ALBERTINA ALMEIDA
The recent publication of translations of the Foral, accompanied by analy sis/commentaries marking five hundred years of the Foral, has prompted renewed reflection on a document that continues to foster conversations about land, governance, and rights in Goa. This anniversary provides an opportunity not merely to look back at a historical text, but also to examine what it can teach us about the challenges confronting Goa today. The Foral is generally under stood as a compilation and codi fication of existing practices relat ing to revenue administration and agrarian communities in Goa, par ticularly the gaunkaris.
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Drafted by Afonso Mexia barely 15 years after the establishment of Portu guese rule in Goa, it seems that it was not a totally new creation but an attempt to record and regular ise systems already in operation. This raises an important question: whose voices were heard in this exercise of codification? The most likely interlocutors were members of the agrari an elite, particularly those who exercised authority within the gaunkari system. As with many codification exercises throughout history, the perspectives of those who possessed status, influence, and access to power were more likely to find expression in the final text. The aspirations and concerns of ordinary cultiva tors and labourers may not have been equally represented.
What emerged, therefore, was not sim ply a neutral record of existing practices, but a framework that reflected prevailing power rela tions while simultaneously rein forcing them. Yet, the Foral should not be read only as an instrument of elite authority. One of its note worthy features is its recognition of labour and long-term service. The document records situations in which individuals acquired rights through occupation, work, and sustained contribution to particular lands. In that sense, it acknowledged forms of social and economic participation that extended beyond ownership alone. The preservation of records under Portuguese administration has also had significant conse quences. Because grants, obliga tions, and occupations were doc umented, descendants of workers and tillers can still turn to archi val materials to establish claims linked to historical rights. Such archives may not always provide complete justice, but they offer ev idence that would otherwise have been lost.
Importantly, this pres ervation was possible because the Foral itself recognised and re corded a range of social functions and occupations. The document makes reference to various cate gories of workers whose services were considered essential to com munity life, including doorkeep ers, cobblers, carpenters, jesters, and women whose labour occu pied complex and often marginal social positions. Their inclusion reminds us that agrarian society depended on a much broader net work of contributors than landed elites alone. The Foral also reflected an un derstanding of collective respon sibility. Maintenance of lands and fulfilment of fiscal obligations de pended upon contributions made through the gaunkari system. Crucially, however, responsibility was not entirely detached from privilege. The obligation to pay fixed taxes, irrespective of annual profit or loss, rested largely upon the privileged ganvkars. In this respect, collective responsibility did not erase social and economic distinctions.
Rather, it recognised that those who benefited most from the system bore particular obligations towards sustaining it. Contemporary Goa presents a very different picture. Today, sur vey records and related documen tation often become the principal basis for establishing rights over land, despite the legal distinction between revenue records and title documents. For many members of historically marginalised com munities, this has created signif icant challenges. Rights that may have originated in long-standing occupation, service grants, or customary usage were not always translated into modern records. Sometimes names were omitted. In other cases, names were re corded using local, abbreviated, or popularly known forms that differed from later Lusitanised or standardised spellings. These discrepancies now create barriers when descendants seek to estab lish continuity of occupation or inheritance. The consequences are par ticularly visible in contexts of displacement. As mining pro jects, large-scale real estate de velopments, tourism infrastruc ture, and other mega-projects expand, people frequently find themselves required to produce documentary proof of rights that have existed within families and communities for generations. Time and resources are then spent reconstructing genealo gies, tracing archival references, and demonstrating that historical records refer to the same persons and families known by differ ent names across different eras.
What might once have been so cially recognised rights become vulnerable because of documen tary gaps and administrative ri gidities. This situation raises a broader question about governance. How can communities, particularly in Goa’s hinterland, protect them selves from projects that threaten both livelihoods and ecological systems? The challenge is more than one of legal procedure. It is often experienced as an une qual struggle in which ordinary residents confront powerful economic and political interests, while administrative institutions appear more responsive to inves tors and developers and gentrifi ers than to affected communities, as reflected in legislation such as The Goa Investment Promotion and Facilitation of Single Window Clearance Act, 2021. Looking forward, Goa may need to revisit some of the prin ciples that underlay earlier forms of local governance, while adapt ing them to democratic and con stitutional values. The answer is not a romantic return to the past. Historical systems were often exclusionary and hierarchical. Nevertheless, certain underlying ideas remain relevant: local par ticipation, collective stewardship of resources, and accountability linked to power and privilege.
One possibility lies in strength ening institutions that enable meaningful community participa tion in decisions regarding land use and development. Existing local bodies, village assemblies, and tribal institutions could play a more substantive role in assess ing the long-term social and eco logical implications of projects. Planning can get on to the track of factoring local spatial realities while remaining connected to people’s priorities at state and national level as well, as now mandated by the Goa Panchayat Raj Act. Such an approach would move governance beyond mere compliance procedures and to wards genuine deliberation. A renewed emphasis on re sponsibility is equally important in the context of ecological de cline. Goa’s environmental chal lenges are no longer abstract concerns. Changing rainfall pat terns, increasing temperatures, biodiversity loss, and the grow ing impacts of climate change de mand forms of governance that prioritise care for ecosystems rather than short-term extrac tion and lack of accountability for rapacious extraction. If the Foral recognised obligations linked to the maintenance of productive ecosystems suited to Goa’s eco logical landscape, contemporary governance must recognise obli gations towards sustaining eco logical systems upon which all life depends.
The quincentenary of the Foral therefore has to be more than a commemorative exercise. It must invite reflection on enduring ques tions of power, labour, land, doc umentation, and responsibility. Looking back reveals both the lim itations and the insights contained within historical systems. Looking forward demands of us that we ask how governance can become more inclusive, more ecologically grounded, and more attentive and responsive to those whose lives are most affected by decisions concerning land. The challenge for Goa is not simply to preserve the memory of the Foral, or to discard it as document Portuguese, but to draw from it the lessons necessary for a more just and sustainable fu ture through participatory revenue generation proportionate to power and privilege. (Albertina Almeida is a law yer and human rights activist)
