In Terrorist Assemblages: Homonationalism in Queer Times (2007, 2017), Jasbir K. Puar offers a critical framework for understanding how configurations of sexuality, race, gender, nation, class, and ethnicity are realigned under contemporary forces of securitization, counterterrorism, and nationalism. Puar’s concept of “homonationalism” reveals how certain subjects are folded into the nation-state through liberal inclusion, while others are marked as threats, producing racialized and sexualized “terrorist bodies.”
By applying Puar’s lens—particularly her use of Foucauldian biopolitics, assemblage theory, and critiques of liberal politics—to the language politics brewing in Goa in 2025, we can uncover how linguistic identities are weaponized to include or exclude subjects within the Indian nation-state, reinforcing hierarchies of power and control.
Language Politics in Goa: A Contested Terrain
Goa, a former Portuguese colony and now a tourist-heavy Indian state, has long been a site of linguistic contestation. The primary languages—Konkani (the official state language), Marathi, English, and Portuguese—carry historical, cultural, and political weight. Recent tensions highlight debates over the primacy of nagrized Konkani versus Marathi, the role of English in education, and the marginalization of minority community. These debates are not merely about communication but about who belongs to the Goan and Indian nation and who is cast as an outsider.
In 2025, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government in Goa has pushed for nagrized Konkani as a marker of authentic Goan identity, aligning it with Hindu nationalist narratives of cultural unity. Meanwhile, Marathi, associated with neighboring Maharashtra and some Hindu communities in Goa, is championed by groups led by Subash Vilingkar
English, tied to global tourism and elite education, is both a tool of mobility and a symbol of Western influence. Romi konkani is relegated to minority Catholic communities, often stigmatized as “anti-national.” These linguistic divides intersect with religion, caste, and class, creating a volatile political landscape.
Puar’s Framework: Assemblages and Biopolitics
Puar’s concept of assemblages—dynamic networks of affect, intensity, and movement—moves beyond static identity categories to show how subjects are produced through power relations. In Goa, language operates as an assemblage, not a fixed marker of identity but a fluid site where historical, political, and cultural forces converge. For example, Konkani is not just a language but a biopolitical tool that disciplines Goan subjects into a Hindu-majoritarian national framework. By promoting Konkani in Devanagari script (over the Roman script used by most Catholics), the state enacts what Puar might call a “surveillant assemblage,” monitoring and shaping who qualifies as a legitimate Goan subject.
Puar’s use of Foucauldian biopolitics—where power regulates populations through life and death—illuminates how language politics in Goa produces “bodies” that are either incorporated into the nation or marked as threats. Konkani-speaking Hindu subjects are folded into the nation-state as “properly Indian,” akin to Puar’s “properly homo” subjects who align with homonationalist ideals.
Conversely, konkani -speaking but Romi- writing Catholics or Marathi advocates are often constructed as “terrorist look-alikes”—not literal terrorists but bodies that disrupt the nationalist narrative of unity. This mirrors Puar’s analysis of how racialized and sexualized others (e.g., Sikhs, Muslims) are profiled as threats to justify state control.
Homonationalism and Linguistic Nationalism
Puar’s homonationalism critiques how liberal inclusion of certain queer subjects (e.g., through gay marriage) depends on excluding racialized others. In Goa, we can extend this to linguistic nationalism, where the inclusion of Konkani-speaking subjects into the Indian nation relies on marginalizing those tied to Portuguese or English. The state’s promotion of Konkani as a symbol of Goan pride parallels the “legal recognition” Puar describes, where certain subjects gain legitimacy by aligning with nationalist goals. For instance, government initiatives to digitize Konkani manuscripts or promote it in schools signal a biopolitical investment in “life and productivity” for Konkani speakers, while Portuguese is left to fade, associated with colonial death.
This inclusion/exclusion dynamic is evident in political rhetoric. Chief Minister Pramod Sawant’s emphasis on nagrized Konkani as a cultural anchor, reported aligns with BJP’s broader Hindu nationalist agenda, which Puar would critique as a form of “U.S. exceptionalism” adapted to Indian nationalism.
Meanwhile, Catholic communities advocating for Roman-script Konkani face suspicion, their loyalty to India questioned in ways that echo Puar’s analysis of Islamophobia in global queer organizing. The “properly linguistic” Goan is thus a Hindu, Konkani-speaking subject, while others are pushed to the margins, their linguistic practices deemed subversive.
Securitization and Language as Threat
Puar’s focus on securitization—how states justify control through perceived threats—is strikingly relevant to Goa’s language politics. The state’s response to the 2025 Pahalgam terror attack, including civil defense exercises in Goa, underscores a heightened security climate. In this context, linguistic diversity becomes a potential threat to national unity. English, linked to globalized elites, are subtly framed as destabilizing forces. This aligns with Puar’s argument that liberal politics produces “Orientalized terrorist bodies” to justify surveillance.
In Goa, the “terrorist” is not always a literal figure but a linguistic other—anyone whose language challenges the Hindu-Konkani nexus.For example, protests by Catholic groups for Roman-script Konkani, reported in Herald Goa, are met with bureaucratic resistance, reflecting what Puar calls “intimate control, infinite detention.” These groups are not detained physically but are politically confined, their demands dismissed as divisive. Similarly, Marathi advocates, often tied to lower-caste Hindu communities, face exclusion from the Konkani-centric narrative, their language politics dismissed as regionalism.
Puar’s assemblage theory helps us see these exclusions as interconnected, not isolated, shaped by networks of caste, religion, and nationalism.
Affect and Resistance
Puar’s attention to affect—the emotional and sensory dimensions of power—offers insight into how language politics in Goa generates fear, pride, and resistance. The state’s promotion of Nagri Konkani evokes nationalist pride, while Romi Konkani or English speakers may feel shame or alienation. Yet, affect also fuels resistance.
Several Goans demand for action against “anti-Goan” policies, including linguistic marginalization, reflect what Puar calls “radical solidarity.” These movements challenge the state’s biopolitical control, refusing to be folded into a singular linguistic identity.Puar’s analysis of suicide bombers as “body-weapons” who defy categorization resonates with Goan activists who use language as a weapon to disrupt nationalist scripts.
For instance, poets and writers using Roman-script Konkani or Portuguese assert their identity outside the state’s surveillant gaze, embodying what Puar might call a “complex emotional terrain.” These acts of linguistic defiance unsettle the binary of inclusion/exclusion, pointing to alternative ways of being Goan.
Conclusion
Puar’s Terrorist Assemblages urges us to rethink identity politics through assemblages, biopolitics, and affect, challenging liberal narratives of inclusion. In Goa, language politics reveals a similar dynamic: the state’s push for nagrized Konkani as a marker of Indianness produces legitimate subjects while casting others as threats. By applying Puar’s framework, we see how linguistic nationalism mirrors homonationalism, relying on exclusion to sustain its power. Yet, as Puar suggests, the “ferocious” critique of these assemblages opens avenues for resistance.Goa’s language politics, with its interplay of pride, fear, and defiance, demands a queer linguistic politics—one that rejects fixed identities and embraces the multiplicity of tongues.
By refusing to be disciplined into a singular national subject, Goans can challenge the biopolitical order, creating solidarities that, in Puar’s words, “transform our subjectivities.” As Goa navigates its linguistic future, Puar’s insights remind us that power is never total, and resistance lies in the unruly assemblages of language, identity, and desire.
