The Inconvenient Truth of São João

In Goa, the feast of St. John the Baptist is marked more with fun and revelry than prayer and devotion which precede the social celebrations of feasts of other saints.  Of course the liturgy of the day gives due prominence to the saint. And in many places the festivities end with the traditional litany. Jumping in the wells or the pools, and consumption of liquor have become activities associated with the event over the years.

The undesirable activities associated with the feast of São João have been discouraged and even eliminated at least in some villages of Goa.  In the Goncoi ward of Aldona, for example, the practice of burning the ‘judev’ on the eve of the festival has been discontinued since the late 1980s. ‘Judev‘  was an effigy that was taken to all the houses in the ward to collect coconuts which were then auctioned, and the money used for revelry the next day with loud full throated expressions of ‘Viva São João’ along with distribution of fruits and liquor.  The above mentioned ward was also incidentally one of the very first to stop distribution of liquor after any litany in the ward chapel, about twenty-five years ago.

The tourism and hotel industries have now taken upon themselves to celebrate the traditional revelry of São João. The commercialization of yet another festival. The liquor industry may not be far behind. And all this on the occasion of the feast of a great prophet and saint, who was an ascetic to the core. Revelry and fun activities are very much required by the tourism industry during the monsoon season. The message of John the Baptist is also very much relevant for our times but it may be convenient to ignore it, or drown it in our wells and pools.

John the Baptist spoke the truth about the society of his times. He was a Jew living in his land  which was under the occupation of the Romans. Besides being his cousin and contemporary, he was the forerunner of Jesus Christ. “He lived in the desert until the day when he appeared publicly to the people of Israel” (Lk 1:80). His food was locusts and wild honey. He knew his calling, the work he was required to do, and did not wish to step into the shoes not meant for him. He announced to the people, “The man who will come after me is much greater than I am. I am not good enough even to bend down and untie his sandals” (Mk 1:7). No one up attitude but humble service for a great cause.

He spoke fearlessly denouncing whatever was wrong in the society of his times and calling for change. It had to be change of heart and change in society. Obviously he was not liked by the powerful. But he had his followers along with whom he built a counter culture which, although from the margins of society, had the potential to become a threat to the mainstream. Such a reformer as this had to be contained. But the powerful were also afraid of his popularity among his numerous followers. But his arrest did follow on some pretext or the other as it happens in such cases at all times and in all places. “Herod himself had ordered John’s arrest, and he had him chained and put in prison. Herod did this because of Herodias, whom he had married, even though she was the wife of his brother Philip. John the Baptist kept telling Herod, “It isn’t right for you to be married to your brother’s wife!” So Herodias had a grudge against John and wanted to kill him, but she could not because of Herod. Herod was afraid of John because he knew that John was a good and holy man, and so he kept him safe. He liked to listen to him, even though he became greatly disturbed every time he heard him” (Mk 6:17-20).

Eventually Herod had John’s head cut on the promptings of Herodias, a story that is well known and written in Mark, chapter 6, verses 21-29. When truth became too inconvenient John the Baptist was beheaded. It is something that also happens in our times. We have prisoners of conscience, political prisoners, reformist leaders in exile, whistle blowers eliminated, intrepid journalists murdered, and so many other similar types. The world today speaks against such practices and sometimes succeeds in winning freedom for this type of personalities. But only in a few and famous cases like Nelson Mandela and Aung San Suu Kyi.

It is ironic that we commemorate John the Baptist with revelry. It is less challenging to organize  and participate in fun activities than to remember his inconvenient truth, revere him, and feel concerned about those who are suffering for a cause in our own times.

Published in The Navhind Times, Panorama 24.06.2012 

Searching for Leaders

Indians are looking for new national leaders. While it is easier to settle for state level leadership, building up national leaders is a difficult proposition. It was not always so. The freedom movement had been largely identified with the Indian National Congress, and the leaders of the Congress were naturally accepted as national leaders. Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi, all from the Congress, were accepted as national leaders. This easy acceptance was not only due to the pre-eminence of the Congress in the freedom struggle but also because the Congress was a very inclusive party, an ocean - as its leaders describe it even today. Perhaps a polluted ocean in keeping with the times.

Atal Bihari Vajpayee became the first and only Prime Minister from outside the Congress to be accepted as a national leader. He has been perceived as a leader with a long history as a celebrated parliamenterian, who could see beyond the vision of his Bharatiya Janata Party. Lal Krishna Advani of the BJP is also a national leader but is seen as partisan, limited by his non acceptance by the minorities of India. However, mellowed by age, he is still the tallest national leader of the BJP.

Today, we have strong and undisputed leaders in many states of India. They have been tried and tested at their own state level. But none of them have wide acceptability outside their own states. Nitish Kumar and Narendra Modi are two chief ministers who have wide visibility outside their fiefdoms. Both are from the National Democratic Front but placed at the extreme ends of the spectrum within the NDA. Both score high as administrators with development as their mantra. While Nitish Kumar still goes as a regional player with great national clout because of the number of MPs that his party has in Parliament, Narendra Modi is tainted by the communal riots of Gujarat even ten years after the incidents. Besides, he is increasingly seen as the totalitarian face of the BJP, specially after his detractor Sanjay Joshi has been pushed out to appease Modi. Totalitarianism, communalism, chauvinism are very much related to each other and feed on each other. Leaders who push out dissidents and competitors  from their organizations can be called bullies,  not strong leaders. Indians, having experienced parliamentary democracy for over sixty years, are not likely to accept totalitarian leaders. It is good to remember how we brought down Indira Gandhi from her pedestal after the emergency in 1977.

Congress does not have any chief ministers who can be called as of now to play any significant role as national leaders. The leadership of Rahul Gandhi is losing its charm. If and when Pranab Mukherjee moves to the Rashtrapati Bhavan, the Congress will be left with no national leader of eminence. There are capable leaders in the Congress but they have not been brought into the limelight. It is high time that the Congress high command facilitates the emergence of a couple of leaders who have a rapport with the people. Ministers like  P. Chidambaram may be technically effective but are far removed from the masses. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has led the country enough and ceased to inspire his countrymen anymore. Sonia Gandhi should not step into his shoes.

India requires a national leader who will command respect and  admiration from all sections of people and from all regions. A strong leader, yes. But his or her strength should not come from narrow considerations of ideology, region or religion. She or he should have a broad base of support and an even broader vision for India. A vision that is inclusive, very broadly inclusive to embrace the diversity of India with her numerous regions, languages, cultures, religions, rural and urban populations, tribal and marginal peoples, etc. In this respect, my model continues to be the first Prime Minister, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, whose understanding and breath of vision has been covered in the pages of his ‘Discovery of India’. Unity in the midst of diversity.

Any leader who does not tolerate dissent and who has totalitarian tendencies can never rule over a nation like India. He will either destroy the nation or destroy himself. As Indira Gandhi said after much experience, “I suppose that leadership at one time meant muscle; but today it means getting along with people”.  India is a nation with a long history, a nation that is awake, and moving forward in spite of odds galore. Our national leader has to embrace the diversity of India, whatever may be his personal beliefs and convictions. A person for all shades and seasons.

Published in The Navhind Times, Panorama 17.06.2012 

Pragmatism and Moderation

I believe pragmatism and moderation should be two important considerations of good governance, specially in a democratic set-up. There are and will always be views and views on any given subject. We have the fundemental right of free expression enshrined in our constitution. The exercise of this right enriches us because we have the free facility of listening to or reading points of view other than our own. As worthy citizens of a democratic state, we have to be open to the opinion of other citizens, and willing to modify our own if reason so demands. Rationalism, not emotionalism, should be the guiding light in any public discourse.

An elected government should be even more sensitive to the various shades of opinion. It is very rarely that a government is elected on a single issue. In our own history of post-liberation Goa, we have the example of the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party government, elected for four consecutive terms but its main policy of merger with Maharashtra defeated overwhelmingly in the Opinion Poll held during the same period. In the recently held state general elections, people voted for the Bharatiya Janata Party taking various issues into account and not on any one single issue. It goes without saying that the people rejected the Congress also on various grounds notwithstanding that some were very dominant.

It is in this context that I appreciate Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar for his medium of instruction policy for primary schools in Goa. It was a brilliant stroke, moderate and pragmatic. While upholding the principle of primary education in the regional language in no uncertain terms, he made allowances for a huge number of students who were already studying through the English medium in government aided schools according to the choice of their parents. And twenty-five thousand is a very big figure, coming from across all communities. Whatever may be the views of strong minded  regional language proponents, it is a fact that the demands of so many  parents could not have been ignored by a democratic government, specially so when they had placed their trust in the CM. Some have called it a betrayal. Now in this type of case, betrayal is a relative term. If the CM had announced a different and non-inclusive policy, many voters who placed their trust in the prospective CM in the March 2012 elections would have also called it a betrayal of trust. So let the matter rest where it is. But all stake holders have to move on from here, pragmatically and moderately.     

First the English medium aided primary schools, whether coming under the Archdiocesan Board of Education or any other management.  Pride of place should be given to Konkani. It is not only our mother tongue but the official language of Goa and the language of our cultural identity. For too long, we have not given her the importance she deserves. We have tolerated her as a medium of instruction in the past. I personally know the difficulties we’ve had because the written and spoken Konkani differ so much, the differences varying taluka-wise. Now as a subject, and hopefully a compulsory one, we should spend additional time over it. We should inculcate a positive attitude in the children towards Konkani. Do not punish them for speaking Konkani but on the contrary encourage them to do so. Even while teaching other subjects like environment, history, geography, etc. let teachers make a generous use of Konkani. Promoting love for Konkani should be a priority of the managements of schools. It can be done in so many ways like using Konkani at public functions, organising debates, elocution and essay competitions in Konkani with attractive prizes, etc.

The parents must also promote Konkani in their homes and neighborhoods, and take extra care to see that their children do well in Konkani as a subject and otherwise. It is so much better to speak good Konkani rather than bad English at home. If only there were a provision against murdering a language in the Indian Penal Code!!!

Likewise, those schools which use the regional language as medium of instruction should make extra provisions for teaching good English, perhaps as a compulsory subject in the primary. The CM has to be commended for wanting to introduce additional qualified teachers with degree/diploma in education to take up this task. If proper care is taken to impart good English in the regional language schools, then the difficulty of changing to English in middle school will be mitigated. And the clamour for English medium may decrease.

And last, the strong proponents of regional language medium should also be realistic. The world is moving at a fast pace and we need to keep up with globalisation. But globalisation should not mean decline of our culture. We need to promote our culture and identity even more in the context of globalisation. Globalisation and local pride can and should go hand in hand. I have a genuine request to make to the Konkani writers and academicians: please make the written language simpler, closer to the spoken Konkani. More people, including students, will then read and write Konkani. The popularity of Konkani will increase in times to come. So be it.

Published in The Navhind Times, Panorama 10.06.2012 

Environment First

The World Environment Day (WED) on 5^th June every year has become a popular worldwide event. In fact the whole movement for protecting the environment has grown tremendously over the last forty years, having been started by the United Nations Organization in 1972. Environmental consciousness, concern and action have now reached every nook and cranny of the world. From the periphery to the centre. From the margins to the mainstream. It is, and ought to be, on the top of the global agenda.

It is an irony that we speak of protecting the environment. On the contrary, it is nature that protects us with all her abundant endowments and motherly nurturing. We humans are the primary cause of nature’s destruction. Nature tolerates till a certain point, and then we become the victims of our own action. If we have to play a protective role, it must be to prevent our own destructive actions which will eventually rebound on us.  We must respect nature. Respect our environment. The so called protection will follow. Because we will not harm what we respect. Not patronage but awe.

Forty years after starting WED (1972), and twenty years after the first Earth Summit (1992) in Rio, the world is now looking forward to Rio+20 summit to be held this month. Things don’t seem to be moving in the right direction if the on-going preparations are an indication. We can only hope that something positive and definite will emerge from this summit to take the global environment agenda forward.

In between the global and the local, there are the national, regional and state policies and programs. May be we can and should pressurize our elected representatives to always keep the environmental concerns first. Speaking for myself, I have put forth my concern for the environment before the candidates for the State Assembly elections, both in 2007 and 2012, when they visited me for support. The response has been appreciative of my point of view, in fact noted affirmatively. It works in a small way because no politician can be on the opposite side of the growing number of environmentalists. The numbers must grow and the politicians will respond. That is the power of democracy.

A big number of us have also backed a candidate in the recently held Panchayat elections on the main consideration of environmental concerns in our village Aldona. The candidate has won.  We are now watching.

Environment is very important. Individuals, schools and colleges, temple and church committees and councils, social and sports clubs, non governmental organizations, panchayats and municipalities, corporate organizations, state and union governments – all have a role to play. I don’t think humanity can survive for long if we don’t ‘protect’, I mean respect, our environment at all levels. It is the need of the hour. And if you think you can run away to other places in the world, you are mistaken with a capital M. Nature is a great leveler and the consequences will be global. So as environmentalists say, think global, act local.

Some practical suggestions at the individual, family and neighborhood levels may help. First, we have a tendency to clean our houses, and throw the dirt and waste on the road or in some nearby quarter. This includes the plastics which fly with the wind becoming ubiquitous. In some places we find toxic smoke emanating from plastics that are burnt in the vicinity, specially late evening. We find a growing number of people covering the mud ground in their compound with cement, tiles and concrete slabs. This stops the rain water from percolating in the ground. Vegetation is decreasing even in the villages and the consequences are  felt specially in the summer. There is quite a temperature difference in the various zones of a village depending on the foliage. In places characterized by concrete jungles, the heat is unbearable. But in places with large shade giving trees, no air conditioning is required. These are just a few examples I’ve given to show how we are harming the environment by our own actions. In small matters like these, the initiative is in our hands. No global conventions and international statutes are required.

Much needs to be done to bring awareness at all levels, beginning from the grassroots. The numbers of environment conscious citizens has to increase to take on the mission of environmentalism from local to global, and global to local levels.

Published in The Navhind Times, Panorama 03.06.2012