It was the early 1960s, just after Liberation. Elections were in the air. A group of men belonging to an umbrella organization called Maharashtra Agadi, met in the home of Bablo Naik in Panjim. There was a Dhond, one Tople and another gentleman called Raghuvir Kolvalkar. A certain Dayanand Bandodkar was invited to Bablo Naik’s house in Panjim for this meeting. All these men were initially opposed to Puroshottam Kakodkar, the Congress freedom fighter and wanted to chart their own course.
This grouping then looked for candidates, mainly from the Bahujan Samaj and pushed for Goa’s merger with Maharashtra. The Congress got a drubbing in the 1963 elections and chose Dayanand Bandodkar, who was unelected as Chief Minister.
As the MGP grapples with the tag and at times the taint, depending on which constituency it faces, of being a Hindu party, and increasingly a party that seems to have aligned with hardline and even militant forces like the Ram Sene, what surprises many old-timers of the MGP, is that the party was never created on the lines of religion but caste and regionalism. But the people of old, like Ramakant Khalap, former MLA Babuso Gaonkar (now Vice Chairman of the Goa Legislators Forum), see the MGP of today as an altogether different species with a different DNA. Headquartered in the temple town of Marcaim, it has become a party of two individuals, Sudin and Deepak Dhavalikar. Ramakant Khalap, in all likelihood the most true-blooded of the original MGP ethos says “The name Maharashtrawadi was given because it was a pro-merger party. But one it lost in the Opinion Poll, it accepted the verdict of the people with all humility and had a clear pro-Goa agenda, steeped in culture but not in Hinduism”. Khalap went on to add that Bandodkar, he himself and Sashikala Kakodkar believed in the real Congress ideology. But despite losing the Opinion Poll on the issue of merger, the party continued in power for 17 years, till the opposition United Goans Party merged itself into the Congress along with a few MGP elements.
In fact this thought finds echo amongst a lot of people on the MGP, especially in South Goa, when they ask why BJP became a party of choice when the Congress did not deliver since, the MGP was closest to the ideological space. Khalap says that he even attempted to change the name of the party to Rashtriya Gomantak Party but it wasn’t accepted because of the heritage of its name. Similarly, the MGP’s love for Marathi was because of the heritage of the language even in Portuguese Goa where it was taught in the Lyceum, with no prejudice to Konkani.
Contrary to popular belief and perception, Bandodkar spoke in Konkani in the Assembly, opened Konkani schools (and of course many staunch Konkani protagonists would send their children to English schools). The MGP reaped political dividends with this policy winning a by-election in the Salcete heartland of Benaulim, where Luta Ferrao defeated Wilfred D Souza. So on the language front, the MGP’s support for Konkani is well established including its non-opposition to the recognition of Konkani by the Sahitya Academy.
This issue should have been solved in 1984 itself when during an open convention of the party, it was declared that both languages would prosper and Khalap, in a historic speech said ‘We must bury the hatchet.”
While the hatchet was never buried, the perception stuck in the minds of people, especially among the United Goans that a pro-merger force was a Hindu force where language was equated with religion. This was in the period leading right upto the turn of the century and even beyond.
However, there are hard ground realities that the MGP needs to grapple with. From the late 1990s, the party has been taken over by Sudin and Deepak Dhavalikar, the former, a serving temple pujari in the town of Marcaim. The rule of the Dhavalikars has been that of consolidating their own base politically. They had a deal with Pratapsing Rane which extended beyond politics and were instrumental in supporting the Congress government. However, before the last elections, it withdrew support on the issue of grants for the Medium of Instruction and backed the BJP.
In fact, people like Khalap and many old-timers felt that the MGP lost ground on the medium of instruction issue by seeming to be part of the BJP team which backed Marathi at the cost of English, even though the support was mainly for the mother tongue as the MoI, which could be either Marathi or Konkani. Yet again, the MGP was portrayed as a soft Hindutva party or a B team of the BJP.
After the BJP won the elections and took MGP along even when it didn’t have to, did the Marcaim version of the Dhavalikar-led MGP develop further. The MGP’s power centre was concentrated there. In Panjim, its city office remains shut most of the time with hardly any activity. “There is a violent Hindu movement with fundamental organisations like the Ram Sene, the Hindu Janajagruti Samiti and the Sanathan Sanstha which is in the backyard of the Dhavalikars, getting ready for a stronger presence in Goa. The MGP is seen as an ally of those forces, which is disturbing”, says a very senior office bearer.
Khalap adds ‘It’s a matter of great concern that when Deepak Dhavalikar praises Narendra Modi and prays for the success of his efforts to make India a ‘Hindu rashtra’, there is no denouncement from the BJP. This is not the MGP we built”. Khalap warns “When the tempest comes, there are tell-tale signs”, and explains that MGP is going down the militant Hindutva route, which is dangerous for Goa.
This change is palpable from the remarks of Sudin Dhavalikar on the banning of bikinis and the closing of pubs followed by the wayward comment of MGP MLA Lavoo Mamledar about the need to have bikini beaches with an entrée fee. The Panjim Mayor and Congressman Surendra Furtado quipped “ MGP MLAs have lost their balance. Where have we reached. People of should show them the door. Enough is enough. We have been made a laughing stock nationally and internationally”.
It’s a huge fall for the party. There was once a time when the MGP was on the verge of leading a national federation of regional parties, an idea that even someone like L K Advani supported as leader of the opposition, knowing that regional forces as allies could help BJP. And Advani came to Goa for the first meeting of this Federation. The idea didn’t quite take off thereafter. Today, far from being a regional force, it is seen as a political vertical of Right Wing fundamental organisations with an aim to consolidate its political base.
It is truly the Marcaim Gomantak Party, a parody of what it was meant to be- a regional force seeped in secularism.
