Vivek Menezes
The case for Goa was always cultural. Here’s how Armando Menezes put it at the historic Anti-Merger Conference on April 17, 1965: [our land] has always been coveted, because she is so voluptuously beautiful. Her very loveliness has proved her greatest curse. But in the past, we were conquered, not liberated. The question before every self-respecting Goan today is – are we to be conquered once more, in the name of liberation? If we are not to be conquered again, bullied or brought into a denial of our freedom, the essence of which is the assertion of our distinct personality, we must begin by giving up our political apathy, and put more grit and iron into our souls. [Because] the case against the integrity of Goa has been, not carefully, but rather jauntily built on lies.” Menezes – who happens to be my paternal grandfather – wound up paying a personal and professional cost for his blunt analysis on that day (in a long family tradition including his brother Nicolau Menezes, nephew Alvaro Pereira, and son Francis Menezes, all of whom were active freedom fighters).
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He outlined a series of canards that Goans were being fed at the time, which bear paying attention to all over again over 60 years later. “Lie No 1: That Goa has always been part of Maharashtra. This is wanton assassination of elementary history: and not only of the history but of the history of Maharashtra. Only a few years ago, we heard the same voice – only it came from the far West. It claimed that Goa was an integral part of Portugal – a mere extension, in the colloquial imagination, of the mother country. Many of our people cheerfully put up their umbrellas whenever it rained in Lisbon. Some of them still do so only the wind must blow from Bombay or Poona. It is the same blatant fraud.” There was lie number two: “That the language of Goa is Marathi. Some of our more vocal Goans say it, keep on monotonously saying it, and say it in excellent Konkani or, generally, in bad Marathi.”
Then three: “That the people of Goa, with the trifling exception of a few anti-national, pro-Portuguese individuals or groups, with or without underground connections with bomb-throwers and other saboteurs like newspaper editors or duly elected members of the Opposition, are anxious to merge with Maharashtra, that these freaks are mostly Catholics and do not number more than two lakhs out of six, and so on.” And his ultimate conclusion, which still rings very true: “All that the Goan wants is the freedom to choose. There are a few things which he cannot choose, but which have rather chosen him.
This soil, this Goa, has chosen him: and wherever he lives and toils and dies, there is a corner of a foreign field which is forever Goa. His tongue has chosen him; it is a metaphysical impossibility to choose another. One can choose one’s wife; one cannot choose one’s mother: that’s why it is called the mother tongue. We must be the merest renegades, the merest waifs and strays blown about the streets, if we fail to recognise that. And one cannot choose one’s history. Untold centuries, even long before the arrival of the Portuguese on Indian shores, have chiselled our souls to what we are; we have known the confluence of many cultures, the impact of many destinies. The Goan soul is woven of many strands and is, at bottom, a coat without seams – even in spite of the recent attempts to tear it to tatters.” I was born in 1968, three years after my grandfather stated this case for Goa’s distinct identity, and what strikes me upon reading this so many years later is twofold.
On the one hand, much of what he argues remains sadly relevant, as the divisive politics of those days have been stirred up again in the 21st century. However, it should also be noted his worst fears never came true, and Indian democracy churned both positively and effectively for the Goans: they repudiated the proposed merger with Maharashtra, won constitutional recognition for Konkani as an official national language, along with statehood in 1987. These are remarkable historical triumphs, an ultimate vindication of generations of struggle for decolonisation. The report card is very good as far as all that goes, even if there are now many red flags and warning signs the culture wars are being cynically revived. Will flame-throwing incitement work in Goa, by many measures the richest, best educated and cosmopolitan electorate in India? The answer to that is certainly cultural too.
Under pressure, we are going to find out exactly what kind of polity has been built in this state over almost 40 years, after previous generations managed to navigate decolonisation with aplomb, contributing mightily to nation-building while establishing one of the most successful little societies in South Asia. I wouldn’t say there are good reasons to be optimistic about the outcome, exactly, but there is definitely good reason to be hopeful this multi-generational project can yet come to fruition.
