Category: Popular Essays

By KAUSTUBH SOMNATH NAIK/कौस्तुभ सोमनाथ नाईक

२०१३ साली तत्कालीन मुख्यमंत्री स्व मनोहर पर्रीकर ह्यांनी एका मुलाखतीत ‘गोव्यातील कॅथॉलिक समाज हा सांस्कृतिकरीत्या हिंदू आहे‘ अश्या स्वरूपाचे काहीसे वादग्रस्त विधान केले होते. आजही अशाप्रकारची विधाने, खासकरून निवडणुकीच्या तोंडावर आपण ऐकत असतो. गोव्यातल्या मुस्लिम समाज इतर मुस्लिम समाजापेक्षा वेगळे आहे असेही म्हटले जाते. अशी विधाने वरवर ठीक वाटत असली तरी ती काही मूलभूत प्रश्न निर्माण करतात. मुळात हिंदू असणे म्हणजे काय, ख्रिश्चन (त्यातही कॅथॉलिक) असणे म्हणजे काय ह्याची व्याख्या कोणती? त्या व्याख्येची ऐतिहासिक प्रक्रिया काय? गोव्यात हिंदू किंवा कॅथॉलिक असण्याची ठळक वैशिष्ट्ये कोणती? ह्यातल्या सीमारेषा अगदीच स्पष्ट आहेत का पुसट आहेत? गोव्यातले कॅथॉलिक जसे सांस्कृतीकरित्या हिंदू भासतात तसेच गोव्यातल्या हिंदूंना सांस्कृतीकरित्या कॅथॉलिक म्हणू शकतो का? अश्या सर्व प्रश्नांची उत्तरे देण्याचा प्रयत्न डॉ. अलेक्झांडर हेन ह्यांनी आपल्या ‘हिंदू कॅथॉलिक एन्काऊंटर’ ह्या पुस्तकात केला आहे. जर्मनीतील हायडेलबर्ग विद्यापीठात रिलिजियस स्टडीज मध्ये डॉक्ट्रेट मिळवून ते सद्या अमेरिकेतील ऍरिझोना स्टेट युनिव्हर्सिटीमध्ये भारतीय धर्माचे अध्यापन करतात. (more…)

By AMITA KANEKAR

The election scenario before Goans has perhaps never looked grimmer. We need change, most ordinary Goans would agree. But does this election offer a chance for change? Or is it that, given what happened after the last elections, as well as in other states – and despite the plethora of unlikely parties jumping into the fray, making the strangest of promises – is it that, whoever we vote for, we are going to get the same rotten governance? The same destructive projects, land-grab, and environmental destruction? The same casinos and similar attractions for the depraved tourist? The horrifying neglect of essential health services, and the equally criminal neglect of school education? The same lack of jobs, opportunities, and respect, that drive Goans abroad? (more…)

By AMITA KANEKAR

So Chief Minister Pramod Sawant wants to rebuild the temples destroyed by the Portuguese. And, at a time when the pandemic continues on the rampage, when Goans have seen two years of lost jobs and depleted incomes, when Goan kids are out of school for the second year running, and when environmental destruction is threatening our lives in not just the long term but also the short, this Chief Minister of Goa asks us to “once again preserve Hindu sanskriti and mandir sanskriti.” (more…)

By ALBERTINA ALMEIDA

In view of emerging situations in Goa regarding the application of family laws of Goa, it strikes me that we need to look at how the expression ‘where there is a will, there is a way’ needs to be looked at in its actual context of a  literal ‘will’. (more…)

By AMITA KANEKAR

I have written in the past about how the policy of caste-based reservations enjoined by the Constitution is systematically violated in Goa. The purpose of this violation is simple, to deny representation in government and higher education to the marginalised communities, and ensure that these positions are illegally swallowed by the already over-represented dominant castes. After a recruitment scandal at the Goa University in 2014, Goa has seen many efforts by individual citizens and groups to get the authorities to implement the reservations policy fully and correctly, as mandated in the Constitution and laid down clearly by many court orders and government memorandums since the 1980s. Petitions were made to the University, the Governor and the state government; long meetings were held with many worthies in these institutions (most of whom shamelessly claimed ignorance of the rules, as if ignorance is a valid excuse); the issue was also discussed in the print media. (more…)

By ALBERTINA ALMEIDA

As kids growing up, we would be presented with two similar pictures and asked to spot the difference. While that was a good exercise for sharpening visual observation, our political acumen should have driven us to take that skillset to another level, to detect the political hypocrisy, chicanery and cunning of today. (more…)

By ALBERTINA ALMEIDA

Oftentimes, we are so obsessed with ourselves and our aspirations, demands and objectives, that we do not realise that the (political) positions we take vis a vis ‘others’ are a slippery slope towards disaster for us ourselves. I will illustrate this with the use of the word ‘outsider’. (more…)

By AMITA KANEKAR

Another educational institution has been announced, again very prestigious. As always, it needs huge amounts of land, and, as always, the government of the tiny state of Goa has more than enough to offer – and on long lease no less, which means practically free. The project is a new India International University of Legal Education and Research, to be run completely by the Bar Council of India (BCI). This proposed university requires 2,00,000 square metres of land, which Goa’s government says it has already identified in Dharbandora taluka. A state bill has also been passed, formalising the setting up of this university, one of whose objects – according to the bill – is to reserve 20% of the university’s seats for ‘permanent residents of Goa’. (more…)

By AMITA KANEKAR

The recent news that bonded labourers were working on the infamous double tracking project of the Indian Railways through the Mollem forests should cause no surprise. The labourers were rescued from their abusive situation only because of complaints made by ARZ, a Goa-based NGO, and the efforts of an Adivasi organisation in Telangana. The Indian Railways now claim that the labourers were not bonded at all, but ‘only’ underpaid and ill-treated by their contractor. According to the workers themselves, the oldest of whom was a 72-year-old woman, they were paid less than minimum wages, were prevented from leaving and going home, and were forced to live right next to the tracks, without adequate shelter (in the monsoon) and without toilets either. (more…)