The legislative elections in Goa are fast approaching and voices that blame the past and promise a golden future have become laud. We are bound to see a spike in the voices that will do everything to woe the voters to vote them to power. With new actors trying their luck in the political space of Goa, we are bound to see stormy weather that some of us may enjoy watching but the real challenge is for every one of us is to stay focused without being distracted about our role as enlightened citizens. We are clearly facing corporatisation of politics with the coming of Modi era in our country. It has put our democracy in crisis. Our votes, our democratic representatives, our democratic as well as constitutional institutions, etc, have now become raw material for the economic elite to amass his wealth. The silence of our parliament and the making of laws without debate, the deprivation of the rights of the minorities, the fall in the levels of rule of law, the rise of the wealth share of the economic elite and the decline in media ethics seem to indicate that we are experiencing a decline of people’s democracy.
There may be other adjectives to accurately describe the state of democracy in our country. Political Scientist, Christophe Jaffrelot has christened the state of democracy as Ethnic Democracy in his book, Modí’s India: Hindu Nationalism and the Rise of Ethnic Democracy. He says that this Indian variant of Ethnic Democracy is very close to the Ethnic Democracy in Israel that considers the Jews as De Iure citizens and the rest as citizens de facto.
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While we can painfully see that our neighbouring Karnataka on a communal boil, we cannot say that this venom will not touch Goa and Goans. The communal venom hit Haryana and Assam with living Karnataka at Christmas time. Besides, several dharm sansad have become shameless sites of hate speech for many seers who are expected to be icons of peace and love. Our experience seems to indicate that violence and rioting have been used as a double sword by the Chanakayas of the BJP. It has worked to polarise society and has paid an electoral dividend to them. This means the ruling benches employ not just divide and rule but also divert and rule policy. We as citizens are being disempowered by the power of the old British colonial policy that we all call, ‘divide and rule’. The colonisers did not want an enlightened citizenry. Hence, they diverted our attention from real issues and legitimate freedoms and made us believe that we are first Hindus and Muslims rather than citizens.
In today’s India, the disempowering of our citizenship continues and we have landed again into the British divide and rule policy that has once more diverted our attention and led us to believe that we are Hindus first. It may be because of this belief that we have given a long rope to the Government’s excesses as well as failures on the economic front. Our executive, judiciary as well as media seem to have failed us. These and other factors have collectively led to the death of the citizen in us and has given birth to what is called a majoritarian or ethnic democracy.
Goa is also not free from this attack on the office of citizenship. The recent rant of the CM concerning the temples destroyed by the Portuguese is a clear attempt to divert, divide and rule. The corruption charges, the sex scandal and people’s disapproval of the three linear projects clearly may have compelled the CM to make that hate ridden statement. While doing so it seems that the CM seems to have put an axe on the feet of his very own catholic MLAs who were imported from the Congress to strengthen his Government. It was to our surprise and delight none other than Sudin Dhavlikar of the MGP tried to put the hate discourse of the CM in place when he rightly pointed out that the destroyed temples by the Portuguese were already rebuilt during the Portuguese era.
Several of these seasoned politicians have become jumping jacks and political parties that welcome them seem to have become cover for their inefficient work, shady deals that seem to point towards sheer lure of financial incentives that led them to abandon the parties that nurtured their political career. This poaching of prospective candidates has made a dent in its political capital of party that they have left behind to pursue their selfish interest. Congress seems to have become a chief victim whose political capital is sold by its own leaders for thirty silver pieces. Some say that politics is an empty space and it can be grabbed by anyone who has the acumen to seize it. This does not seem to be true. What we see in Goa is an active voiding of the political space indulged by the political players like the BJP, TMC and even APP. What we are seeing is the selling of the political capital by the old Goan political leaders who actually had once nursed themselves on a nourishing diet of the old parties.
This seems to demonstrate that the corporatisation of our politics in Goa has come full circle. Like elsewhere in India, we can also see how ‘divert, divide and conquer policy’ is employed by the political masters. Therefore, we have to hold our heads as citizens and resist these diversionary tactics that dodge the real core issues. It is time that we let the citizen in us stand up otherwise we are in real danger of being overrun by the corporatisation of politics that will divide us to gain political mileage and unleash the next spiral of the destruction of Goy, Goykar and Goykarponn.
(Fr Victor Ferrao is an independent researcher attached to St Francis Xavier Church, Borim)
