Category: Popular Essays

Popular Essays

The real problem at the heart of Goa’s Devasthan Regulation

By AMITA KANEKAR

The Regulamento das Mazanias, translated as Devasthan Regulation 1933, which regulates the functioning of more than 200 prominent Hindu temples in Goa, is in the news nowadays. A public interest petition has been filed against this law for violating Article 15 of the Constitution by allowing only males to become members of the mazania (the body of mahajans), i.e. administrators of the temples that fall within the purview of the Act. This gender issue is the nub of the petition filed by law student Shukr Sinai Usgaokar, who also quotes Vivekananda about how a nation would not march forward if the women are left behind. (more…)

Popular Essays

Do it behind a tree, says ODF Goa

By AMITA KANEKAR

One more Women’s Day goes by, marked by the usual greetings from politicians, commercial hoopla, and celebrations of Indian women, especially ‘successful’ ones. All of this, when compared to the fact that India ranks among the worst countries in which to be born a woman, looks like schizophrenia. But it’s not. It’s just caste, which means one thing for you and another for me. (more…)

Popular Essays

Tractors or Cattle?

By DALE LUIS MENEZES

No matter your feelings are regarding the farmer protests, one thing is certain, the tractor is the symbol and icon of the protests. Farmers marching from all over Punjab and other neighboring states first used their tractors to barge through the barricades erected by the police. Once camped at the borders of Delhi, farmers marched inside Delhi along with their tractors to assert their demands. This is the first time that tractors have been used in farmer protests. So, why did tractors become symbolic of the protests? (more…)

Popular Essays

Due Process and the Rule of Law is not Enough

By ALBERTINA ALMEIDA

The case of M. J. Akbar v Priya Ramani has brought the two issues of lack of due process and rule of law in sharp focus. The judgement in the defamation case by Ravindra Kumar Pandey, the AC Metropolitan Magistrate 01, Rouse Avenue District Courts, Delhi, has highlighted the circumstances under which those who are sexually harassed by persons in power cannot access justice by putting the due process in motion. It can be due to lack of appropriate legislation that provides victims easy access to justice, or it can be due to social factors such as the stigmatization of those who come forward to complain. (more…)

Popular Essays, Uncategorized

Love in the time of love-laws

By ALBERTINA ALMEIDA

The potential of love to disrupt the status quo, in the interests of justice, is something that the courts of law, at the trial court level, need to explore, if we are to envision and bring into being an equitable world. This is all the more necessary in times, when laws are being enacted to retain the status quo, which affects the dispensation of justice. It is necessary to take stock of how love is being weaponised to maintain a stereotyping status quo, and to leverage the law and the Constitution to make sure that love becomes a medium to disrupt the conservative and unjust status quo. (more…)

Popular Essays

Election Wins are not Votes for Development

By DALE LUIS MENEZES

The cancellation of the IIT project in Melaulim is a clear indication that the government can heed the wishes of the people. The cancellation further suggests that all development that the government sees fit to impose on Goans and the Goan land is reversible. The decision to cancel the IIT project came after much chest-thumping bravado by ministers in the ruling government, especially after the Zilla Parishad elections that the BJP swept, that they had the mandate and support of the electorate. (more…)

Popular Essays

How India Sees Goa: Reflections in the 60th Year of Goa’s Annexation to India

By ALBERTINA ALMEIDA

Although Goa is politically part of Indian territory, the way the rest of India views Goa and its people, says something about the Indian gaze of Goa. I thought it is important to begin by putting down elements of what the Indian gaze looks like, in a bid to understand the sub-text – something that is sub-consciously internalized by people in other parts of India, perhaps based on how the Indian Corporate State has treated and is treating Goa. (more…)

Popular Essays

Déjà vu at Sancoale

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. (more…)

Popular Essays

The Meaning of Liberation in 2021

By DALE LUIS MENEZES

This is not the first time that Goans in large numbers have questioned if Goa is truly liberated. But this is the first time when a large number of peaceful citizens, including children, were detained by the police, for creating awareness about the destruction of Goa, right on 19 December, the day Goa was liberated from Portuguese rule! The recent protests, in a long history of protests in Goa, were sparked by the Government’s decision to promote the double-tracking of the South Western Railway, and a power line and a new National Highway through Goa’s lush green Mollem forest on its southern frontier. That the state government has received a grant of 100 crore rupees for the year-long celebrations marking the 60th anniversary of ‘Liberation Day’ only added to the irony of the situation. (more…)