Category: Popular Essays

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…)

Popular Essays

What’s new in a new Temple?

By AMITA KANEKAR

A new temple is announced. Thanks to the recently-delivered Supreme Court verdict in the Babri Masjid land dispute case, it looks like we – in a land short of many things, but definitely not new Hindu temples – are going to get a new temple, the grandest of them all, on the site of the demolished Babri Masjid. The judgement has seen strong reactions, with some raising the legal issue of how the same judgement which declares the demolition of Babri Masjid by a mob in 1993 as illegal could reward the perpetrators (or their instigators) with the land, instead of trying to undo their crime; and others criticising the historical argument in the judgement that the site has always been believed to be the birthplace of the Hindu diety Ram, for using very questionable sources. (more…)

Popular Essays

Perceptions of Justice and the Road to Justice

By ALBERTINA ALMEIDA

Questioning the meaning of justice and what sense it makes happens every day, based on ordinary people’s lived experiences of the justice system. The Judgement on the Ayodhya issue has only brought the issue in sharp limelight. The concluding words in a book titled Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do by Michael J. Sandel are reverberating in my mind, “A politics of moral engagement, is not only a more inspiring ideal than a politics of avoidance. It is also a more promising basis for a just society.” (more…)

Popular Essays

Misplaced Priorities: Profit at the Expense of Goa

By DALE LUIS MENEZES

Of all the misplaced priorities of successive Goan governments, the most recent is the Vibrant Goa summit. The summit aimed to attract investment in the areas of pharma, tourism, IT, and real estate. Even a cursory glance at the industries that the Goan government is promoting should make the alarm bells ring. For it is precisely these industries and their unregulated promotion that causes economic, social, and cultural problems in Goa. (more…)

Popular Essays

Of Human Rights and Indian Values

By AMITA KANEKAR

There is a tourist hostel in Anjuna called Prison, which also calls itself a party hostel. Because, what better place to party then a prison? At Prison, so one hears, guests are called inmates, have to change into striped clothes and get their mug-shots photographed with boards mentioning their names, get locked up in their rooms by staff dressed like security guards, sleep on metal bunk beds, and so on. All for fun, of course. Fun for those with money to burn, and a need for new thrills – because just beaches, coconut trees, and cheap alcohol can get boring – not to mention the conviction that they will never really be imprisoned themselves. (more…)

Popular Essays

Stop Son Preference in Laws and Their Implementation!

By ALBERTINA ALMEIDA

At a recently held state-level training programme on the Pre-Conception and Pre-natal Diagnostic Techniques  (Prohibition of Sex Selection) Act, 1994, social circumstances that drive the ‘son preference’ were factored as responsible for the adverse sex ratio. It is to be noted that Goa’s child sex ratio, according to the last census of 2011, stands at 942 females per 1000 males. It would seem that the son preference even informs law making, law implementation, law interpretation, or omission in synchronizing new laws with relatively progressive past laws. There are umpteen examples that can be given to illustrate this problem. (more…)