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OPINION
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Vol No CX No: 57 History of Goan culture Post-Orientalism
Goa, Saturday 27 February, 2010

Go figure A more documented study in the context of the intensity of the Goan emigration is needed, says TEOTÓNIO R DE SOUZA

W ith so many figures raining down on us all day, it’s

hard not to get carried away with the Budget hype.
It has become a tradition for every sector to analyse
the huge Budget exercise in terms of how it would be affected
— by way of income tax, or items they consume like cigarettes
and fuel, or at best the possible impact of inflation.
In this exercise, we might just be missing the wood for the
trees. Is the Central Budget really that important to the state
of the economy, and how it shapes our lives?
While we see a few percentage point changes happen in
specific taxes or concessions, the fact is that a poor monsoon
could still have a bigger impact on all of us, than all the pro-
posals of a Pranab Mukherjee.
Inflation and devaluations have happened time and again
in recent decades, outside the hallowed halls of parliament.
Even competent analysts are willing to concede that Indian
budgets, once an important annual fiscal exercise, now have
their “sheen eroded” as many important Union budget deci-
sions are taken outside the budget exercise, with deregulation
and decontrol growing.
At another level, the country’s huge black economy makes
its impact felt by stealth. How many times have we experienced
the reality ourselves, when we are told even a simple purchase
would “cost extra” is we need a bill for it?
Incidentally, 2007 figures suggest that India, a country of
1170 million, has just 31.5 million taxpayers! So much for all
the many hours of televised programming, and rain-forests
of newsprint, that focuses on the nitty-gritties, while probably
missing the bigger picture.
Everyone sees just what they wish in the Budget. The point
has been made of how businessmen and regional satraps
use the Budget exercise to flatter the ego of those in power.
Others see it as a timely exercise to wrest concessions. Critical
biographies of some of India’s largest business houses have
told the stories of how empires were built by a strategic shift
of a few percentage points over imports of certain products.
But alternative perspectives have come up too. Centre for
Science and Environment, from New Delhi, has called the
“mere two per cent” hike in excise duty on oil-guzzling big
cars, sports and multi-utility vehicles as “too little too late”.
It said the Budget failed to reduce excise duty on badly-
needed buses or incentivise public transport for India’s highly
congested cities, or stop the “rampant growth”of diesel per-
sonal vehicles that threaten our air quality. In its view, the
new National Clean Energy Fund and more allocations for
new and renewable energies, plus Rs 200 crore for a Climate
Resilient Agriculture Initiative were all welcome. CSE also
M uch has happened in post-liberation
decades in favour of the revival of his-
torical studies in Goa. There has been a
great degree of internationalising of its research,
but this positive aspect has also put back the
ideal traced by D D Kosambi, the doyen of Goan
cultural studies, who insisted that history of Goa
should not be viewed nor reduced to episode or
episodes of national histories of the foreign colo-
nial powers. It ought to be studied as a process
of successive developments in the means and re-
lations of production that transformed the terri-
tory and its population. We wish to see the Goa
University providing a stronger lead in the efforts
in this direction through the projects of its De-
partment of History and motivating private insti-
tutions and individual researchers in the territory
under its jurisdiction and beyond. Such efforts
will necessarily represent challenges to its quality
and competence, but in the long run will ensure
its prestige and academic standing.
By referring in the title to ‘Goan Culture’ I wish
to call attention to the need of a critical post-ori-
entalist approach to Goan historiography, and
not merely to downplay the traditional emphasis
upon political history that provided the easy edge
to historians who depend almost exclusively upon
the colonial archives, whether in Europe or in
India itself. The change to cultural history and
so-called post-colonial studies demands explo-
ration of different sources and different analytical
approaches.
I am watching curiously but also with some
apprehension a neo-orientalist trend, which looks
the Saidian orientalism as simplistic, and seeks
to identify and illustrate active native collaboration
in the construction of knowledge that may have
been manipulated by the dominant colonial in-
terests, but also served in the long run for the
building of post-colonial nationalisms. I shall refer
here very briefly to a very recent post-doctoral
study by Filipa Lowndes Vicente, entitled Outros
Orientalismos: A Índia entre Florença e Bombaim
1860-1900 (Lisboa, ICS, 2009). I see it as a good
example of a post-Orientalist research, rather
than neo-Orientalist as some cases that I have
referred to in recent past. We look forward to an
early English version that could make it more ac-
cessible to a wide range of readers and promote
Tongue in cheek
HISTORICAL EXPLORATIONS
a wider and critical debate.
Filipa L Vicente is a young but senior Portuguese
scholar with good experience of research in cul-
tural history, and brings to us this brilliant pro-
duction that questions and demands a more
critical analysis of the manipulation of manipula-
tors (call them elites or cultural-brokers if you
prefer) in the colonial context or at all times. The
study explores private correspondence, which
for me always had special fascination for recon-
struction of cultural history. Mhamay family
records were one such example which helped me
to reconstruct with greater clarity the commer-
cial-cultural activities of that family, but also bring
to life some other little-known personalities like
Rogério de Faria, a pioneer of the opium trade in
the late 18th century.
Filipa L Vicente puts more flesh upon the flashy
and fleshy Gerson da Cunha, whose orientalist
research was known to us through – Notes on
the History and Antiquities of Chaul and Bassein
(1876), Sahayadri Khanda of the Skanda Purana
(1877), Contributions to the Study of Indo-Por-
Budget Blues
tuguese Numismatics (1880) and his essay – The
Konkani Language and Literature (1881). Through
the surviving correspondence of Gerson da Cunha
with the Italian Sanskrit scholar Gubernatis, pre-
served in the archives of Florence, we have now
a clearer picture of the personality and ticks of
this influential Goan doctor that was part of the
leading Goan elite in Bombay in the second half
of the 19th century.
Filipa L Vicente offered to me her book a couple
of weeks ago when we met at the Academia Na-
cional de Belas Artes (Lisboa) where I was invited
to speak on the Goan Tiatr as a cultural and
counter-cultural dramatic expression. There could
be no better coincidence that this to get this
book into my hands. I had spoken about the gen-
esis of the modern Goan Tiatr in Mumbai in 1892,
inspired by an Italian Opera group that was touring
India at that time, and not unsurprisingly the first
Tiatr performance was named Italian bhurgo (The
Italian Boy). The book of Filipa Vicente helps us
to understand the fascination that India had for
the Italians at that time. It was in the context of
the unification of Italy which sought its own place
in the concert of Europe following the Berlin Con-
ference and in the prevailing mood of the impe-
rialist Europe. Florence had hosted the Congress
of the Orientalists in 1878, where Gerson da
Cunha was present. Ever since, two leading Flo-
rentine scholars, Gubernatis and Mantegazza,
deeply involved in Orientalist studies had main-
tained contacts with Gerson da Cunha, who had
also been their chaperon during their study visits
to India. Gerson da Cunha had even translated
into English Gubernatis’ Italian dramatic piece
Savitri based on Mahabharata and organised a
public performance in Bombay through a Parsee
sponsor.
Central to the discussion in Filipa L Vi-
cente’s research are the personal misunder-
standings between Gerson da Cunha and his
Italian scholar-friend, based upon and re-
vealing their individual cultural self-image.
The author of the book provides us her own
reading of the reactions of the various actors,
and does not hesitate to state that the Eu-
ropeans in India were quite happy when the
natives accepted their differences, but were
usually disturbed when they affirmed to be
equal to the Europeans (p 21), who wished to
see the genuine ‘Indianness’ only in the difference.
Points out, for instance, the difficulty that Gerson
da Cunha expressed in being referred to as Brah-
min (outside Goa), because he did not want to
be mistaken among his western contacts as a
Hindu, particularly after having received a
Papal award. It would be interesting for us,
also, to know what were Gerson da Cunha’s
relations with the low-caste Goans, who
were crowding Bombay and were expressing
their socio-cultural divergences and discon-
tent through Tiatr.
From my limited information about the linkages
of Gerson da Cunha’s family with Sir Rogério de
Faria, I had mentioned in my past writings about
the welcome that Goan Christian visitors received
in their home at Mazagaon (Mumbai). But this
needs a more documented study in the context
of the intensity of the Goan emigration and the
socio-economic problems and religious (Padroado)
conflicts that troubled the community during that
period.
By Adelmo Fernandes

noted that while the MoEF last month identified 75 “critically
polluted areas” across India, the finance minister agreed to
clean up just one — the Tamil textile city of Tirupur.
Goa meanwhile got a Rs 200 crore as a “Special Golden Ju-
bilee” package to “preserve the natural resources”, restore
erosion-prone beaches, and increase green cover through
“sustainable forestry”, as the finance minister put it. This
drew comment from a Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi
and Kerala’s finance minister Thomas Isaac.
But to see this in context, the Rs 200 crore is a relatively
small figure compared to what Goa itself spends in its own
Budget each year. Secondly, how much comes is not as im-
portant as how the money is spent; and India’s smallest states
has a reputation for leakages in its programmes and faulty
delivery mechanisms. Lastly, mis-spent funds are hardly any
compensation for the battering the Goan coastline and its
greenery has seen — including due to faulty policies — in
recent years. The bonus for Goa could, in fact, act as balm on
our conscience and spur on more business as usual policies
without a care, instead of real concern for the coast and di-
minishing greenery.
I
n this world nothing can be said to be certain except
death and taxes,” wrote Benjamin Franklin. If taxes
are certain then so is the budget. The budget, in a
way, determines how much we have to contribute to the
government kitty. People, especially, those from the business
world, wait with baited breath for the sops and announce-
ments to be made by the government in the Union budget.
Those belonging to the salaried class have to see whether
they have to pay more by way of tax. The man of the hour
is, of course, the Finance Minister. Everyone, right from
the house wife to the CEO of a multinational company, is
circumspect of the budget. But, then, for the aam admi
budgets come and budgets go but their life goes on as
usual. There is hardly any change. This is probably because
the budget does not touch the price of those things that
actually matter to the common man. Unfortunately, every
budget, if anything, is just an eye-wash.A typical budget
could go something like this with sops (?) announced for
every class.
For the average house-wife: The price of LPG has been
increased by a whooping fifty percent. But, then, the price
of tubing for the LPG cylinders has been reduced. So also
the price of the gas-lighter and match-box has been reduced.
Well the average housewife is expected to be happy with
the reduction in the price of the tubing, the gas lighter and
the match-box, even though she will have to pay through
the nose for the LPG cylinder. The price of all the vegetables
has been increased. But the house-wife need not worry.
The price of green chillies has not been touched. Well, we
will be able to eat mirchi-bhajia to our heart’s delight. The
price of saree has increased. But the women-folk need not
worry. The price of blouse-pieces has been reduced. Price
of cosmetics has been increased substantially. But, then,
the all prevailing face-powder has been spared the increase
in price.
For the student community: Unfortunately the amount of
money parents will have to pay for the education has gone
up. Tuition fees have gone up. Books will be expensive as
per the budget. But, then, the student community need not
worry. Refills for the pens will cost less. While the price of
school shoes has gone up, the bright side of the budget is
that the price of shoe-laces has not been touched. The Gov-
ernment has also introduced the ‘Buy-one-get-one-free’
scheme as far as shoes are concerned. You buy one shoe
and you get the other shoe of the same pair absolutely free.
To woo the student community the Government has decided
to bank on the students’ weakness. That is, of course, the
all prevailing mobile-phone. The Government, in the budget,
has announced a special mobile package for the students.
It is called the ‘Talk-till-you-drop scheme’. In this scheme
the students can talk late nights without paying. You can
talk till you drop to sleep. For the average businessman:
The sales tax has been increased. But, then, there is a
scheme introduced by the Government. If the business man
pays the taxes honestly in a year, he can have a tax-holiday
the next year. He and his family can go on a government-
paid holiday to any hill-station within the country.
The Government has announced several schemes in
the budget for uplif ting the poor and the marginalised
in the society. All the BPL families will be sold rice at
Rs3 per kg. The scheme comes with a rider. The rice
will be supplied till stocks last. Surprisingly, one never
finds sops being announced in the budget for the politicians.
But, then, on second thought, do our politicians really need
any sops? They have stacked up enough wealth not only
for themselves but for another four generations to come.

Letters to the Editor

You too, Police!
Socorro DSouza, Fatorda
The Police are supposed to protect the cit-
izens but they themselves persecute them.
It is nothing but anarchy. Few corrupt po-
licemen and high ranking government of-
ficials are bringing disgrace to the august
institutions and making mockery of those
very offices they hold.
Police officers extract bribe from crim-
inals for destroying prosecution’s case, for
manipulating evidence, and for false impli-
cation to fix up innocents in criminal cases
while letting free the real criminals by filing
summary reports to close prosecution cases,
to involve innocents in fake encounters, to
apply 3rd degree torture on innocents, etc.
The powers of arrest granted to Police are
misused and bail business commenced in
connivance with few lawyers and APP’s.
In addition, such connivance is also ex-
isting for giving favourable bail orders, and
then by manipulations to set free actual
criminals. All these goes to prove false the
public perception that persons behind bars
are the only criminals and those outside are good
ones. Many-a-times innocent people are wrongly
implicated and put behind bars, whereas some
criminals go around free.
The criminal act of corrupt majority is bringing
disgrace to the honest few in police service and
to the institution as a whole.
Play safe Holi
Cajetan Peter D'Souza, Mumbai
As the festival of colours is celebrated on
100 Years Ago
PRIMEIRO DIARIO NAS COLONIAS PORTUGEZAS
27 February 1910
It was Carnival on 26 February 1910
and the office of oHeraldo had a holi-
day, so there was no issue on 27 Feb-
ruary 1910, 100 years ago. Hence the
column ‘100 Years Ago’ is not published
today.
– Editor
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authors, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Herald editor, publisher, and/or owners.
Sunday, there is a need for the Holi revelers
to play Holi safely. They should avoid using
plastic bags, water and harmful colours.
Sometimes dirty gutter water is used to
throw on unwary people, mainly two wheel-
ers. Play safe Holi.
Why not Goan contractors?
S Kamat, Alto Betim
The newspapers in the last fortnight had
carried the news that the Government is
appointing CRRI (Central Road Research In-
stitute) to advise them on planning, layout
and structuring of the entire road network
within Goa down to the village level for
which the CRRI had quoted a handsome
amount. One fails to understand why our
government is hell-bent on wasting money.
Why is the work not given to the town
planners and architects within Goa, who
can study and recommend the road network
in Goa down to the village level at a much
lower cost?
Our own politicians and administrators,
with little or no knowledge, tend to spoil
things in a big way or in some cases per-
manently as far as traffic flow is concerned.
The other thing about contracting things
out to CRRI is that this government shouts
from the rooftop time and again that people
passing out from our engineering schools
and other professionals fail to get jobs
within the State and exhorts industry to
give them jobs. When it comes to handing
out contracts by the government, it fails
to keep its word and gives these to those
from outside the State.
Is it not time enough that our govern-
ment takes action commensurate with its
pronouncements?
Why only 40 days?
Oswald Mattos, Ribandar
The letter by Michael Vaz ‘On Lenten
hypocrisy’ (Herald, 24 Feb) made me to
think deep.
The Lenten period, which is believed
to have come into practice in the fourth
century CE, was originally called ‘Quadra-
gesima’ meaning forty days, before it was
replaced by the Germanic word ‘Lent’ used
to refer to the spring season.
This period was used by the early Chris-
you eat must be produced by somebody, Paths of Wisdom
Letter of the Day somewhere.
Most of our farmers are marginal farm-
Injustice to Class IV ers, living a hand-to-mouth existence. They
cannot afford the modern agricultural equip-
Vinayak Naik, Goa Velha ments; they do not take loans whatever
may be the rate of interest because they
In GMC, the doctors are doing private practice and still drawing non-practicing know the consequences.
allowance in thousands of rupees besides receiving hefty salary in Goa Medical
At present agriculture is un-remunerative
College. Similarly, they are also performing major and minor operations in private
with high labour cost, and non-availability Science and Spirituality
hospitals. Thus, government is losing crores of rupees every year for paying NPA. By Kalidas Sawkar
This should be stopped forthwith. of farm labour. Our agricultural scientists
Similarly, all Class IV employees at GMC are drawing Patient Care Allowance whether and agricultural administrators sit in air- Life is always in quest of its surroundings,
they are working in the hospital or not, to take care of the patients. These allowances conditioned offices in the cities and ser- to assimilate, to know, to be. In higher
should be given to those class IV employees, who are working years together in the monise the farmers what they should do, forms, besides eating it also wants to be
hospital without any transfers. Some of the Class IV employees, especially the without ever entering a field and actually comfortable… and then, to control the
attendants, are drawing salary and patient care allowance by working in the offices demonstrating what is to be done. environment…
and not in the hospital. This is not correct and the Patient Care Allowances should The government should provide farming In man, this takes him to a next level
be withdrawn. These attendants with their influence work in the offices without ever equipments such as tractors, transplantation of intelligence…
working in the hospitals for years together and the less fortunate work in hospital and harvester machines to a cluster of vil- In the beginning, as man observed,
years together without any transfer. There are cases in GMC that class IV employees, lages free of cost on a pilot basis, which learnt and tried to form ideas, vague con-
fortunate ones, continue to work in offices since their appointments in GMC for cepts helped him. He formed groups,
will boast agriculture instead of loans and
years together without any transfer to hospital. Our dynamic Health Minister Vishwajeet managed them and later controlled…
sermons. In the long run, the initial invest-
Rane, should effect the transfers of Class IV employees, who have been working in Vagueness was workable. It could be
ment by the government will be off-set by understood, or else, imagined, envisioned
the hospital and vice-versa, since great injustice is being done to them.
greater productivity. and accepted in Faith.
Some men used utilitarian approach,
tians to reflect, meditate, fast and to pray on my wife’s birthday to one popular bar- Fish curry and rice calibrated and became technical and then
for forty days in commemoration of the and-restaurant by the Bogmalo beachfront. Prof Robert Castellino, Calangute scientific…
forty days that Jesus spent in the wilderness The waiter ignored me and my wife for As the majority of Goans depend on marine These groups were not rigorously de-
fasting, meditating and reflection before about 15 minutes, while we sat by the table products for their food, the plan to have fined. There was semi-permeability to
beginning his ministry. Lent was also the helplessly waiting for him to take our order. fish markets at the 20 jetties will be seen travel across…
time of preparation for those who were to He was catering to the needs of other Eu- as a boon for the people. Some became very proficient but could
be baptised, a time of concentrated study ropean tourists, who entered the scene It is expected that this move will bring not relate within the group itself, much
and prayer before their Baptism at the much later than us. down the prices of fish considerably. In less across…
Easter vigil. There definitely needs to be some law order that the benefit accrues to the com- The accuracy and vagueness expanded
Somewhere down the time line, this in our state so that such incidents will never mon man and not the rich hoteliers, sale beyond measure in both groups...
changed to a period of prayer, penance and recur again to any Indian. It is shameful to of fish at these markets should be restricted In the end, don’t both, Science and
charity with some abstinence. But aren't see our own people (waiters) being lured to a quantity sufficient for the daily needs Adhyatma, talk about the same attrib-
these to be practiced by every Christian by foreign money and ignoring our own of a family only. utes?
on a daily basis till death? When Jesus said people. Isn’t this discrimination under our But just as they can converge, they di-
‘take up your cross and follow me’, he did own roof? Live peacefully verge; one keeping in tune with time,
not mean for forty days only. The same ap-
Xavier J Thottan, Curtorim
other paradoxically, oblivious while talk-
plies to some Lenten resolutions made by Agricultural crisis ing of it.
some people to abstain from vices/bad SND Poojary, Miramar Recently, there was a big hue and cry about For Science, understanding is to make
an audio CD titled ‘Dogui Bodmas’ by some use. For Adhyatma, understanding is
habits. After the forty days, they go back
to the same old bad habits/vices. There is a famous saying: A country that
neglects agriculture is doomed. This is what
Goan artists followed by riots, road blocks, being just happy in knowledge.
protests etc. Archbishop Rev Filipe Neri re- One is scientific, other ascetic.
happened to the ‘Green Revolution’ India.
Why discriminate? Over the years, our planners paid more at-
quested these talented artists not to misuse Then, why the two should be skep-
Noel D'mello, Vasco da gama their talents, but rather use it to edify tical of each other? One is eating
tention to the manufacturing, tertiary (ser- everyone in this land of Goa. fruit knowing its genome, happy for
I had often heard of discriminatory service vice) and the IT sectors as they create wealth
But what about lyrics and songs that are understanding what he is really eat-
towards Indians at several places where and employment. However, though it may sung against ‘Malayalees’ using words like ing; other just fruit, names not im-
foreign tourists were frequenting. I expe- sound childish, it is true that when you are
‘Undaa-Gundoo’ in many CDs blaring in portant for his digestion.
rienced the same when I went out for dinner hungry, you cannot eat money! The food market places all over Goa?