There are things in Goa that are too large to be seen in one place and too sticky to be left in one place. Timothy Morton calls such things hyperobjects. A hyperobject is an object that is massively distributed in time and space, that sticks to you wherever you go, that you cannot put at a distance remember coronavirus. Climate change is a hyperobject. Plastic in the sea is a hyperobject. Capital that converts land into commodity is a hyperobject. Tourism that needs Goa to remain picturesque while it destroys the same is a hyperobject.
Goa itself is not one hyperobject. Goa is field where several hyperobjects meet and tangle. The monsoon is a hyperobject. It does not happen only in June. It shapes laterite, it shapes khazan, it shapes roof, it shapes memory for whole year. Land mafia is a hyperobject. You cannot see it in one office. It lives in files, in flights, in Delhi, in Dubai, in village panchayat, in bank loan. Ecological collapse is a hyperobject. You see it as one hill cut here, one beach sand dune lost there, but it is one large thing that is cutting and losing everywhere. Communal fear is a hyperobject. It is not one speech. It is distribution of unease that sticks to school, to market, to WhatsApp group.
Politics until now has pretended that these hyperobjects are not there. It has counted Goa as small object, as administrative unit, as vote bank, as destination. That count is false because it leaves hyperobjects outside count. When you leave hyperobjects outside count, they return as breakdown. Roads collapse, hills slide, youth leave, water fails, harmony cracks. Not because Goans failed, but because count failed.
This is where Morton helps us. Hyperobjects force us to see that we are inside them, not outside. We do not govern monsoon. We live inside monsoon. We do not manage land market from outside. We are stuck to it. Once we understand this, politics changes. Politics is not about managing small objects from above. Politics is about learning to live inside hyperobjects without being destroyed by them.
Levi R Bryant gives second tool. He calls it democracy of objects. Democracy of objects says all objects equally exist. A human is an object. A hill is an object. A khazan is an object. A law like Section 39A is an object. A fish is an object. No object is inherently master of other object. There is flat ontology. Flat means no hierarchy of being. Human does not have more being than laterite. Minister does not have more being than mangrove.
This is not poetry. It is ontology. And ontology has political consequence. If all objects equally exist, then counting Goa as one cannot be counting only humans as voters plus land as property. That is hierarchy. That is coronation of human master. True count as one must count all objects that make Goa as objects with equal weight.
Bryant says objects withdraw. We never fully know object. We meet only its sensual profile. A hill as seen by builder as plot is not real hill. Real hill withdraws. Real khazan withdraws. Real village withdraws. When politics counts only sensual profile that can be sold, it counts ghost. Real Goa withdraws and waits.
Now put Morton and Bryant together. Goa is hyperobjects entangled plus democracy of objects withdrawn. What does it mean to do politics inside such Goa?
It means we as Goans have to redraw field of play. Old field was electoral market where parties count castes and religions and then adjust Goa to fit result. New field is ontological field where we first count what actually exists, all objects, human and more than human, all hyperobjects that stick to us, and then build political form that can hold that count.
We therefore begin anew our count as one.
How does this new count look?
First, it counts land not as plot but as object that withdraws and as hyperobject that distributes. Land as laterite plateau is object with its own integrity, its own water memory, its own time. Land as coastal regulation is hyperobject that connects fisherman in Morjim to hotel owner in Delhi to court in Supreme Court. To count land as one means to count both its withdrawn integrity and its sticky distribution. So law that allows its sale for highest bidder fails count. It counts only price, not object. Goa First must count land as actor, not as stage.
Second, it counts water, forest, fish, coconut, paddy, monsoon as objects in democracy. Not as resources for us, but as citizens of being. When paddy field says it needs water, that is vote. When fish catch declines, that is referendum against present count. Democracy of objects means we listen to these votes. Old politics listened only to human voters who were often paid to vote. New politics listens to all objects that make Goa livable.
Third, it counts hyperobjects that present politics leaves uncounted. Take communal harmony. Old count treats harmony as tolerance between two human groups managed by police. Morton would say communal harmony is hyperobject that includes Portuguese past, temple and church architecture, Konkani and its scripts, music, food, migration, labour from Karnataka and beyond. You cannot manage hyperobject with police. You must live inside it with care. Harmony is not slogan. It is sticky reality that you are inside even when you try to be outside.
Take jobs. Old count treats jobs as contracts given to Goans after pleasing capital. But precarious tourism as hyperobject shows jobs as distribution that includes flight schedules, visa regimes, global warming, real estate prices in London that push buyer to Goa, Instagram that makes village into backdrop. To count jobs as one means to count whole hyperobject, not just vacancy announcement. Goans therefore, must say dignified work on Goan soil is possible only if we count hyperobject of capital and redraw field so that Goan labour is not inside hyperobject as servant but as object with equal being.
Voters alliances follow from this ontology. Who can belong? Anyone and anything that is willing to stay faithful to new count. Not only those with Goan surname. That is old correlationist purity. In democracy of objects, belonging is fidelity to count, not origin. If you are recent arrival who accepts that land must be defended as object, that health and education are public goods for all objects that live here, that safety must serve weak objects not powerful objects, that Goanness is not museum but living entanglement of hyperobjects, then you belong. Fisherman belongs. Farmer belongs. Miner belongs. Nurse belongs. Teacher belongs. Migrant worker who has made Goa home and respects its withdrawn depth belongs. Even former supporter of other parties who sees incompleteness of earlier count belongs, if he accepts new discipline.
Alliance therefore will be broad yet disciplined. Broad because democracy of objects does not exclude. Disciplined because hyperobjects demand that we do not dissolve into catch all platform. Every policy will be measured by new count. Does land policy protect withdrawn integrity of hill and sticky distribution of water hyperobject or does it liquidate it? Does education policy prepare residents to live inside monsoon, khazan, forest as equal objects or does it train them for exit? Does law and order secure weak objects or manage powerful ones? That discipline is what keeps alliance from becoming another version of old count.
Power in old politics was seen as empty place to be occupied. In new ontology power is mathematics of counting. Power is result of how you count. If you count only votes and castes, you get power that must sell land to feed count. If you count hyperobjects and democracy of objects, you get power that must protect land to sustain count.
Goans therefore do not compete for same empty one that major parties already claim. It proposes different structuring of situation. Where others count humans and leave land, water, fish, monsoon, future generations in void, Goans counts all and say nothing essential can be left in void. That is why to be a Goans is not regional sentiment. It is ontological revolution. It is decision to begin again.
Morton says we already live inside hyperobjects, we cannot escape. Bryant says we already live among equal objects, we cannot be masters. Put together, they say politics begins when we admit we are not masters over Goa but partners inside Goa. We as Goans have redrawn field of play. We have chosen to begin our count as one. Not one that absorbs difference into majoritarian whole, not one that sells difference as exotic destination, but one that holds multiplicity of human and more than human, visible and withdrawn, local and massively distributed, in consistent structure.
When that operation is carried through, Goan interest will no longer be slogan. It will be name of situation that finally counted itself as one, counted all that makes Goa, counted hyperobjects that stick and objects that withdraw, counted voters, human and voters more than human, and refused to leave anything essential in void.
