Category: Popular Essays

By ALBERTINA ALMEIDA

In the background of the NOIDA Twin Tower demolition, it is important to look at what is happening in Goa, both in terms of the long and arduous (and therefore also expensive) legal redressal process for grievances against illegal constructions, and in terms of the liability of the erring authorities for negligence and breach of trust.   (more…)

By AMITA KANEKAR

The declaration by Chief Minister Pramod Sawant during the Independence Day celebrations, that the Portuguese looted Goa for 400 years, surely counts as a self-goal, with many Goans retorting that the real loot of Goa only began in recent times, especially thriving under Sawant’s own government. But there is no point in wondering where Sawant gets his ideas from, nor indeed in informing him that, while historians have criticised the Portuguese empire and its rule over Goa for many things, ‘loot’, or economic exploitation, is not one of them. History lessons from Sawant will not stop so easily. He was not even embarrassed when his big plan – and budget outlay – for rebuilding temples destroyed by the Portuguese, turned out to have no data on such temples to back it. Who cares about the facts? The point is just to continuously raise distracting non-issues, the more communally divisive the better, so that real issues get ignored. Bashing colonial rule is the easiest option, with Independence Days and Liberation Days providing a golden chance to indulge in this to the maximum. (more…)

I resume this column after a gap of six years, three of which – thanks to the pandemic which prevented smooth international travel – have been spent outside of Goa. Returning to the patria after these same three years has, therefore, been something of a shock. From the moment one leaves the airport one is witness to numerous grade separators, elevated expressways and other infrastructure. The change has been so huge that in some cases the new landscape is virtually unrecognisable, and one gets the sense that one is in uncharted territory. (more…)

By ALBERTINA ALMEIDA

Goa’s ‘Uniform” Civil Code or the expression ‘uniform civil code’ seems to be bandied about by the ruling dispensation by convenience or as a band-aid for situations in which powers that be find themselves. (more…)

By AMITA KANEKAR

The sociologist Dipankar Gupta recounts an amusing anecdote from the UK in his 2004 book, ‘Mistaken Modernity: India between Worlds’. When Tony Blair was UK Prime Minister, his underage son was caught drinking by a policeman. When questioned, the boy offered a false name and address. But the cop had recognised him and the next day a summons landed at 10, Downing Street. Like any other parents of delinquent children, Blair and his wife had to make a visit to the nearest police station, followed by a vastly-amused media army, where they had to listen to advice about how to bring up their children. That was the law in such matters, and they had to abide by it – something, as Gupta pointed out, that would be unimaginable for a prime minister or any bigshot in India. But the most interesting part, says Gupta, is the lie told by Blair’s son. He gave a false name because he KNEW that his parents would be hauled up; he knew that the law would be followed.  Compare that to India, said Gupta, where nobody like him would have ever dreamt of lying; their question would instead be ‘don’t you know who I am?’. In fact, the cops here try not to interfere with anyone who looks remotely well-connected. That, says, Gupta, is the difference between a modern society and one with just has a veneer of modernism – mostly just in terms of technology and gadgets – but no modern attitude at all. (more…)

By AMITA KANEKAR

To take up cudgels against the latest Hindutva offensive against the Catholic community, on why S. Francis Xavier’s popular title of Goencho Saib (Lord of Goa) is more deserved by the god Parshuram, is fraught with risk in today’s Goa. Because, although one is free to discuss the merits – and even more so the demerits – of the Catholic saint, discussing the Hindu god can, as we have seen, bring down the brute force of the State on you, in the name of hurting religious sentiment. Thus, it has become normal to judge Francis Xavier by the values of today, and therefore to condemn him for advising the Portuguese king to set up the Goa Inquisition. But applying the same modern values to Parshuram is out of the question; the many acts of violence ascribed to him, including against his own mother, are not to be criticised. (more…)

By AMITA KANEKAR

Twenty crore rupees of public money has been set aside in Pramod Sawant’s state budget for ‘reconstructing and restoring temples and heritage sites destroyed by the Portuguese’. The words “and heritage sites” sounds almost inclusive, like the government is actually thinking beyond Hindu temples – except that this is the party that itself campaigned widely and violently against the historical site of the Babri Masjid. What heritage would such a party reconstruct? But let us, for a moment, give them the benefit of doubt. (more…)

By ALBERTINA ALMEIDA

Amidst the shrill noises for Uniform Civil Code, which again having been coming amidst attacks on minorities, what can or what does uniformity translate into? Does uniformity mean anything at all? Can there be unity in diversity or not? Is Uniformity always about equality? Can uniformity not translate into uniformity in discrimination? These are questions that are flying in the wind in the context of debates on whether or not there should be an uniform civil code for India. (more…)

By AMITA KANEKAR

The more things change, the more they remain the same. So goes an old French saying, implying that even apparently turbulent changes can result in a continuation of the status quo. The Goa election scene 2022 might have been one of the most turbulent in the history of the state, given the astonishing number of parties in the fray, their huge rallies, big-shot campaigners, and strangest of promises, not to mention the last-minute party-hopping – both real and sham – by politicians of every hue, all in all leaving the electorate with a headache from trying to keep up with everything happening even in a single constituency. (more…)

By KAUSTUBH SOMNATH NAIK/कौस्तुभ सोमनाथ नाईक

इतिहासलेखन राजे राजवाडे, युध्द, सन सनावळ्या ह्यांची नोंद करणे ह्यापुरतेच मर्यादित नसून भूतकाळाचा विविधांगी धांडोळा घेण्याचा उत्तरोत्तर प्रयत्न जगभरातील इतिहासकार करत असतात. ह्यातूनच इतिहासाच्या विविध उपशाखा निर्माण होत असतात ज्ञान/संकल्पनांचा इतिहास (इंटलेक्च्युल हिस्ट्री), विज्ञानाचा इतिहास (हिस्ट्री ऑफ सायन्स) अश्या काही इतिहासाच्या विशेष उपशाखा गेल्या काही दशकांत तयार झाल्या आहेत. त्यापैकीच एक म्हणजे हिस्ट्री ऑफ इमोशन्स – भावनांचा इतिहास. मुळात मूलभूत मानवी भावना ह्या वैश्र्विक असतात का नाही आणि असल्या तरी विविध संस्कृतीत त्यांचे काय आयाम असतात, त्या भावना व्यक्त करण्याचे मार्ग कोणते, ऐतिहासिक काळात समाज कश्या तऱ्हेनं भावनिक पातळीवर व्यक्त होत होता ह्याचा आढावा ह्या उपशाखेत घेतला जातो. आजच्या सदरासाठी डॉ अनन्या चक्रवर्ती ह्यांनी हिस्ट्री ऑफ इमोशन्स ह्या उपशाखेतील संकल्पना वापरून लिहिलेल्या ‘बिटवीन भक्ती अँड पिएटा (२०१७)’ ह्या निबंधाविषयी आपण जाणून घेणार आहोत. डॉ अनन्य चक्रवर्ती ह्यांनी शिकागो विद्यापीठातून इतिहासात पीएचडी मिळवली असून त्या सद्या वॉशिंग्टन डीसी येथील जॉर्जटाऊन विद्यापीठात दक्षिण आशियाई इतिहास शिकवतात. त्यांचे गोवा आणि ब्राझील ह्या प्रदेशातील पोर्तुगीज साम्राज्यवादाच्या इतिहासावरचे ‘एम्पायर ऑफ अपोस्टल्स’ हे पुस्तक काही वर्षांपूर्वी प्रकाशित झाले आहे. (more…)