Category: Popular Essays

Popular Essays

Addressing COVID-19 in a Sick System

By ALBERTINA ALMEIDA

On reading so many different takes on COVID-19, I am confused. I don’t belong to the world of medicine. We live in an age where there are genuinely serious health concerns globally on the one hand, and selective unscientific hyping up about certain virii or diseases on the other hand. And both of these happen at international levels as well as at the hands of the nation state. I was reading an article titled False Alarms and Pseudo-Epidemics: The Limitations of Observational Epidemiology” by David Grimes and Kenneth Schulz, for instance, which pointed out that “all observational research has bias (which can include selection, information, and confounding bias)”. (more…)

Popular Essays

Sedition, Development, and Citizenship

By DALE LUIS MENEZES

Can some progressive laws deliver justice when a country’s statutes books have various other discriminatory and problematic laws? The widespread protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) (and rioting in response to these protests) highlight the various unresolved issues dogging the Union of India. Because ‘citizenship’ is the broad, catch-all, and all-encompassing legal concept at the heart of the Indian Republic, the various ways in which it remains unrealized for millions needs to be considered. As the legislations around citizenship are the issue these days, it is vital to think of the various other laws that might subvert the realization of citizenship. Two important legislations are those that pertain to seditious speech and land acquisition laws that promote development, often at the expense of socially and economically marginalized communities. (more…)

Popular Essays

CAA-NRC-NPR and the Denial of Land Rights

By AMITA KANEKAR

India annexed Goa in 1961. The argument of the Nehru government of the time was that Goa was an integral part of India that had been colonised by Portugal and thus needed to be liberated. But now, with the enumeration for the National Population Register (NPR) already started, to be followed by the National Register of Citizens (NRC), or, in other words, with Goans now having to prove that they are Indian citizens, isn’t the government questioning its own declaration, that Goa is an integral part of India? Or – as is becoming clearer every day – is it only the land that’s integral? While the people are another matter, or rather, people don’t matter. The land of Goa is deemed unquestionably Indian – even worshipped as Bharatmata – but the people of Goa are not. They may be deemed foreigners, and might even get kicked off the ‘Indian’ land they have lived on for generations… (more…)

Popular Essays

Lessons that Students Learn: MoI in Times of CAA

By DALE LUIS MENEZES

It is four years since the tragic death of Hyderabad Central University scholar Rohith Vemula. Driven to commit suicide by a deeply casteist and discriminatory educational system, Vemula now is a symbol of liberation for all students who hail from minoritized- and discriminated-against backgrounds. In the context of the recent country-wide protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019, Vemula’s memory fortifies protestors to soldier on. (more…)

Popular Essays

The Usefulness of Tiger Deaths

By AMITA KANEKAR

Vishwajeet Rane, minister in the Goa cabinet and MLA of Sattari, says that he was in a state of shock at the news of tiger deaths in his constituency. The chief minister Pramod Sawant has also expressed deep pain, sadness, concern, and everything else possible, while promising a high-level investigation to find out the reasons for the tragedy. Could these worthies be so shaken and stirred because they’ve suddenly realised that it’s their own rotten development policies that are responsible for the tiger deaths? Of course not. But if you think that the expressions of official shock and outrage are all just drama for the cameras, you would be mistaken as well. No, this outrage is intended to achieve more than a picture in the press, for tiger deaths – provided they result in enough public anger – offer a very convenient way of land-grab. (more…)

Popular Essays

Indian Citizenship and Goan Belonging

By DALE LUIS MENEZES

The passage of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 (CAA) has exposed the Indian state’s trust deficit with its people. As it stands today, one needs to prove that at least one parent is a legal citizen. Being born in your country is no longer enough to belong in India! For Goans, this amendment may be in direct contradiction to the Goa, Daman, and Diu (Citizenship) Order, 1962, which granted them Indian citizenship. (more…)

Popular Essays

The Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019: A Dangerous Law

By ALBERTINA ALMEIDA

The Citizenship Amendment Act 2019 (CAA), got onto India’s statute book on 12th December, 2019, after it was passed in the Lok Sabha on 10th December, 2019, in the Rajya Sabha on 11th December, 2019,   and got the assent of the President on 12th December, 2019,   and was promptly notified in the Government Gazette on the same day. This Act comes at a moment when there is widespread discontent on account of an economic slowdown. It comes at a time after the National Register of Citizens in Assam, a Supreme Court directed exercise, has resulted in 19 lakh people, most of them Hindu, being excluded from the register. (more…)

Popular Essays

Citizenship Amendment Act – What about Goans?

By ALBERTINA ALMEIDA

The December 2019 amendment of the Citizenship Act, 1955, once again brings the issue of citizenship of Goans (with Portuguese passports) to the fore. The new amendment provides for citizenship to be granted to persecuted minorities (read in the Act as Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh, Jain, Parsi and Christian) from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan, who have been residing in India from before 31st December, 2014, and it also allows the Government to cancel the registration of the Overseas Citizen of India Cardholder ‘in case of violation of any provisions of the Act or any other law for the time’. Already much has been said of the Act, about the Government’s selective ‘humanism’ by which only certain persecuted communities, and that too from certain nearby countries which the ruling dispensation refers to as theocratic states, are being considered for citizenship. (more…)

Popular Essays

Citizenship Under Attack? Not for the first time.

By AMITA KANEKAR

December seems to be a month for remembering. There is the feast of Goencho Saib, a man deeply connected to the identity of Goa, and also famous for his connection to the Inquisition, that much-reviled institution which, as scholars have pointed out, was also probably the first systematic codification of crime and punishment in Europe and Goa, at a time of widespread traditional and casual violence. There is the death anniversary of civil rights champion Dr B R Ambedkar, who chaired the committee which produced the Indian Constitution, offering caste society a path towards modern republicanism. The same day is the anniversary of the Babri Masjid demolition, perhaps the biggest moment in the BJP’s ride to power.  There is also the anniversary of the Bhopal Gas Disaster, still the worst industrial disaster in the world. Finally, we have the anniversary of the Indian annexation of Goa, when the new Indian citizens had perforce to give up their hardwon Portuguese citizenship, a real loss as can be seen by the many Goans – and neo-Goans – determined to regain it. (more…)

Popular Essays

The Politics of the Underlings: A Quick History

By DALE LUIS MENEZES

There is no doubt that the issue of the ‘migrant’ in Goa exposes the more significant problem of caste conflicts. Last month the issue of non-Goans changing their names to Goan ones made quite the stir, primarily because of electoral frauds and benefits of government employment are at stake. The blame mostly fell on the Banjaras, a traditionally nomadic community. In recent times, some sections of this community have achieved social and economic mobility. Nevertheless, a large part of this community still fares poorly on many human development indices. (more…)