George Soares-Prabhu, S.J., a Goan from Aldona, but born and educated in Mumbai, and a member of the Mumbai Province of the Jesuits. I had the privilege of being guided by him in a written dissertation for a degree in Theology. He was keen to follow my line of argument about the theme of my dissertation: “Pilate before Jesus: Who was in control?”. He seemed impressed with the final outcome, and so did I with the final evaluation.
I was quite taken aback by his comment once in a private conversation with me about the recent generations of Jesuits. He seemed disillusioned, and qualified most of them as amiable mediocrities, a qualification that may shock many with educational links to the Jesuit institutions, or personal friendship with some Jesuits. George Soares-Prabhu had his reasons to be unhappy. I too have mine, and anyone curious to look into them may consult the last paragraph of my review article at http://bit.ly/1V1lVpc George Soares-Prabhu told me further that the rank and file of the Jesuits were footsloggers who lived under the shadow of the glory of a few outstanding members of the Society of Jesus.
Fr George Soares-Prabhu was not alone in feeling that way. The late Prof. C.R. Boxer, the doyen of British experts on the history of the Portuguese expansion overseas and admirer of Jesuits once remarked about a great difference he noticed between the Jesuits before the suppression of the Order in mid-18th century and the Jesuits of the restored Society after 1814. He believed that the members of the older Society were largely of a noble background and did not seek the membership of the Order to gain any material benefits. He looked differently at the great majority of the Jesuits of the post-Restoration era.
The Jesuits are commonly looked up to by general public as highly competent and disciplined in their public performance. They have left mark in educational field, and the westernized elites continue to benefit from their graduate and post-graduate formation in institutions named after Loyola or Xavier. It was amusing to read in mid-70s an advertisement in the national papers by a Hindu educational trust. They wanted a Principal for their new college. It read somewhat like this: “Principal needed. Religion, gender and caste no bar. Should be a Jesuit. Adequate remuneration and perks guaranteed.”
Fr George Soares-Prabhu, was loyal to his tribe, but also a critical thinker, with a tongue in-cheek humour, at times bitterly sarcastic, which he shared occasionally and only with his trusted circle of friends and associates. He was one among a few others who impressed me during my years of formation. I owe to educators like him my relentless pursuit in overcoming stereotypes, or also my reluctance to settle down into any cozy and self-satisfying routine that does not tread on anyone’s corns.
Despite the negative opinion of George Soares-Prabhu about the footsloggers in the Society of Jesus, he would admit as I still do with my privileged and long past association with it for over a quarter century, that the footsloggers among the Jesuits have a touch of class. They may be relatively less talented than their better endowed counterparts, but the rigour of the long Jesuit training makes them self-critical and open to criticism of colleagues.
It is this capacity to endure criticism and learn from it that makes all the difference, unlike their counterparts in the society at large, wherein one does not have to look hard to find sloppy and easy-going characters, even among the ranks of managers at various levels. Perhaps the only effective contribution of such a disgraceful lot is to make the functioning of the competent colleagues or dependants unbearable, but usually it does not take long for the Peter principle to put them in their rightful place.
To conclude, I wish to recall Nirad Chaudhuri’s The Continent of Circe (1965), which won for the author the Duff Cooper Prize for 1966. Chaudhuri discussed Indian society from a socio-psychological perspective, and pointed to its militarism as a way of life from time immemorial, a very different picture of Gandhi’s non- violence. The author claimed that every major Hindu dynasty followed the path of war, as corroborated by the Indian epics, which contain descriptions of wars fought on a colossal scale. Nirad Chadhuri would perhaps feel himself vindicated by the prevailing political dispensation in India.
Nirad Chaudhuri’s book evoked an angry response from Robert de Souza (1973) who could not bear to see the Goans being classified as “a half-caste minority, which supplied Bombay’s cooks, waiters, fiddlers, maid-servants and bordellos”. I would not be so choleric in my response as Robert de Souza was. If there was any Goan militarism facing the resistance of the aboriginals, the proto-historic avatar of Hindutva had worked out an accommodation by installing Shantadurga and inviting Shiva to engage in Yogic transe in Goa. By internationalising Yoga and bringing DefExpo to Goa the present-day regime probably seeks to reduce the amiable mediocrity fostered by five centuries of colonial accomodation. My hunch is that Goan militarism may never go beyond the noisy, but empty shots of fotashi, the toy bamboo guns loaded with tefllam (Xanthoxylum piperitum/bridelia retusa) and used during Bonderam festival to entertain the invading tourists.
(Teotonio R. de Souza is the founder-director, Xavier Centre of Historical Research, Goa (1979-1994).
