It might shock us but it is true in many senses. What we know as history is marked by an absence. It is marked by an absence of the past. History claim to work with the past that seems to be elusive to its work. History is written from the present. The past is viewed from the position of the present. History, therefore, is by an large the history of the present. History is not that which happened in a neutral past. History happened through time by the force of politics. We make things happen and these happenings become historical.
There are traces of present in what we write and record as history. The selection of something as worthy of being regarded as history is theory laden and not innocent. These theories that come to bear on the characters, facts, places and events of history etc., are not free from vested interest. The theories that are then employed to determine the worthiness of facts, characters, places, and events of history are sanctioned by the disciplinary community (power-elite) whose past is represented as history.
Present is, thus our starting point into the past. It is our present concerns, anxieties and hopes that organizes our perception of time. The present that we deem ourselves as belonging to has to be produced, reproduced and re-enacted or deconstructed from time to time. It is this concern of production, reproduction and re-enactment or deconstruction of our belonging to the present order that uses the past. This is why past is absent in history. What exists is interpreted past or even politicized past. Past becomes political because we construct our belonging to the present in relation with others with whom we share our present. It is the present concerns that colours our past.
Past is plural but its singularized to suit the interest of the one who uses it as political capital to shape one’s belonging to the present order. A singularized past thus, takes the form of history in the singular. True history actually is history in the plural. The plural past is singularized to redefine our ‘we’ so that the we can shape both the present and future in the singular to suit our interest. Actually present and more the future are full of possibilities and, therefore, our present as well as future is in the plural. It is the existing forces of power relations that transforms our past , present and future in the singular.
May be we have the challenge to discern how an absent past is haunting our Goa and Goans today. Goa too has its past in the plural. The colonial past has affected all Goans differently. Colonial disruption produced plural impacts on our people. But what is presented as history of Goa is history in the singular mostly written by the upper caste. This means, we are facing an absent past in this history in the singular. Our past is plural but it is put under erasure or silenced by those who want to control our belonging to the present of Goa. We may also view the controversy around St. Francis Xavier in recent days with same eyes. Those who wish to control how we belong to the present have racked the same.
There are no prizes for guessing who is the power-elite that brought Goans on the road buy insulting Goycho Saib. It is coming from those who wish to control our belonging to the present. They seem to displace or dislocate our belonging to Goa in the present. Goa and Goan-ness to a large extend are born out of a colonial encounter . But by selectively taking aspects of our plural past, there seems to be an effort to create a present in the singular. Our belonging to the plural present is transformed in a present in the singular so that Goa’s resources like our land, water, hills, mineral wealth, forests etc become raw materials for a small minority to amass wealth. Goa is, thus, put on sale and our Goan-ness and Goa’s scenic and architectural beauty have become brand value of this sale.
In the present conflict around the Saint of Goa. Goans did show courage and resistance. They did not surrender to these forces that are trying to divide Goans as they plunder Goa’s resources. Goans stuck to the present of Goa in the plural and resisted the attempts to render in the singular. This is why Goans of all walks of life came together manifesting their plural ethos . In fact, this coming together is a assent to fight all those who dream a the future of Goa in the singular and want to derail Goans as inheritors of a future in the plural. This future in the plural includes our Goans to come . There are several Goans to come in the future born of our Goans of today. Future in the plural dreams to keep the past , present and future in the plural so that Goa and Goan-ness remains for each and every Goan of all times.
It is those who want to have power over our contemporaneity produce our politics. They selectively use traces of our past to lay control over our present belonging to Goa and our motherland India. They have produced our history in the singular which is marked by absence. It is, therefore, our ethico-political task to save our plural belonging to the present. Ulterior motives of those who have put Goa on sale singularise our past to singularise our present and the future. They have robbed of our plural past, present and future to loot Goa and Goans
The ‘ we’ of Goans, therefore, cannot be allowed to be fragmented. Our ethico-political challenge is to stay united and resist these efforts to divide us by forcing a past, present and future in the singular against us. To understand the efforts of dividing the ‘ we’ of the Goans , we have the imperative to constantly scrutinize how the ‘ we’ of Goans is produced, reproduced and re-enacted from time to time to suit the vested interest of a small minority of Goans and strive to deconstruct it . This minority does not just cancels our past, they appear to be all set to cancel our future by politicizing our belonging to the present of Goa. We cannot allow these vested interest to break the ‘ we’ of Goans by a selective use of our past that is aimed to produce a history without the past of several Goans. We can embrace a plural past with its dark as well as bright shades. This means only when we write history in the plural that our plural pasts will come to inhabit it.
