Martin Heidegger says that we have the challenge to out think our thinking. We are used to think from the comfort of Plato’s cave. It excludes and keeps several things unthought and leaves several things as unthinkable and even tabooed and thus keep them closed away from the horizon of our thinking. we are a mimetic society. We want...
Lessons From Mhadei
A river a great teacher. If one wants to learn, one can learn a world from a river. We can learn from Mhadei. Its flow has lessons for us. It has a forward movement. It moves always forward without looking back. It has always done so. Its forward thrust makes the path for everything that flows with it. It...
The Politics of Decapitation
Michel Foucault notoriously said that in political thought and analysis, we are yet to cut off the head of the king. Perhaps, a stage has come not to decapitate the king, the CM, the leader who leads Goa But it is certainly time to bring him to responsibility and deliver justice to mother Mhadei. We cannot have anyone in...
Mhadei and Water Sovereignty
Giving up Mhadei is giving up of our water sovereignty. We need water satyagraha to restore our water sovereignty. Scondering our water sovereignty amounts to scondering the sovereignty of Goa. Costs of the loss of water sovereignty are high for our ecology and all living brings living on the water course and resource of Mhadei. This is why our...
The image of Thought and Human Rights in Colonial Goa
The image of thought behind human rights depends on what is perceived as human and what is assumed to be proper to humans. To decode human rights under Portuguese Goa, we have to enter this zone that will open us to what was considered human and proper to humans in Goa during that time. Therefore, the image of human...
Goanizing Presence of Goycho Saib
The feast of St Francis Xavier, Goycho Saib is a moment of dialogue in our society. It brings together people of all walks of life. The is a fusions of horizon of everyone with the horizon of Goycho Saib. Goycho Saib mean several things to several people. It is archived into the living tradition of Goa. It has become...
Human resources of the Village communities
Village communities are constituted by and for the Gaunkars. Gaunkars have birthright over all the assets of the village community. One becomes Gaunkar by birth. All Gaunkars claim they are descendants of the original settlers through the male line. They have the right to zonn, a monetary dividend distributed from the surplus income of the commune. The village communities...
Lands of Village communities
All land in the village was jointly and collectively held by the village community. The community allotted land for farming and residential purposes. some lands were allotted to the service personnel of the temple as well as that of the commune. The land allotted to the service personnel was rent-free and was called nomos/namas/ namoshi (plural) and allowed only...
The Founders of Village Communities
Who founded the Goan Village communities? The Portuguese historians did try to seek answers to the above question. Most of them failed to argue backed with substantial evidence. Joa de Barros, for instance, says that village communities in Goa were founded by poor people descending from the hills of the Kanaras. We can also find the same view being...
The Waves of Settlements that Consutited Goa, Goans and Goanness
The first settlers of Goa are said to be Mahars who were called ‘marang horo’ meaning that of ‘ the big house’. In Konkani we still say, ‘ to apnnak mhar vhoddlo mhunn somzota (He thinks no end of himself). When did the appellation Mahar become pejorative? Mahar acquired negative status of an out-caste. In Goa, ‘ mahar’ had...
