Tag: Citizenship

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

Portuguese Citizenship and the Debugging of Indian Imaginations

By JASON KEITH FERNANDES

 

I read with interest the recent opinion piece “The Portuguese nationality bug”  on the vexed issue of the rights of Portuguese Indians to Portuguese citizenship and was disappointed by the author’s refusal to see the larger picture. I suspect that this is because the author seeks to resolve the question within the narrow frames of Indian nationalism. As a result, the argument forwarded in the op-ed seems to buttress the rights of the state over those of citizens. Such legality will only strengthen the growing authoritarianism of the Indian state over subjects who, while formally citizens, increasingly lack the space to realize this condition.

 

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Popular Essays

Not Going, Merely Coming

By JASON KEITH FERNANDES

 

Sometime in the morning of 25 October, I received an SMS from a friend. The SMS contained the word ‘traitor’, followed by a link to an article in that day’s Times of India titled ‘Goan with the wind’. The article, authored by Lisa Monteiro and Andrew Pereira,offered figures and comments on the phenomenon of scores of persons from the former Portuguese State in India (Goans, for the sake of brevity) ‘migrating’ after claiming Portuguese passports. The article itself made no suggestion of traitorous behaviour on the part of these persons, leading to the conclusion that it was not the facts that were problematic but their interpretation. Such an interpretation requires that we supplement our analysis with additional information.

 

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