idea of a singular India as imagined by the Indian political dispensation. The trap in Mile Sur… is that it seeks to essentialise all differences within the Indian polity through languages and its regions. But it is a well known fact that regionalism and mutli-lingualism are not the only premises of difference that mark the social realities in India. The differences of caste, religion, color, race, ethnicities or even sovereignties often transcend the narrow and artificial regional-linguistic boundaries, and in fact, often challenge the very idea of India as a single unified nation. The campaign can be said to assert the Indian state’s version of imagining India as a post-colonial nation and does not necessarily reflect its lived realities. Just two years before Mile Sur… was released in 1986, India witnessed the state sponsored anti-Sikh riots, in response to Indira Gandhi’s assassination by her Sikh bodyguard. The polarization within the Indian polity has increased thereon, after the implementation of Mandal commission and the infamous Babri Masjid demolition in early nineties to the recent killings in Dadri and the overall political atmosphere in India that celebrates the masculine Hindutva rhetoric. The crisis, thus, as reflected in Mile Sur… is that of the ever increasing gap between Indian state’s projection of itself as a unified nation and its social realities that indicates otherwise.