SOTER D’SOUZA
The recent controversy surround ing the hate-filled remarks against a revered Catholic mis sionary saint was yet another flash point in Goa’s struggle with communal rhetoric. At first glance, the outrage it generated appears to signal a society unwilling to tolerate bigotry. But a clos er look suggests something more trou bling; the reaction itself may be fuelling the tactics employed from the playbook of societal polarisation it claims to re sist. There is no doubt that the remarks were reprehensible. But how they were circulated, debated, and instrumental ised can enable a pattern that benefits forces investing in deepening societal divisions.
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The cycle is by now familiar. An incendiary statement is made, it is amplified through social media, out rage follows, and political actors seize upon the moment to consolidate their respective bases. The public sphere gets gradually polarised along commu nal lines, episode after episode. For decades, Goa has sold itself as an exception in India’s increasingly polarised landscape. But beneath this comforting self-image lies a harder truth: Goa has never been entirely free of communal fissures. Goa’s much-cel ebrated pluralism is less a lived reality than a convenient myth. The duplicity of ‘goykarponn’ makes it difficult to configure as to where the caste ma nipulation for political power and business monopoly ends, and religious intolerance begins. A society does not become tolerant merely because the streets overflow with booze, food and merriment.
Violence does not need to be only physical rioting. It can also be psychological, social and political. It ex ists in humiliation, suspicion, intimida tion and the constant signalling that a community does not fully belong. And it is this disguised and diplomatic form of violence that is being employed in Goa. The hypocrisy surfaces in insinua tions that some minorities are some how less Indian because of their faith. It appears in conspiracy-laden conver sations about conversions, demograph ics and “foreign influence”. It emerges when minority initiatives are viewed with suspicion while majoritarian as sertions are framed as natural expres sions of nationalism. It becomes visible when attacks on minority identity are dismissed as isolated incidents rather than symptoms of a broader ideological shift. Even if no stone is thrown and no place of worship burned, but a commu nity is repeatedly given the message, directly or indirectly, that its history is suspect, its patriotism conditional, or its political and cultural presence is excessive, the damage is profound. Fear does not require mobs. Alienation does not require riots. This denied reality in Goa explains why those who target the minorities through inflammatory rhetoric and communal provocation can operate with growing confidence.
They are not creating divisions from nothing. They are exploiting tensions that already exist beneath Goa’s carefully preserved self-image. Beneath this visible coex istence lies an undercurrent that many Goans privately recognise yet publicly hesitate to confront, the growing nor malisation of anti-minority sentiment in social discourse and political culture. History across the world shows that societies fracture long before physical violence becomes visible. The emo tional groundwork comes first. Stere otypes get repeated often enough to become common sense, minorities are pressured to constantly prove loyalty, and public discourse is shaped around resentment and grievance. Communal ism often advances gradually through language, symbolism, historical revi sionism and social suspicion before manifesting in more visible forms. Fundamentalism, like chemical addiction, feeds on vulnerability, re wards repetition, resists correction, and thrives in enabling environments. Treating it only as a legal and political issue without addressing its psycholog ical roots ensures that society remains trapped in an endless cycle of provoca tion, outrage, and recurrence.
Hatred offers emotionally vulnerable individ uals a seductive illusion of superiority. By reducing another community, reli gion, caste, or ethnicity, the bigot tem porarily elevates himself. Like chemical addiction, ideological extremism provides emotional intox ication. It offers certainty to the inse cure, belonging to the isolated, iden tity to the confused, and power to the resentful. The bigoted mind, much like the addicted mind, becomes dependent on emotional highs from outrage, vic timhood, superiority, and the constant reinforcement of “us versus them.” Just as addicts frequently resist interven tion by becoming defensive or hostile, ideological extremists interpret criti cism as persecution. For them, police action feeds the delusion that they are “dangerous truth-tellers.” Public con demnation feeds their martyr complex.
When bigotry is tied to identity, fear, political power, or emotional condi tioning, facts alone rarely produce immediate transformation. Psycholo gists call this motivated reasoning, in which people tend to protect beliefs that give them belonging, certainty, or status, even when contrary evidence is presented. In such cases, rebutting distortion with facts can paradoxically make some people cling more tightly to the falsehood because admitting error feels like losing identity or community. This is not to advocate for silence in the face of hate speech. Accountabil ity is essential in any democracy and the law must take its course. However, when outrage becomes performative rather than transformative, it risks serving as a recruitment tool for ma joritarian politics. Each viral clip, each angry hashtag, can harden identities rather than challenge prejudice. The conversation shifts from addressing the root of what enables such rhetoric to a spectacle of indignation that ultimately changes little. The visuals of reactions from clerics, with religious symbols as the backdrop, provide the most desired publicity material for the fundamental ist propaganda. A “healthy” response does not ignore the insult, but tactical ly avoids getting pulled into the emo tional and social dynamics that make such provocations powerful in the first place. Better late than never, Goa needs to wake up and resist the current trajec tory.
But resistance requires honesty. It requires acknowledging that commu nalism does not always arrive shouting. Sometimes it arrives smiling, joking, provoking and normalising itself into everyday conversation until prejudice becomes ordinary. Combating hate re quires more than outrage after each in cident; it requires long-term civic heal ing. The law can punish conduct. It can restrain incitement. But it cannot alone cure emotional dependency on hatred. (The author has worked with community initiatives related to Drug and Alcohol Abuse Prevention, HIV/AIDs Prevention, Panchayati Raj, Anti-Corruption, Environment Protection and Social Justice.)
