Goan political paradoxes, waiting to be answered (FN, in NT)

[Goanet Reader]

First appeared in The Navhind Times, June 15, 2025.

Goan political paradoxes, waiting to be answered

Frederick Noronha

"Why are [Manohar] Parrikar and [Pramod] Sawant not on the cover?" a bookseller asked.  The book in question offers insights and background.  For reasons understandable, it doesn't discuss the last three or so decades of Goan politics -- some may say, a rather crucial era that brought in entirely new trends to the fore in Goa's political world.

Post Colonial Politics in Goa: Cabinet Government -- Union Territory to Statehood is the third edition of A Freddy Fernandes' book based on his PhD thesis, first published as a book in 1997.  Updating the work might have made it more complete, but also caused more delays.  Maybe that could wait for a sequel.

For anyone who has lived through this era, this hardbound tome is like a comprehensive re-look through our political yesterdays.  It injects the reader straight into the 1963 elections, after a brief setting of the post-1961 scenario, when an Indian military action ended Portuguese rule in Goa.

Its author has spent his time -- as a journalist, academic and again journalist -- since the late 1980s or early 1990s.  To cover the earlier period, he adopts the academic-journalist strategy of quoting.  From newspapers, from books and from some participants of those times (journalist Flaviano Dias, PP Shirodkar, Erasmo de Sequeira, Bandodkar's colleague AKS Usgaonkar, journalist Jagdish Wagh, ex-editor Ashwin Tombat, Luizinho Faleiro, Dr Wilfred de Souza's former Man Friday and Tranjano D'Mello).

This throws up interesting, little noticed or fast-forgotten details.  For instance, not many now might know or recall that the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) had its roots in the Azad Gomantak Dal formed by V.N.  Lawande in Belgaum in 1954, with the support of the Hindu Mahasabha and the Jan Sangh, the annual Marathi Literary Conferences "which invariably raised the demand for merger", the Gomantak Gayak Samaj, the Marathi Gayak Sabha and the Gomantak Maratha Samaj (Halappa et al, The First General Elections, Karnataka University, 1964).

A book of this kind acts like a ready reckoner of what happened, when -- and by whom -- on the political front for roughly half of the post-1961 years in Goa.  Its most useful part is it data.  It has tonnes of lists, lots of data, a blow-by-blow account of what happened.  If you're looking for the 'whys' of what happened, you might have to read in between the lines; maybe the author could legitimately argue that that this is beyond the scope of the book.

For instance, you can find a list of "milestones" in post-1961 Goa's politics.  Or party-based elections of the legislative elections in the past.  Results of the Goa Assembly from 1963 to 1994.  A list of the Governors of Goa, after Statehood and during its Union Territory days.  Or even the Speakers of the Goa Assembly, its Opposition leaders, and the Chief Ministers of Goa (and also of Goa, Daman and Diu).

You want to find out when all defections happened in Goa?  No, this happened not just in the 1990s, but even in 1970 (one away from the MGP, and the other away from the UGP to compensate for the first), in 1979 (in three sets), in 1980 (twice, in a way political rebranding), in 1983, 1990, 1991 and 1994, among others.

Curious to know how different parts of Goa, castes, or religious communities got represented in different Cabinets in Goa?  Who held which portfolios in each Cabinet?  Or, which party contested how many seats, and what was their 'strike rate' in each election?

Before you get mislead into believing that this is a book merely of statistics alone, let's hasten to add that its main part evaluates administrations ('cabinet governments') headed by different politicians.  Check the cover to see who's covered.

One could not suppress a small chuckle on reading the author write: "...then Legislature Secretary Ashok Ulman infact almost persuaded me to take up research on Cabinet government in the United Kingdom, since he said it was not advisable to study Goan Politics, in a way, since many of the people are alive and it would be a sensitive topic." (p xi)

You could read this book for a number of reasons.  First, if you're a politics junkie, and the topic turns you on.  Secondly, to understand one crucial aspect of Goa, its political history.  The book also gives us a overall better understanding of Goa.  Two riders though: one, the price.  This 542-page large sized, hardbound book comes at Rs2000.  Secondly, after reading, you might end up with more questions.

For instance, who were the members of the "29 member Informal Consultative Council (ICC)" set up in September 1962, and what did they suggest?  Or, why did defections suddenly seem to spurt in the 1990s, and then almost completely vanish in the decade after that?  Any deeper answers beyond the conventionally-accepted wisdom?  There are many more Goan political paradoxes, waiting to be answered.

Or, why did able (if blunt) politicians like Dr Wilfred de Souza and Manohar Parrikar both face short, incomplete terms?  Also, if all politicians get something or the other good said about them, then who is to blame for the overall sense of drift, and a lack of vision in Goa?  How much blame goes to the citizen-voter and how much to the politician?

The chapters on the 1960s and 1970s (and even 1980s), remind us of long-forgotten times.  The details of the 1980s and 1990s are also useful in reminding us of times quite recent.

Many sections stand underlined in my  copy.  The little-discussed love-hate relationship between the Congress and Bandodkar and his daughter Shashikala.  Y.B.  Chavan's hardly subtle interventions in Goa's politics.  The role of Marathi newspapers in the 1960s or the UGP Opposition's 'standing satyagraha'.

Beyond this, also to catch one's eye was the claim that Konkani writers "persuaded" a despondent Dayanand Bandodkar to continue in politics after the Opinion Poll results.  Or details of the first revolt against the MGP; the record of various governments vis a vis the legislation they brought about; and the defections against Shashikala Kakdokar.

The results of 1980, when a Congress(U) won in Goa even as Indira Gandhi's Cong(I) was coming back to power elsewhere, is also a story worth retelling.  Photos of politicians of the time take us back to those seemingly less cynical days.  The long list of "Congress Observers" and their doings brings back memories.

Dissidence against the Pratapsing Rane administrators, and the language controversy is outlined in useful detail.  PDF, CDF, Proto Barbosa, Alemao and Ravi Naik politics surface in all their controversy and colour.  So does the sometimes blatant use of communalism and 'secularism', as in the case of labelling Churchill Alemao as "Goa's first Catholic chief minister", obviously to justify very questionable defections.

Clearly, depending on print sources would have its limitations.  Remember, those were times when Goa had a limited media outlets, covering the region not so intensely as now.  For instance, the picture that emerges about the 'ramponkar' (traditional fishermen's) agitation might seem very different from what this reviewer was told by a participant, the late Jesuit priest Braz Faleiro.  Where you stand can determine what you see.

Likewise, Monte Cruz and others draw praise for having built the Fatorda Nehru stadium in record time.  Yet, as a young journalist, one recalls that critics of Monte Cruz were soon thereafter roaming around the Press Room with (what seemed like) very official files to 'expose' the misdeeds while building the stadium.  The goal?  So that another politician could claim to contest Monte Cruz's seat.  That is exactly what happened.

Political science isn't a precise science in the same way as fields like physics or chemistry.  It uses empirical methods and seeks to understand human behaviour and political systems; yet, it struggles to make precise measurements and predictions as human factors are complex and variable.

One could conclude saying writing about politics tells us as much about the writer, as about the politicians and the processes.  This book varies widely from earlier ones in the evaluation of Goa's recent politicians.  It iwas released on June 16, 2025 (Monday) at 4.30 pm at IMB-Panjim.

(Edited version)

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