Bhaile, that oft-used and pejorative Konkani word, literally means outsiders, but was usually used in Goa to mean non-Goans. This is however changing, with the wealthy non-Goans with second or tenth homes in Goa rarely called Bhaile. These are the sorts who managed to escape from the supposedly sealed ‘red zones’ during the nationwide lockdown, to drive in their personal cars to the ‘green zone’ of Goa, where they got star treatment, including free COVID-19 tests (reserved, according to the Supreme Court, for the poor), before retiring to their luxury retreats. These Delhi-ites and Bombay-ites are obviously not Bhaile at all but very much Bhitorle (insiders), in fact more Bhitorle than most Goans, such that one phone call from some of them can nowadays help a Goan get her or his work done in Goa.
So Bhaile no longer means non-Goan. It means what it literally means: outsider. Stigmatised as flocking here, squatting wherever they want, dirtying our ‘Bhangrachem Goem’, and so on, the Bhaile are actually bahujan non-Goans, thousands of whom work in Goa’s mines, fisheries, construction, tourism, sanitation and other industries and services. But they are not the only Bhaile. The bahujan Goans might be celebrated as the daughters and sons of the soil but they are actually Bhaile too, for they can barely make a living here despite slogging as traditional fishers, farmers and other producers, vendors of fish, fruit and vegetables, auto- and taxi-drivers, and so on. It is they, along with the migrant Bhaile, who keep Goa going, and for very meagre returns. But the poor earnings of local bahujans, on which people survive often only thanks to support from family members working abroad, is blamed on the migrant Bhaile, when the real reason is the Bhitorle – Goans and non-Goans – those who run this society, privileged persons with interests and profits in this exploitative, oppressive, and casteist system.
This real Bhaile-Bhitorle contradiction, between those looted by the system versus those who are the system, is usually invisibilised under the fake one of migrants versus locals. But it has been exposed by the lockdown disaster of today. The Indian government’s response to Covid19 has exposed in the starkest terms who are the insiders of this nation, and who the outsiders. Thus the government’s first response was of instant lockdown, followed by various spectacles: ritualistic plate-banging and lamp-lighting, all to be done on your balcony while you stayed home and safe. While other countries announced packages for the poorest and most vulnerable, we got messages about the importance of yoga and meditation.
The Bhaile, migrant and non-migrant, were ignored as always. The migrant Bhaile in Goa, instantly losing earnings, and the ability to buy food and pay rent, found themselves destitute; being arrested and incarcerated in camps; trying government help lines and not getting through; struggling to pay inflated rates for train tickets home when they themselves are owed months of arrears in wages; being forced to accept charity from NGOs or go hungry, even as the central government’s food godowns literally overflow with grain. Outside Goa, of course, things were far worse. Bhaile walking for thousands of miles. Being beaten up. Being drenched in bleach. Being killed.
The non-migrant Bhaile were only a little better. With earnings gone, meagre savings, and no government help, fishers, farmers, vendors, and a host of other essential producers and service-providers of Goa saw their lives go for a toss. Outside Goa, once again, things were worse. Like tribal communities, who have been reportedly pushed towards starvation in many states, with the lockdown stopping the collection of traditional forest produce, and closing local markets too. The government belatedly announced extra rations for ration-card-holders under the PM Garib Kalyan package, a promise so badly implemented that a whopping 200 million ration-card-holders are estimated to have been missed. And what of those without ration cards? Not just migrants, many non-migrants are yet to be granted this basic facility. Bhaile, after all.
Now the lockdown is being lifted, with many Bhitorle claiming that this is for the benefit of the poor. But this is the same economy that has always kept them at borderline destitution, that used their labour for the benefit of the Bhitorle. This is the society that ignored their very existence, even when in dire need. Now the Bhitorle insist they get back to work. For their own good, as construction companies argued in Hyderabad, facing angry construction workers who had been incarcerated on the building site. The workers said that they did not want to work any more, they just wanted to go home. We’ll pay their arrears, say their employers shamelessly, but only after they come back to work!
Six Indian states have announced they would break the 8-hour working day; now it would be 12 hours. This was happening anyway in many places, but illegally; now it will be legal, so the actual working day might be even longer. UP has thrown out most labour protection laws, including the environmental safeguards flouted in the recent Vishakhapatnam gas disaster. Other states are following suit.
Let us end with a poster photographed on a US street (and shared via social media): ‘A system cannot fail those it was never designed to protect.’ The poster is about the US, where COVID-19 has hit working-class Black and Hispanic communities disproportionately hard. But the poster works for India too. The Bhaile are the outsiders of this system, to be used and discarded. That’s how it was, and that’s how the Bhitorle expect to continue. But many Bhaile are angry, and if this anger grows, it could mean nothing less than a new post COVID-19 world.
(Amita Kanekar is an architectural historian and novelist.)