Religion and Politic do not mix. It is said to be a hazardous cocktail. Religion has often served political ends. God is repeatedly sold for notes and votes across several religions. Violence has sometimes enjoyed religious sanction. Heinous crimes have been committed against Humanity in the name of God. ‘The other worldly’ concerns of religions have numbed and...
Politics, the Art of the Impossible?
Otto von Bismarck is said to have said, ‘politics is the art of the possible. Most of us will agree with this saying. We all like determinate and achievable goals. It seems to confine politics to the possible, feasible and achievable. Maybe we have to turn this Bismarck’s dictum on its head. Politics is not just the art of...
United Opposition
With the united opposition gunning for the BJP, the political scenario in our country is set to enter a new state of entropy. The embers are steadily getting stirred and flames of political tempers are threatening to rise. We do not need political punditry to forecast that the run-up to the 2019 elections is going to be an interesting...
The Politics of Ache din Trapped between Explosive Past and the Receding Future
The promised ache din has failed to arrive. They seem to be delayed and are running behind time. What has come punctually is the moment of danger. There is an outbreak of hate, violence, rape and bloodshed in our country. As a result, nationalism promoted aggressively with a thumb stained with blood has been a dispiriting experience. There is...
Lessons and Choices at Hand
The discourse around the denial of permission to four higher secondary schools among other things to the Diocesan Society of education opens several widows to look at our Goan Society. One might say that the discourse centred on it is haunted by the spectre of absence. Absence or void has become the chief lens through which we seem to...
Politics and the Sources of our Goan Selfhood
The sources of our self are being used and abused by political parties to milk votes and come to power. To understand our plight it might be important that we understand the sources of our selves. Indeed, we have an inner core self but it draws a sense of itself from our culture, religion, land , caste, family, peers, ...
Facing our Political Present -II
The filiations through mimicry have been an age-old strategy of some elements on the periphery to become absorbed into the centre and gain power. Humans do have a tremendous capacity to become what one hates. Unfortunately, in our desire to reject the imperial centre, we seem to have become copies of the same. This mimicking of the imperial centre...
The Silence of Buddha and the Silence of the Voter in Goa
The silence of the Goan voters is loud and clear. The sound of silence is reverberating even as the votes have sealed the fate of the candidates in the EVMs. For the first time, the Goan voter seems to have gone into a silent mode. Is this silence a fatigued response to the vitriolic campaign of the national and...
Religion, Politics and the Political in Goa
Religion and Politics do not mix. It is said to be a hazardous cocktail. Religion has often served political ends. God is repeatedly sold for notes and votes across several religions. Violence has sometimes enjoyed religious sanction. Heinous crimes have been committed against Humanity in the name of God. ‘The other worldly’ concerns of religions have numbed and anaesthetised...
Symbol and the Politics of Representation
There is a surplus dimension to every symbol. This surplus need not be theorized as only the transcendent aspect of it. We can also think of this access as its aesthetic power in an immanent sense. Indeed, we have to consider it is an immanent beyond. We might be able to walk this path through the notion of affect....
