The anxiety of falling Christian numbers in Goa reported by none other than the Governor of Goa, P.S Sridharan Pillai has raised several eyebrows. This remarks portray an absence in Goa. It is picturing a Goa that is Absent. We are facing an Absent Goa. This demographic fall of the Christians of Goa is complex. It did not begin yesterday. It has been falling right from the 19th century. Advocate Cleofato Almeida Coutinho says that in 1861 the Christian population of Goa was 64% which then went on a steady course of decline. The Governor is quoting the survey numbers of 2012 which said that Goa had 25% Christians. From then and now certainly the numbers must have fallen even more acutely.
Advocate Almeida further says that Christian population began coming down from 1833 onwards. By 1833 the then Hindus who had gone out of Goa began to return to Goa. while Goan Christians had already began to work out Goa and out of our country in British India and Africa. People who left Goa needed a passport to enter other parts of India which were under the British. They had to pay property tax as well as migration tax, so people perhaps chose not to return.
A 2008 study of migration says that 74% Christians volumed all Goan migrators. This does not mean others like Hindus did not migrate. It is only that their numbers were less. Late Prof. Suresh Amonkar in his book, Goyche Vixvkaran, (globalization of Goa) says that Globalization of Goa took place under the Portuguese. It is only that maybe the Christians were more at home and suited to work abroad than the then Hindus. Christians may have been able to mingle with other people better than others and may have adjusted to alien cultures better than others of their time.
Many of these Christians were from the privileged upper classes/ castes who benefited from education. In fact, we can find that Goans started English Medium Schools in the early 20th century to suit the needs of migration. One of them was in Chinchinim, St. Bosco High School in Chinchinim, founded in 1933 and was under Poona Board. Today after 2006 onwards, we can see an acceleration in Goan migration out of Goa as well as we can notice a sizeable migration inward Goa. 2006 saw the change of laws of Portuguese nationality as well as the emergence of European Union. This provided impetus for out migration from Goa as never before.
When we consider Absent Goa, there are several absences that haunt us. one of them is the future of agitations for Goa. All the agitations to protect Goa were Salcete based and were greatly supported by the Christians along with Hindus. This is still future for these agitations. These agitations for the protection of Goa have also gone with the Goan community abroad. We saw in the last assembly election, one party benefited because from this thirst to save Goa. Although there are still anxieties about the future of Goa and who will stand to safe it, Goans abroad do not seem to be in a mood to forget Goa. This we can particularly see in the Christian community.
The fact that our Governor is counterposing the fall in Christian numbers with the rise of Muslim numbers tells only one side of the story. It does not tell us about the condition of majority numbers that are swelling because other Indians are coming into Goa. This is why questions do cross our minds. Is it the case that the Governor trying to pit Christians in Goa against the Muslims? Is he implementing a sinister design that is inventing a victimhood among the Christians as it was done in Kerala by the BJP-RSS combine? Perhaps, his remarks serve two purposes. It is further accentuating the victimhood of the Christians in Kerala while attempting to bring about a feeling of being left behind among the Christians in Goa.
Maybe with the discourse the Governor has set in he is producing a negative dialectics. Although dialectic from the time of Plato was thought to get something positive by negation or opposition, with Hegel it become fully positive vision that is moving history to a happy ending. Theodore Adorno of the Frankfurt School taught that outcome of dialectic may not always be positive. Negative dialectic in this sense can also indicate that history is moving to a dark end. The Honorable Governor seems to be telling us that Goan history is moving towards a dark ending with the Christians of Goa being on the verge of extinction. With this invention of dark present and dark future for Goa, maybe the Governor is trying to construct political capital for ruling benches. This is why we have to take these remarks with calm and critical mind.
The remarks of the honorable Governor are very important to understand how we think from the privilege vantage point of presences and hierarchize absences as demeaning. The growing presence of Muslims has reminded us about the absences of Christians and in long term the absences of Hindus in Goa. This absence is a sense of felt loss. Any sense of felt loss sets in a loss-recovery dynamism. This is why we have to understand how our sense of dislocation or loss might be projected on the innocent Muslim who may be just filling in the gaps that are opened by unplanned development thrown at Goans in Goa.
Being aware of how absences condition our thinking can open us to ways how absence afflict our thought and being. There are several Goas, Indias and Europes in our mind. May be the Christian Goan feels an acute sense of absence. It tells him/her that in this absent Goa he/ she has no opportunity to grow. Hence, he/she sees opportunities in Europe and other places.
Others who in migrate might feel an absent India. There is a perceived sense that there are no opportunities in that absent India for growth, therefore these migrants will find a promising present Goa and flock to Goa in search of those presences ( promises and opportunities). Thus, we see how absences create an Absent Goa or Present Goa depending on which side of the spectrum one belongs.
Even the sense of an Absent Goa constructed by the discourse of the honorable Governor there is a Present Goa that is seen as moving the pendulum on the side of the BJP. This is why we have the challenge to respond critically or proactively and not reactively to this discourse unleashed in Goa. Otherwise, we may be trapped in a samara/ circle of absences invented by the BJP. It is important to step out of this circle and look at it. This stepping out is the beginning of moksa.
The exclusionary politics of the BJP or even that of RG is not an answer to Absent Goa felt by us at different levels. We need to create a Politics that values and dignifies co-presence of Goa, Goans and Goaness. Goa may not get out of an out migrant Goan. We can see this clearly among Goans in England. But we have the challenge to bring Goan-ness to the in-migrants into Goa and not simply get swayed by the nationalistic politics of the ruling BJP . We need a good blend of regionalistic politics with genuine patriotism that will mingle Goa and Goan-ness and India and Indian-ness.
