(Navhind Times
April 15, 2007)
Emerging Threats to Goa’s Communal Harmony
By Vidyadhar Gadgil
We have just passed the first anniversary of one of the blackest days in the recent history of Goa, on March 3, 2006. This day witnessed the first organised communal violence, taking place in what has till now been a relatively peaceful state. Starting from a dispute over a religious structure, the issue snowballed and led to unprecedented attacks on the Muslim community in the Sanvordem-Curchorem area. Fortunately, no lives were lost, but property worth crores of rupees was destroyed and looted, and many Muslim families had to flee for their lives, returning to their homes after many months. Even today, there is a noticeable atmosphere of fear within the Muslim community in the area.
After this incident, there have been many attempts made to come to terms with the reality of the situation. There have been many attempts made to explain away the communal violence in Sanvordem-Curchorem as an aberration rather than something that fits in as part of the current political reality. ‘Goa’s syncretic culture’ and ‘Goa’s tradition of communal harmony’ are phrases that are commonly heard even now, albeit with a somewhat defensive note. A commonly expressed feeling is that Goa, with its ‘unique history and culture’, cannot fall prey to organised communalism and fascism. This ostrich-like attitude is a sure invitation to future disaster.
Goa has the longest history of colonialism in the subcontinent. Conquered in 1510 by the Portuguese, it was under foreign rule for a long period of 450 years. One of the legacies of Portuguese rule was a divide between the Hindus and Christians, as the Portuguese actively discriminated against Hindus. This historical fact, like the historical fact of forced conversions in the 16th century, is an issue that can become poison in mischievous hands.
Further fault-lines emerged over the years. The first was at the time of the historic opinion poll to decide on the issue of a merger with Maharashtra. Political parties had been formed with support bases from specific religious communities, and the ruling Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party, with strong support among the Bahujan Hindu masses, favoured a merger. The United Goans’ Party, with support largely from the Catholics, was strongly against it. The opinion of the masses, Hindu as well as Catholic, was against merger though, and the proposal was defeated. But, it was a narrow thing: 52 per cent against and 48 per cent favouring merger.
Then came the Konkani agitation. The Catholics were united behind Konkani, along with the upper-caste Hindus. But, the Hindu Bahujan Samaj was in favour of Marathi. Now we have the script controversy.
The fact of the matter is that there are deep divisions in Goan society along religious lines. The peaceful nature of the Goan population ensured, however, that there was tolerance, if not acceptance, of other communities and faiths. Also, four hundred years of mixing had created common practices and forms of worship, and this syncretism did stand Goa in good stead.
Though all the above-mentioned fault-lines and divisions along religious and caste lines existed, they had not become a cause of communal strife. This was largely because there was no organised right-wing force capable of exploiting these issues in pursuit of communal politics.
Such a force emerged in the early 1990s. As the ideology of Hindutva grew in strength all over India, the RSS, which had only a marginal presence in Goa until this time, suddenly began to grow in a spectacular fashion. Benefiting from the communal mobilisation that had taken place in India over the Babri Masjid issue, the RSS established a firm foothold in Goa. Its political front organisation, the BJP, began to inch closer to power, and made it there within a decade.
During its years in power, beginning in 1999, the BJP took decisions that worked to communalise the polity. Changes were brought in with a view to bringing the Hindutva agenda into young minds. A VCD was produced, which propagated a communal viewpoint, while ostensibly dealing with Goa’s Liberation. Government schools were turned over to RSS front organisations on one pretext or another. Efforts were made to communalise the police force, by ensuring that youth sympathetic to the Hindutva agenda were recruited.
There was a furore over these attempts, and the BJP had to backtrack to some extent. It lost power in early 2005, as another spate of defections succeeded in toppling the government. The period which followed has been one in which the Hindutva forces appear to have rethought their strategy.
The realisation has crept in that the Christian minority is substantial and powerful enough in Goa to prevent overt attacks on it. Though the anti-Muslim sentiment has always been present as a sub-text in the discourse of the Hindutva lobby in Goa, they had not harped on this issue much, as the Muslims were in a miniscule minority. In the recent past, the percentage of Muslims in Goa has risen, largely due to migration, and this provided a convenient weapon through which to propagate its anti-minority message. Focusing on Muslims, and branding them as ‘outsiders’ helped to prevent the Christian community from effectively allying with the Muslims in their time of trouble.
Whatever Goa’s tradition of communal harmony, today, it is sitting atop a volcano waiting to explode. The Hindutva forces have been systematically stoking the fire, and incidents like the recent desecration of a temple in Sanvordem-Curchorem are bound to recur, as mischief-makers engage in acts that will vitiate the atmosphere. It is clear that March 2006 was not an aberration, but part of a familiar pattern, in which the politics of violence and hatred will continue to escalate, and search for new victims. The global atmosphere, with the so-called ‘War on Terror’, only aggravates matters.
The government has failed to respond adequately to this menace. Though it constituted an enquiry after the March 2006 communal violence, the report lacks any teeth. The report accepts that the violence was pre-planned in nature, and says that systematic rumour mongering led to the violence. Despite adequate evidence as to the identity of the rumour-mongers, some of whom the report even names (like Sharmad Raiturkar, the BJP candidate from Margao in the 2005 by-election), it shies away from indicting those responsible, claiming that it is not possible to identify the hand/s behind the violence. With no meaningful action being taken, the message that has gone out is that one can engage in the politics of hate and violence with impunity.
What is worrisome in such an atmosphere is the response of the secular forces, many of whom have been playing a role that can only be described as soft communalism. After the Sanvordem communal violence, many voices generally considered ‘secular’ were actually saying that the Muslims should not have ‘provoked’ violence by exercising their constitutional right to hold a peaceful protest meeting -- a classic case of blaming the victims.
An even more ludicrous response was that evoked by the report of the Sanvordem violence-related fact-finding committee, headed by internationally renowned human rights lawyer Nandita Haksar. This report made an honest attempt to examine the roots of communalism in Goa. The reaction of the BJP was predictable -- it condemned the report. But, many secular commentators also reacted adversely, saying that the report was bringing Goa’s culture into disrepute! Echoes of Modi’s repeated invocation of Gujarati asmita, the only difference being that, in Goa, it was the purportedly secular voices that were vociferous in attacking the Haksar report on such grounds! This is the biggest success of Hindutva ideology -- it has succeeded in making its hate-filled anti-minority perspective part of general ‘common sense’.
In sum, it is clear that there is no magic potion in the Goan soil or culture, which is going to protect the state against communalism. Like any other part of India, there is plenty of history and myth, which can be distorted and manipulated by communal forces. Communalism and fascism may take somewhat different forms in Goa, but the nature of the beast is the same.
Communal ideologies have got firmly established in Goa and it is going to be a long, hard haul before they are defeated. Almost certainly, things will get worse before they get better.
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