Our triumphant attachment to the present has also another side. Present becomes a site of detachment. It is a site of disruption. It becomes a site that enables us to assert our distance from a past. This disruptive side of the present is a site of differentiation. It makes us feel that we are progressive, different or modern in comparison to a past. This sense of being different invents its own other. This other is then thought to be still linked to the past from which one is marking one’s distance. The production of distance from the past as well as from the deemed other becomes important to view who belongs to the promise of the present. While everyone is sharing the same present moment, the one that is identified as loyal to the past that is deemed as dark and pernicious is thought to fragment the ‘we’ that is imagined as marching to future inaugurated by the present. The ‘we’ that inhabits the present becomes political and breaks into fragments that range from inheritors of the present and the future and those that are villains of the past. We can trace this bifurcation in the very intensity of the present moment. The present is imbued with a discontinuity from the marked past and distance from a community that belongs to the ‘we’ of the present yet viewed as villains/ traitors of the dark past.
Unfortunately, we in Goa and even in India are conditioned by this philosophy of time. Our attachment to the present requires us to continuously distance ourselves from a dark past as well as identify and deem people associated with that dark past. Colonial past of Goa comes to occupy the dark past and the Christian community is then put up as that community that is linked with it. Who then inherit the promise of the present and the coming future? It is certainly the majority community. Thus, the common past of Goa is craftily used to construct the present as a site of differentiation. The present as a site of differentiation fragments the ‘we’ that makes the Goans of today. The philosophy of time that animates the majority of Goans is, thus, disruptive. It divides Goans and sets some Goan aside as inheritors of the promises of the present and future. This philosophy of time has its own ethics that does not display any moral qualms when one can see insults and humiliations being hurled at the minority community as well as feel the denials of legitimate rights to them. It seems that the philosophy of time that rules us Goans risks the return of the bad old days. This time of course, there are no outside villains. Sadly, the villains seem to be one of our very own. The colonizers are mimicked by our own people. We have powerful mimic men of the colonizers.
Most people have openness to discontinuity with the dark past. But this openness to the discontinuity with the past has become contested terrain. The majority community imagines that it belongs to the present by marking its distance from the dark past while at the same time finds ways to link the minorities to that past and thus keep them out of the ‘we’ that inherits the promise of the past and the future. The very fact that there we can still notice attempts to decry the past and link the minorities with that past demonstrates that the majority community unfortunately is still haunted by the dark past. All our politics in Goa is generated from this philosophy of time and hence we have to critically examine the same. Our absolute devotion to the present and future is born of this philosophy of time. It gives us a standpoint to view our past, present and future. It also becomes a standpoint to view the ‘we’ that goes to form who makes to the membership of being Goans. It is sand point that seems to have the seeds of fragmentation of the ‘we’ of Goans. It conveniently forgets the contingencies that have made the ‘ we’ that belongs to the present of Goa. It seems to displace its anger on the innocents that make the ‘ we’ of the present of Goa. Hence, it is indeed important to interrogate the philosophy of time that is controlling us so that we can embrace all shades of our past and challenges of the present and promises of the future and united Goans.
We can view the past as a rupture or as an overcoming. The past when seen as a rupture makes us feel that we have lost something precious. The coming of the Portuguese and their colonial rule is indeed rupture. But we cannot get fixated to this rupture. It is a wound that needs healing. The philosophy of time that is animating us sees our past as a rupture. This is why it also ruptures our present fragmenting of the ‘ we’ of Goans. This weakens the ‘ we’ and then allows non-Goan powerful forces to prey on our natural resources. We have to see the past with confidence as overcoming. We have overcome the dark past. Both the majority and the minority communities have their role in overcoming our dark past in different ways. Unfortunately, the philosophy of time that is ruling us seems to push the majority to invisiblize the contributions of the minorities. The minorities have given great heroes who have given yeomen service to set Goa free. Minority community has served Indian army and help even the highest office. Hence, when we see the past as having been overcome, we can together become inheritors of the present and future of Goa. Seeing the past as having been overcome can indeed build our broken ‘ we’. We Goans truly have this great task to contest and deconstruct the reigning philosophy of time rooted in the disruptive vision of the past and embrace that one that envisions the past as have been overcome . This philosophy of time can heal the wounds of the past through therapeutic relations to the present and the future.
