In the last two months, various speakers and writers have spoken/ written about our Goemkarponn and everyone from politicians to the common Goemkar is interested to preserve our Goemkarponn. They speak about special status to Goa when Goa has been mostly sold to outsiders. Everyone is questioning what is our Goemkarponn without giving an answer to what it really means? Most of the writers and the various opinion givers in the articles are not aware of the fact that Goemkarponn is essentially linked to a community living of Goans irrespective of caste and creed of the time (centuries and centuries back -continued till date) and it constitutes the very essence of Goa – the Goan village communes or the Gaunkaris of Goa. The Portuguese called these existing village communes – comunidades.
Many people have the wrong impression that Goan village communes or Gaunkaris are a creation of the Portuguese colonisers, but they are not. They are the oldest heritage institutions of Goa (tangible and in-tangible) which were recognised as such by every ruler who ruled Goa, right from Bhojas, Kadambas, Muslims and Portuguese. The Portuguese only codified the centuries old existing customs and usages of these village communes under the Foral of Afonso Mexia in 1526. Afonso Mexia was the Contropeller and Auditor General of the Portuguese Government of the time. Since then it became the code or the law of the village Gaunkaris.
These village Gaunkaris constituted the core of village living, agriculture and administration, transformed into authentic village Republics where all the village needs were met. It is within these village institutions of Gaunkaris that the Goan ethos (identity, culture), language and the suҫegado attitude of Goans were shaped. It is generally accepted that the first settlers of our Goan villages were the Kunbis and the Gawdas. These simple people without any education, through their fine observation of nature, their natural geo-engineering devised our extensive network of agriculture by bunding the waters and transforming them into vast khazan lands. It is from these khazan lands that we have derived our rice, fish curry or xit–koddi, the staple food of Goans.
Common needs, common interests and common causes gave rise to a very close community bonding and living, in these first settlers, much based on the principles of loving, caring and sharing, thus constituting the first basic human communities in Goa. The community land, community agriculture and community administration became the three basic hallmarks of these Gaunkaris throughout the centuries in Goa. The very name Goa or Govapuri or Gokhapattanam has a prefix ‘Go’ which means ‘Cow’ and Goa became the land of cows where cattle were reared in abundance and used for farming purposes besides all other uses of the same. Vast tracks of land were reserved by these Gaunkaris in every village as grazing grounds for the cattle. For centuries, in this land of cows no tradition or person ever objected to their slaughter.
So any discourse on Goemkarponn cannot exclude the Gaunkari system or the Goan village communes in Goa. Though the system was meant primarily for the Gaunkars, they did not exclude the non-Gaunkars from the village economy since they were all working for the common good of the village. They were enjoying the same rights/facilities common to all the villagers, excepting the participation of non-Gaunkars in the decision making process of the village. Overall it was an inclusive governance prevailing in Goa at that time. It is here, in these communities that Goans imbibed themselves with the attitude of tolerance and welcoming nature to strangers leading to communal harmony despite 450 years of foreign domination. Here in Goa, the land belongs to the village people, held in common and cannot be sold out to outsiders but can be enjoyed by the community people, so also the agriculture is community agriculture, therefore, it cannot have tenants and because of this we don’t need any ‘Special Status’. Our land is very safe if only the government enforces the land provisions of the Code of Comunidades.
Unfortunately our own rulers after 1961 ignored these village administrative Republics and broke their legs with the introduction of Agricultural Tenancy Act 1964 and its consequent amendments. The introduction of village Panchayat system of administration without removing the earlier one rendered these Gaunkaris ineffective. The lands of the village Gaunkaris were not granted to the villagers by the State and therefore there cannot be State landlordism over these village lands. Our lands are non-revenue lands .Despite this, we fail to understand how the government brought in the nefarious legislation of Land Revenue Code – 1968 which initiated the sale of our Goan lands through illegal forms I & XIV which we call in Konkani form ‘fotting’.
The post 1961 generation does not know anything about the old administration of our villages. But the older generation knows how Goan villages were administered by the very village people with minimum governance by the Portuguese while today we have maximum governance by our own elected leaders who once elected, consider themselves as gods and demi-gods to whom everyone must approach even for trivial matters.
It is very important that more and more Goans study this Gaunkari system of Goa and their village administration (intrinsically linked to our Goemkarponn) and re-organize the same to keep these centuries old institutions alive making them relevant to our times since they belong to the world heritage and legally existing only in Goa.
