Goa cannot forget that it was axis mundi of the Portuguese Estado da India. As axis mundi, it is hailed as the Rome of the East in the Christian world. We have to bear in mind the locus of Goa under colonization and do not just view Goa from a position of Independent India. When we expand our vision of Goa under colonization, we might be enabled to view how the politics of the right-wing appears myopic and even anti-India .
Although Goa is natural part of mother India, it was a child that grew away from mother India for a period as long as 450 years. This fragmentation of Goa has to be factored as well as we have to understand that what we call mother India today also has evolved into what it is today. Unfortunately, Goa is viewed oppositionaly to what is India today and is viewed as not national enough. This perception of Goa as other India sells not just politically for the right wing, it also commodifies Goa as an exotic destination for tourism and land development lobby.
Perhaps, we have to place Goa and India side by side and we shall get to understand both Indian and Goa profoundly. Unfortunately, we seem to follow the dialectics of Hegel that opposes Goa (Thesis) culturally with India ( anti-thesis) and arrive at the Hindu nationalism of the right-wing (synthesis). Hindu nationalism is Hegelian. It looking for a closure of History as Hegel does.
We may also delve deep into this dialects in order to understand our plight today. Our tendency to triangulate opened to us by Delueze and Gauttari can assist us in this regard. The triangular dialectics is inspired by Russian linguist Roman Jacobson who shows how a triangulation of vowels (loud) and constants ( soft) produce phonemes among infants has been a great inspiration to understand the logic of triangulation. Claude Levi-Strauss has employed that logic to understand culinary culture as well as to analyze the myths among the tribals.
Deleuze and Gauttari demonstrate that our habit of triangulation is psychoanalytical. The Mother ( thesis) , the Father ( antithesis) and law of the Father (synthesis ) in Oedipus complex forces us to Oedipalize . The son (Oedipus) loves the mother (Freud’s Id) but has castrating effect when he comes to realize that he has rival in this own Father for the love of his Mother and accepts the law of the father ( Oedipalizing) .
Now applying it to India, Goa can be thought to be the mother (the other India , the place of enjoyment, the Id of Freud) Left to itself it can explode as a enjoyment bomb much the same way as Lacan will tell us if we leave women free, they will explode as a sex bombs. Hence, they have to be brought under control. This produces the need of the law of the Father (Hindu nationalism, Hindutva) as a nationalizing agent ( super-ego of Freud) .
This triangulation, then can be thought as having a castrating effect on Goans, Goans ,therefore, Goans can be viewed as de-nationalized and the Christians as doubly de-nationalized ( thesis of Tristao Braganza Cunha). Perhaps, we have to bear in mind that the antithesis/ anti-dote ( Hindu nationalism) is itself is a product of colonial India. This is why positioning of Goa as the axis mundi of the Portuguese Rule in south Asia is important to contest our habitual oppositional thinking.
This oppositional thinking is based into the ‘ either or structure’ of our thinking and construct Goa as other India by substruction. Goa as other India is produced by cultural substruction which produces Indian civilization as Hindu Civilization, which of course is substruction of Buddhists , Jains and other important markers and shapers of India. India as a Hindu civilization can be thought of only in hind-sight as we cannot find such a pan-India consciousness as being Hindu before the 19th century.
Given the complexities of India , we also have the challenge to understand the complexities of Goa too. We cannot black-box them into fixated essentialized, positivistic concepts and then relate them. This can only produce reverse orientalism (orientalism produced Western cultural superiority the orient or the East and justified colonization as civilization of the East). Reverse orientalism produces cultural dominance of some Indian (actually north Indians) and justifies Goa as other India that can be ravaged for pleasure, trade ( other Indians in tourism business) as well as for cultural homogenization.
Hindutva an ideology from this point of view appears to be trying to capture and colonize Goa again much like the Portuguese. The form of this new colonization is same as that of the colonizer but the matter is selectively Indic . Hence, it is important that we Goans have to understand the implications of the logic of triangulation that is out to exile Goans in Goa. Goa’s land , water and cultural resources have turned into raw material to produce and accumulate wealth to someone who does not seem to any we feeling for Goa and Goans.
Hence, it is important to challenge the discourse of narrow Hindu nationalism. We cannot allow it to captivate us into its discursive position. if we invoke the discourse of de-nationalization of Dr. Tristao Braganza Cunha, we may see how Hindu nationalism which is itself being not national enough and is , therefore , denationalizing and fragmenting the legitimate sons and daughters of India. Now reversing the discourse of Braganza Cunha on his head, we can see how his discourse itself has come to haunt us Goan again and we do not have to guess who is today doubly de-nationalized today.
The denationalization of Goans continues and have to be arrested as soon as possible. While, we do not take away from anyone especially Dr. Braganza Cunha their struggles for Goa freedom, we want a diverse India and within this diverse mother India , Goa is not a wound on its face ( as the right-wing may like to think) but is a pearl in the crown of mother India.
I have tried to refer to Goa as an axial point or axis mundi of the Portuguese possession in the East only to create a topos ( space) to look at both India and Goa. This enables us to contest the binary between Goa (other India) and India which appears to be the root of all ills that afflict Goa and Goans today. It would be best to see how Goa as India on an horizontal scale rather than put Goa on vertical linear scale and then invent an lack of Indic culture in Goa and thus, produce domination and even capture of Goan land , water and culture for production of wealth to the point of impoverishment of Goa and Goans.
