By AMITA KANEKAR
Doesn’t the news that a puja was conducted at the old Sancoale church frontispiece bring back memories? The choice of a religious space of a minoritised religion for the ritual. The justification that there was a Hindu temple there earlier. The selection of a ruined shrine, so that it can be argued that the place is not an active religious space at all. The focus on a precious monument, so that the message hits home to all and sundry, causes deep offence, and can become a powerful political issue.
The parish priest of Sancoale said, in his complaint to the police, that, on hearing of strange activities at the site on December 30th,, he arrived there to find some 25-odd people conducting the religious rituals of another religion while touching the church frontispiece. When he objected, stating that the group had trespassed into Church property, they argued that there existed a religious structure there prior to the Church, and hence they had a right to perform their religious ceremonies. They also stated that their goddess had appeared in their dreams and asked them to perform their rituals in the said property.
It hardly needs to be said that these are ridiculous explanations. As someone inquired on social media, would one be allowed to perform a non-Hindu ritual, like a Catholic mass or an Islamic namaaz, at a Hindu temple, by claiming a deity had requested this in a dream? Even if it is true that a Hindu religious structure existed on the site prior to the church, this is hardly a valid argument for performing Hindu religious rituals at the church. What about all the structures that existed on the sites where Hindu temples are today found, including those belonging to Buddhists, Jains, and especially tribal and indigenous worshippers? Would these worshippers be allowed to conduct their rituals inside the Hindu shrines today? The best example is the destroyed Babri Masjid itself; would people be allowed to perform namaaz in the new temple being built on the site, because a mosque had existed there earlier?
Why, forget about conducting a non-Hindu ritual in a Hindu shrine, Hindu worshippers are themselves often prevented from even entering Hindu shrines if they happen to belong to the wrong caste. An example is the high-profile visit of the President of India to the Jagganath temple at Puri in 2018, where Ram Nath Kovind and his wife – who were not trying to perform any new rituals, but only wanted to worship as per the usual Hindu worship practices – were momentarily blocked from entering, and even shoved aside, by priests. The behaviour was so clear and offensive that Rashtrapati Bhavan sent an official letter of complaint later to the local authorities. And this temple, please note, is also a protected public monument. But there is no report of either the archaeological authorities or the local ones taking any action, or even publicly condemning the behaviour of the priests.
In 2017, following a complaint about miscreants at Sancoale, Goa’s Directorate of Archaeology and Archives (DAA), which is entrusted with the protection of this monument, responded by saying that since it was a public monument, nobody could be stopped from visiting it. This of course sounds great, especially for the education of worthies like the Jagganath temple priests. But does it mean that visitors can perform religious rituals belonging to a different faith?
My own experience of the rules of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), which is supposed to protect the most important monuments in the country, is that, while visitors are encouraged, respect to customary religious practices is given primacy in the case of religious sites. I have not been allowed to even enter some Hindu temple monuments in India, despite having ASI permission for study and documentation, because the local priests refused admission; although the ASI says that the instructions of their on-site officers are final, this, in practice, means the instructions of the local priests. Thus, while the extent of access granted has varied from temple to temple, one message is clear everywhere, that respect must be shown to the religious sentiments of the priests and worshippers. It is difficult to even imagine anybody daring to perform rituals not acceptable to the former in these places.
In Goa, Catholic shrines have traditionally been more open and welcoming of all, compared to Hindu ones which, besides discriminating on the basis of caste, also bar women who are in their menses or divorced, and foreigners too. At Sancoale, this welcome was grossly abused. The action of performing a puja at the church frontispiece was clearly intended to offend and disturb Catholic worshippers, also to foment trouble between religious communities, and so create a political issue which has the potential – given the history of this country – to result in large-scale violence, and the destruction of a religious and historical monument. The modus operandi is already laid out – first the claim of divine apparitions and guidance, then the creation of a ‘disputed site’, then the push to settle it in the courts, which now have the Ayodhya precedent to guide them in favoring the take-over of the site by hate-spewing and history-falsifying groups claiming to represent the majority community.
And, despite a complaint by the parish priest of these offences and dangers, no action has been taken. The DAA is silent. Even an FIR is yet to be filed; the police say they are still investigating, though videos of the puja were uploaded on social media by the offenders themselves. Can it be clearer that these offenders, and their attempt to intimidate the minoritised Catholic community, enjoy State support? And why wouldn’t the State support them, when their puja conveniently distracts from the struggles for environmental justice across Goa today, including State violence against communities fighting for their future, and the growing unity of Goans against the destruction of their land? Yes, déjà vu, and a good diversion too.
(First published in O Heraldo, dt: 12 January 2021)
4 thoughts on “Déjà vu at Sancoale”
Interesting that you pin this op-ed piece of yours (Herald, Goa, 12 January 2021) on a Facebook page, because I hope a lot of people give it the seriousness it deserves, especially with the current ongoing pubic agitations in Goa even as I write this. Just check this Facebook page where your article appears…
There are a few important strands in your argument that need to be engaged with.
The first, as you rightfully ask, “would one be allowed to perform a non-Hindu ritual, like a Catholic mass or an Islamic namaaz, at a Hindu temple, by claiming a deity had requested this in a dream?” Or, as you continue, “What about all the structures that existed on the sites where Hindu temples are today found, including those belonging to Buddhists, Jains, and especially tribal and indigenous worshippers? Would these worshippers be allowed to conduct their rituals inside the Hindu shrines today?” And of course, the one that makes me smile: “The best example is the destroyed Babri Masjid itself; would people be allowed to perform namaaz in the new temple being built on the site, because a mosque had existed there earlier?”
You expose the stupidity of the Hindu supremacists admirably. You make a point that no one will dare oppose, that “in Goa, Catholic shrines have traditionally been more OPEN AND WELCOMING TO ALL, compared to Hindu ones which, besides discriminating on the basis of caste, also bar women who are in their menses or divorced, and foreigners too”. At Sancoale, as you write, this welcome was “GROSSLY ABUSED” (all emphases mine).
To move to another strand in your argument, perhaps more germane to the current deviousness of the Hindu Rashtra-wallahs – their “modus operandi” as you term it – “first the claim of divine apparitions and guidance, then the creation of a ‘disputed site’, then the push to settle it in the courts, which now have the Ayodhya precedent to guide them in favouring the take-over of the site by hate-spewing and history-falsifying groups claiming to represent the majority community”.
Succinctly put. Who following the grotesque moves of our dearly beloved Home Minister the past year, would dare contradict that?
But when it comes to your conclusion, some questions may need to be asked I fear.
While I agree with your argument that this cynical effrontery at Sancoale was “clearly intended to offend and disturb Catholic worshippers, also to foment trouble between religious communities”, I am not in synch with you on your next premises, viz., that this will “create a political issue which has the potential – given the history of this country – to result in large-scale violence, and the destruction of a religious and historical monument”. This is true of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh as the BJP spreads its venom. But this is Goa we are talking about. The militants that we saw in the Ponda ‘ashram’ were a gross aberration that Goans will NOT tolerate. In spite of their more baser problems. Of this I have no doubt.
Do these ‘offenders’ enjoy State support? YES, definitely, right up to the 56 inch chest of our dearly beloved leader and his wonderfully coiffed hair and Nanaji Deshmukh beard. No doubt about this.
“And why wouldn’t the State support them,” you conclude, “when their puja conveniently distracts from the struggles for environmental justice across Goa today, including State violence against communities fighting for their future, and the growing unity of Goans against the destruction of their land? Yes, déjà vu, and a good diversion too.”
I am not too sure I take your conclusion on board. The “déjà vu, and the good diversion too,” as you put it, is upon us again, I do agree, but in a different and somewhat twisted way. I think back to 2006 when the mining juggernaut was upon us, and many of the Goans now agitated about environmental degradation may not have been as concerned. They weren’t seeing the mining dust coat their lives because it wasn’t happening in their own living rooms. They were happy that the environment was being saved for them by an NGO, leaving them free to pursue their aspirations. I am reminded of an old woman in a nine-yard sari, spitting paan in the dust at her feet as she sat in an agitation against the mines in Quepem, saying to me that the people in Panjim would only know what she was facing when they opened their taps and got red dust instead of water. She could even have meant an NGO that filed applications in court when they had never sat with her on an agitation. Sad to say, but when an opposition did begin building, people were on the same page but not necessarily on the same side. Why? Your guess is as good as mine. Was there a growing ‘unity’ then? Is there one now?
I’d like to go back to the mid-1970s and look at the Ramponcar agitation. Perhaps Goa’s strongest agitation ever. Of course we have deified its once famous leader Mathany Saldanha in a huge concrete building, but we need to ask why he was allowed to co-opt that movement? Were Goans ever worried that the Rampons would die so long as their bloody bangdas arrived on their plate? Does anyone say with any fervour that the Rampons were an excellent example of holistic cooperatives? I could go to town on this, bring in, even earlier, the political parties that formed around the opinion poll and the issue of caste in Goa coming into play in the open for the first time, ensnaring both Catholic and Hindu Brahmins – when in a move far presaging the current dispensation, lower castes were given with the left hand, while the right hand stole from them behind their backs.
Perhaps it is time for us to ask ourselves what understanding Goans have of ‘politics’. One suspects very little. This is the lacunae right at the heart of a Goan’s home, school and college education. How many times do we need to hear Goans tell their children: ‘Arre, why you want to poke your nose in man, why you want to interfere, what it is to do with you, just mind your own business man!’
Answers to those questions of course, take one into the realm of ‘politics’. Goans have never admitted this either to themselves or to others.
Are the youth, the real heroes of this agitation, grappling with those questions and why they poke their noses? From what I have been following the AAP party in Goa is asking those questions and doing so sincerely and consistently. What are the youth thinking? Are the youth engaging with the AAP party and if they see it, then backing them to the hilt, or are they laughing them off as ‘politicians’ – people incapable of leading them? Will they bother to find out for themselves whether the younger, fresh AAP faces are genuine? Will they ask the AAP members to treat them as equals, give them a new sense of politics – a wider politics, and not just ‘politics’ as a lucrative career that their parents understood and still understand? Are the youth learning that they have to spurn NGOs who still, somewhat benignly, parrot the efficacy that courts will bring – and instead, bring the politics back on the road? That’s where politics has always begun.
Yes, there is a sense of déjà vu on us. Young Goans will have to make choices their parents hid from them, and the only winners the people who filled up that space with their own agendas. Will they forge that unity that Goa desperately needs? Or will the current agitation only allow our young to use social media to promote their own perspicacity as artists, visual reporters, reporters, singers, video artists, administrators..
In which case, they will be on a Facebook page but not necessarily on the same side.
Dear Hartman, thanks for this though-provoking comment. As far as I can see, a lot of people in Goa, including young people, are thinking about politics these days, because — as the lady said about Panjim needing to get red mud at the tap — things are getting more and more in your face. I don’t know what will result from this thinking, though. And I don’t have any hope in AAP’s ability to make a difference.
Could you please tell the ethnicity of the Hindu trespassers? A lot of non-Goans have seen the Parrikar government’s fake history video on YouTube and think it’s real. (The fictional mass killing of Hindus with Muslims in Old Goa in 1510 should have been a clue that the video’s story was fake history. Tiswadi Hindus led by Timoji had fought alongside the Portuguese during the conquest.)
Note that there were also no Hindus villagers in Sancoale until after 1961. The first entrants were Marathi migrants who had been mass-imported by Bandodkar into the Velhas Conquistas (90% Catholic by 1790) because he wanted to increase MGP votebank and also steal the Opinion Poll. (Goa’s population increased by almost 35% in the 1960s as a result.)
Sorry, but I don’t know anything about the ethnicity of the HIndu trespassers. What you mention about there being no HIndus in the village of Sancoale till 1961 is interesting, though, because most villages in the Old Conquests saw migrants arriving from the New Conquests (and perhaps further) much before 1961. Do you have a reference for this action by Bandodkar? I would like to know more.
Thanks.