Saturday, January 11, 2014

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OP-ED
Culture is a sedimentation of common values of substantial interest for a community Unfortunately, but truly there has never been a 100 per cent unied movement with everyone on the same side for Goas pride and unity Follow The Goan on twitter @TheGoanOnSat

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A lesson in culture
Unwinding culture
Teotonio R de Souza
was tempted to name this new column Decolonizing Minds, but fearing it might be wrong start by touching some raw nerves and sensibilities, opted for a less aggressive expression which falls in line with global trends. There is no single way of dening this exercise, which I consider vital in all societies at all times. In some contexts it is known as socialisation. The communist regimes are known for their re-education exercises, and the Chinese Cultural Revolution was a recent demonstration. The western culture prefers more deceptive language of civic rights, and regards this as formation of the civil society. Antonio Gramsci, the founder of Euro-communism, denounced it as training in self-censorship in bourgeois societies, making it less dependent on uniformed police and troops to control the society. Following the Bolshevik revolution the West prided itself in leaving heavy-handed controls to the communist regimes, while it did the same more discreetly through the hegemony of civil society. The bourgeois democracy is considered more perfect when it musters more rened methods of social control, meaning more sophisticated tools of replacing street violence. Unwinding Culture is meant to be a collective exercise of guided reection, but none the same a joint exercise. Gring is said to have called for his revolver when he heard once the word culture mentioned! Americans talk about culturevultures. There can be phases in history, when there are imposed prescriptions, but in normal times it is a process of ongoing reection that leads to dropping prejudices and shaping new convictions. These are the building blocks of culture construction. There is no such thing, as usually believed, a culture as nal product. It is not the proverbial rolling stone that gathers no moss! In fact, every generation adds its bit or many bits to it, but the inherited legacy determines how much of these additions will be assimilated or rejected, and what place will be provided to them in the cultural hierarchy of values at any one time. Culture is a sedimentation of common values of substantial interest for a community. These values tend to reect the essential features, material and immaterial / spiritual (now more commonly referred as intangible by UNESCO documents) that helped a community to survive and grow. Incidentally, to draw a parallel from an ongoing dispute between India and Pakistan over sharing of waters of Indus auents for hydropower projects, the arbitration panel has proposed a solution called drawdown ushing to get rid of sedimentation. Cultures too require a similar handling, because over time they gather sedimentation that blocks fresh ideas needed to revitalize them, causing cultural sclerosis. Few may have read S. Radhakrishnans little booklet entitled The Hindu View of Life (1927), containing his Upton Lectures at the Manchester College (Oxford) in 1926. They reect the growing menace of Nazi ethnic cleansing in Europe. It permitted Radhakrishnan to present the Hindu caste system as an age-old Hindu alternative to such a threat in India, where successive waves of immigrants over centuries were integrated without violence. Instead of viewing the caste system with the modern expectations of equality of rights and opportunities for talents, Radhakrishnan presents its creativity in benetting from the skills of the newcomers, while ensuring what all immigrants cherish most: their traditional family structure and food habits. The caste rules of endogamy and commensality made this possible. Despite such justications for caste system and its continued validity in a world still threatened by ethnic cleansings, the caste system has gathered sedimentation and rigidity which hampers the growth of the Indian communities in modern times. Now the education is no longer a privilege of higher castes, and technologies can be learnt and practised outside the traditional caste-based professions, which in the past ensured the continuity and accumulated knowledge about specic cras. The language of a community is an essential element of its culture, and proverbs constitute an important element of a language. A Konkani proverb tells us: Purannantlim vangim xakek upkaronant = The brinjals from Puranas are useless for vegetable dish today]. This piece of local cultural wisdom in Goa conveys beautifully the need of unwinding culture.
Prof. Teotonio de Souza is arguably Goas most complete academic, who reoriented his life from founding and running the Xavier Center of Historical Research to living in Portugal in the embrace of academics, research and history

The Goan AAP needs to rekindle the spirit of 2007

Fly on the wall
Sujay Gupta

his is an idea whose time had come in July 2007, when town and country marched, from balcaos and buildings, from elds and farms crossing the bridges to Panjim for what was then a game changing peoples rally to save Goa. The perils of Goas destruction, unplanned construction and rampant conversion of agrarian land for a skewed model of development, was the leitmotif of the 2007 agitation to scrap the Regional Plan of 2011 and give Goa a more suitable and fair development plan. But that historic march to Azad Maidan had ummoxed many who couldnt quite get the vibe. Aer all why would an eighty year old grandmother from Salcette get ready early in the morning to head for this? Why would a bank manager father insist that his seven year old should travel with him to the rally as an investment for his future? Clearly the contours of this rally went beyond the immediate cause of planning Goa for Goans. It was the beginning of a genuine all Goa coming together of the common man of Goa. The July 7, 2007 rally was party of Goas Aam Aadmi. Arvind Kejriwal was just an honest government ocer then. Those were heady times. The elections were two months away. Even as Manohar Parrikar quietly stood in the rear lines of Azad Maidan listening in, he realized that for the rst time in many years, this was true Goan movement and not the yoke of oxen hitched to a political moving van, At the crossroads was the avor of the movement and its undeniable face - Dr Oscar Rebello, who was goaded to make a choice. To remain as a force driver or be the force himself by leveraging this movement for electoral power. Not the power of oce but the power of people, electorally sanctioned. The

What is needed is a Goan movement in character and spirit embodying the core principles of AAP but having a more dened Goan character
choice was between taking ownership or inuencing traditional power to change and be people centric. The choice simply was to just do it, or get it done. Oscar Rebello stepped back, saying he was merely giving voice to peoples aspirations, the corridors of politics emanated an odour with a resultant allergy that wasnt curable by this good doctors own medicine. In 2007, Doc Oscar did an Anna even before Anna Hazare did. He rejected the Kejriwal model of enhancing peoples power by winning elections and took the Anna line of a messiah who would never become a minister. We are not questioning the decisions taken at that crossroad, because oen decisions at crossroads are not thought but dependent on the kind of trac you are in the middle of. Even then, correct decisions are not always taken. But we surely need to assess the fall out for more so in the light of Oscar Rebellos and Remo Fernandes decision to join the Aam Aadmi Party. In the light of events that unfolded later, the GBAs decision of not making a meal of a perfect recipe for electoral success, made Goa bere of its rst peoples movement which would get its electoral manifestation, beyond the conventional. The space created the people of Goa in 2007 was lled by the BJP in its return to power in 2012. In an absence of a peoples force , the BJP became that force simply because it espoused the fundamentals that would have drawn this political power to-

wards the GBA. Fundamentals like zero tolerance to corruption, a just Regional Plan, and eective approachable governance. We must understand that AAP as a concept goes beyond nomenclature. As Delhi showed and so did the wave across the country that followed, riding on which Oscar Rebello and Remo Fernandes joined the party, AAP was pressure valve that got lied leading to a surge of people trapped in conventional governance by conventional parties. However, while realising that a political organisation of peoples voices could have given us - even by a long shot - a peoples governance there can be equally forcible counter arguments, enforcing why the emergence of a formal people centric polity cannot emerge. Unfortunately, but truly there has never been a hundred per cent unied movement with everyone on the same side for Goas pride and unity. And any attempts at this direction by the intelligentsia have been hijacked by the brawn of party politics. For example, the Konkani movement had intellectual stalwarts like Pundalik Naik, Damodar Mauzo and Gurunath Kelekar to name a few, but was politically fronted by the non-intellectual brawn of Churchill Alemao. Similarly during the opinion poll and the language agitation, one Goan won and one Goan lost. The only two issues in contemporary Goa that beat all of this was the movement to have an honest Regional Plan against unplanned construction and seizure of land and the one against corruption. The medium of Instruction campaign for English in primary education received a groundswell of support not just from the Catholics and the Church but from the Hindus as well. But even this movement lost steam in the middle. History is on record that Goa has not been able to take any of its contemporary movements from 2007 onwards which could have given shape to a new Goa has not been taken to its logical conclusion.

Therefore, Oscar Rebello (and not as much Remo Fernandes because he has no track record of spurring mass peoples imagination unitedly), has a challenge and bit of repairing to do. He shunned politics then, he has embraced it now. People are allowed to course correct, but this time the Doctor has to deliver. This cant be a personal choice for his own comfort and belief. He cannot be suggestive as say that the Regional Plan should be a core issue. He needs to say The Regional Plan WILL be a core issue. Assertion is needed, not suggestion. He cannot be on the sidelines. He has to be in the middle. What is needed, and this is beyond individuals is a Goan movement in character and spirit embodying the core principles of AAP but having a more dened Goan character. And if Oscar cant deliver, he will fall by the wayside and hopefully give way to someone who can stand up. If he does, he will win. If Oscar Rebello needs inspiration, he should go back to his own column of three years ago where he narrated a ctional conversation between a character called Gaganappa Hassan Ali Nagarjuna Tennyson India (G.H.A.N.T.I) who is asked why Goa has not achieved true success. GHANTI, an outsider replied Because you Goans have never ever been united throughout your brief history in your small land, never! And then the GHANTI told him the mantra for redemption. Only if you let go of the ghosts of the past that are constantly shackling you. And if you realize that in this battle of yours, you must necessarily take everyone along on the ride -- Hindu, Christian, Muslims and the bhailo. Democracy my friend gives you no other choice aer all! And it is rising to this challenge which will determine if the AAP honeymoon is Goa is irtation or solid marriage.
Sujay Gupta is Editor in Chief, The Goan and tweets @SujayGupta0832

Politics is not a bad word

Open forum
Shivangi Narayan

he newly elected government of Delhi claims it is not political. On numerous occasions, leaders of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) have denied having anything to do with rajneeti; they claim they are here to serve the people and janta ki sewa is what they are going to do come what may. Even aer contesting on a reserved seat, Rakhi Birla, a dalit MLA from the party, vehemently denied having anything to do with identity politics. She said she is above caste-based

politics or identity politics; and again, she insisted, she is here is for janta ki sewa. What Birla forgets is that the reserved seat, and the representation of Dalits like her in the functioning of the government, is a result of decades of the same caste-based politics she wants to distance herself from. Black leaders in the west have fought a political battle to end discrimination, and are still ghting. Politics is a struggle for rights. Of not an individual or a community, but for a people. When

leaders take up a political struggle they work for a vision. The vision is to end an issue for the benet for entire generations to come. It aims at paradigm change, in thinking, in treatment, in behaviour. It doesnt just aim to correct the wrongs in the present, but also creates conditions for them to never occur again. Shouldnt then the issue of providing water, electricity and good living conditions to all be a political one for you, dear Aam Aadmi Party? If not, why are you ghting for good roads, water and electricity while you are in power? A local plumber, electrician and handyman can do that job. A good bureaucrat is more suited for this role.

To confuse politics with what politics has been reduced to limits the scope of AAP as being merely an administrative cleanser. It also risks the AAP becoming obsolete if other parties put their act in order and apart from any political agendas, and start doing janta ki sewa. AAP has been termed as the most successful start-up (entrepreneurial venture) from an IITian. In pure entrepreneurial terms, it has scaled its operations to the national level. Now is the time it renes its manifesto and includes some legislative functions to really provide a political alternative to the people of the country.
Shivangi Narayan is a correspondent for Governance Now