Goa

The Archaeological Survey of India's role in the protection of the 16th century Basilica of Bom Jesus monument in old Goa has come under attack. The rector of the basilica, in an open letter recently, has accused the ASI of “utter apathy” in restoring the structure. This has prompted the Goan government to swing into action by appointing a committee to overlook the restoration of the monument. What is of importance in this case is that the monument is still used as a church by the local community. Religious heritage buildings that are still in use by the community call for a different kind of restoration measures. The ASI needs to take the local stakeholders into confidence, and allow their participation in the protection of monuments.

Monsoon, the new translation of Vimala Devi’s Monção (1963), offers contemporary readers a rare peek into Goa as it appeared to a certain progressive Catholic elite on the eve of the Indian annexation of the territory from Portugal. This introduction offers a better understanding of this group enabling the reader to gauge how much the political terrain has shifted, in Goa and the wider subcontinent, and to assess the political positions that made sense to progressive Catholics in this period.

When discussing the impact of Portuguese colonialism on the culture of the territory we now call Goa, much is made of Indo-Portuguese art. The term operates as a euphemism for the meeting of Christian/Catholic art forms with Hindu/Sanskritic art forms. This framing of the encounter poses two problems . The first is that it continues to play out a colonial Orientalist tendency to identify communities with a religion, hence the Portuguese and European colonizers with Catholicism, and the local inhabitants with Hinduism (if such a concept already existed at the time of colonial conquest). The second problem is that it by and large ignores the impact of the Islamicate in Goa, more often than not content with dismissing it with a brief reference to Mughal forms in the art works. In this short essay I argue that Goa was very much the space of the Islamicate.  Further, that to view 'Indo-Portuguese' art in this light would perhaps open up larger and richer ways of understanding this art, as well as moving it away from the colonial (and communal) tendency of seeing art (and culture) as founded in religion.

"This book offers annotated translations of documents touching on Dutch admiral Cornelis Matelieff de Jonge and his voyage to Asia between 1605 and 1608. These translations are aimed at a contemporary English-speaking Asian readership interested in the early modern history of European trade, warfare and expansion in Southeast Asia with a focus on Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia. Researchers specialising in early European colonialism, international law, international relations, security studies, and diplomatic history will also find that the documents translated in this volume offer new and unfamiliar perspectives. Materlieff’s business acumen, military and diplomataic prowess as well as his vision of empire all have implications for examining not only European expansion into Southeast Asia, but also into other regions at large, including especially south Asia, Africa and the Americas.
Admiral Matelieff was a director of the Rotterdam Chamber of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) formed in 1602. He was appointed fleet commander on one of the company’s first voyages to Asia. Matelieff’s mission was both commercial and military: he launched a major sea-borne attack on the Portuguese colony of Melaka, arranged for the signing of treaties with the rulers of Johor, Aceh and Ternate, and founded the first Dutch fort on the island of Ternate. His endeavours, however, to open the Chinese market for the Dutch company proved unsuccessful.
Following his return to the Dutch Republic in September 1608, Matelieff penned a series of memorials and letters. In these he advanced recommendations for changing the way the company organized its fleets and conducted business. More importantly he offered  his Dutch contemporaries a vision of empire in Asia. The materials contained in this volume offer important observations of a perceptive analyst who was also determined to grasp the political and economic structures of Asia, and also of inter-state relations in across this vast region. At a time of Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Danish, French and English engagement in Southeast Asia, Matelieff sought to critically assess and strategize on the ways in which Europeans were increasingly engaging with Asian polities and their rulers.

This book will be released for sale in Australasia and Europe in June 2014 and available in the Americas after September 2014
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A native of Bruges (now part of Belgium), Jacques de Coutre was a gem trader who spent nearly a decade in Southeast Asia in the early 17th century. In addition to a substantial autobiography written in Spanish and preserved in the National Library of Spain in Madrid, he wrote a series of memorials to the united crown of Spain and Portugal that contain recommendations designed to reverse the decline in the fortunes of the Iberian powers in Southeast Asia, particularly against the backdrop of early Dutch political and commercial penetration into the region. Translated into English for the first time, these materials provide a valuable first-hand account of the bigger issues confronting the early colonial powers in Southeast Asia, and deep insights into the societies De Coutre encountered in the territory that today makes up Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines.

Este estudo estabelece de forma inédita uma leitura crítica e transversal da importância da arte no contexto das missões católicas na Índia, na China e no Japão e em torno dos processos sistemáticos de relação da imagem sagrada com as estruturas antropológicas das civilizações asiáticas como resultado do encontro de culturas entre a Europa e a Ásia. O eixo arte e alteridade esquematiza e sintetiza a metodologia de investigação que observa os objectos artísticos resultantes de uma relação de interdependência com as artes dos outros povos, de uma conveniência, similitude, proximidade, analogia e mediação da arte europeia com os modelos e esquemas de representação das artes asiáticas. A miscigenação artística ou o hibridismo criativo decorrente deste encontro de culturas e do diálogo entre religiões é resultado de uma consciência mútua sobre o outro e da identificação espontânea da diferença e da semelhança, sobre as quais se estabelece o diálogo artístico. Desta relação de interdependência surge uma nova identidade artística que se caracteriza, de forma transversal, por uma sistematização, combinação, substituição e miscigenação de símbolos e elementos iconográficos das diferentes realidades artísticas.
Numa primeira parte do estudo são apresentados e analisados os três momentos da presença do cristianismo e da iconografia cristã na China que anteciparam a chegada dos portugueses ao Mar da China. A partir da análise iconográfica da estela de Xi’an, das pinturas encontradas nas grutas de Dunhuang que representam temas cristãos e das estelas funerárias que têm sido amplamente encontradas na cidade portuária de Quanzhou e em outros locais do Sul da China observam-se os processos de confluência artística que se expressam na assimilação, substituição e apropriação de elementos iconográficos especialmente do budismo, do taoismo e do islão.
Já a partir do século XVI estudam-se as dinâmicas de construção da imagem partindo da ideia inerente às diferentes categorias de função da arte fundamentada pela Igreja Católica e reafirmada pela Contra-Reforma. Se, por um lado, a arte cristã tinha o objectivo fundamental de preservar a fé e a pureza espiritual do clero através da representação de temas edificantes e de glorificação da Igreja, de que é exemplo uma parte substancial das obras importadas e ainda as edificações elevadas à semelhança das grandes igrejas europeias, por outro lado, as imagens têm uma função pedagógica, normativa e de instrução moral das comunidades, muitas vezes iletradas, e que, por isso, carecem da construção de imagens simplificadas e com referenciais iconográficos e simbólicos apropriados aos códigos simbólicos da arte religiosa na Índia, na China e no Japão. Neste contexto, a inexistência de oficinas organizadas e constituídas por artistas europeus capazes de dar resposta às exigências do exercício das missões foi colmatada pela produção local de artistas e artífices que funcionavam de forma autónoma e que, por essa razão,  daí resultou uma confluência artística fundamentada nas analogias formais e conceptuais que os modelos originais da arte cristã tinham com a herança cultural, religiosa e artística dos artistas asiáticos.
Finalmente, ao longo do estudo estabelece-se uma relação entre os diversos graus de permeabilidade cultural e artística e as condições de hegemonia cultural europeia em Goa e Macau e as oscilações de tolerância e perseguição religiosa na Índia Mogol, na China Imperial e no Japão, onde a eloquência das imagens cristãs foi colocada ao serviço da propaganda da soberania local.

In the 16th and 17th centuries, Jesuit missionaries began to translate Christian doctrine and mythology into Indian languages. Most critical became the question how the very name(s) of God and gods can be translated. Artfully composed texts known as Christian Purāṇas borrowed from the religious terminology and literary styles of Indian devotional literature and are praised today for mediating between the cultures of Christians and Hindus (the latter called ‘gentiles’ in the contemporary sources). At the same time, the Portuguese-Catholic regime in India launched a ruthless iconoclastic campaign against the culture of the Indian gentiles, destroying their temples and images and denigrating their allegedly ‘false gods’. Against this background, the article addresses the questions of what the relation was between translation and violence; how hermeneutics and de-struction coexisted; and how the idea that the translations facilitated the modern emer-gence of religious pluralism is to be qualified.

This essay argues for recognizing a form of orientalism peculiar to Goa. This peculiarity results from the manner in which two different types of orientalisms combine with one another to produce Goan orientalism. These two types of Orientalism would be Goa Portuguesa, a strain of Lusotropicalism, and Goa Indica, a strain of Indian nationalism which is in turn a product of British Indian orientalism. The terrain of Goan orientalism is sketched in this essay through a discussion of the recently published coffee-table book Moda Goa: History and Style by fashion
designer and stylist Wendell Rodricks (2012). Despite being the work of an amateur historian, I would argue that this work needs to be given academic attention, for it is largely the popular press that determines the manner in which history is understood, and the manner in which these histories are then used to frame personal as well as larger group or collective narratives.

"The territory of Goa is located in strip of land in one of the major widenings of the south Konkan Seashore, where the medium distance from the mountains, the Ghats, to the sea is about 40kms.  It is dived in three different morphological areas: the coast, the midlands and the Ghats region . Panjim is located in the coast, a site of a lateritic upland and alluvium lowlands.
Ancient Indian mythology says that Vishnu created Goa by a reclamation from the sea. In fact, a great area of Goan territory is composed by alluvial valleys and plains and can easily been seen as a reclamation from the waters.
This paper will try to demonstrate, not that all Goan territory is like that, but that Indian mythology is right as far as Panjim urban area is concerned.  Panjim was in fact reclaimed from the waters in a huge landscape transformation with elaborated engineering and infrastructure work, throughout a period of more than 300 years, following some of the oldest traditions of Goa agricultural communities.
"

During a period living in the Goan village of Priol in the taluka (county) of Ponda, I had the opportunity to participate in the
local daily life, and was struck by the small village temples: places for daily worship that were distant from the tourist routes and the standard research themes related to Goa. As these temples lack the visibility and richness of the large temples in the Ponda region, “discovering” them was a gradual process that involved some sensitivity that was moulded by coming closer to the places and the people, the rhythms of village life and its rituals. These temples, called "gramadevasthana", include a large number in the so-called
New Conquests area, since they were a vital factor in the foundation and symbolic construction of each village. Observation of several of these temples revealed that certain typologies and highly uniform spatial approaches had been maintained, even after major remodelling work.

Abstract
The Portuguese conquest of Goa (west coast of India) led to the establishment of the first mint in this region, and the Portuguese authorities professionally managed it. They had to satisfy the demand of the Portuguese and local traders to obtain a consistent supply of currency to trade within and outside India. The paper highlights the rise and fall of the Portuguese mint in Goa.  It is shown that the mints impacted the Goan culture in the long-term.
Keywords: minting, currency, trade, politics, economy and society.

Even though close to one fourth of Goa’s population is Catholic, much scholarship on Goa is at pains to emphasize the Hindu nature of Goan society. Contesting these assertions, this paper will draw on popular culture in Goa, with special reference to the lyrics of popular Konkani music, to not only demonstrate the way in which Christian cosmology structures the world represented in these lyrics but provides hope for the suffering Goan subject. Indeed, it was the institutions around local Catholicism that allowed for Konkani music tradition to emerge in the first place. It is Catholicism, this paper argues, which sutures diverse case groups into a single social unit and thus makes a society possible in Goa, and it is also the same faith tradition that provides the possibility to see persons not as members of castes but as human beings. By providing a language to challenge caste and other similar discrimination while retaining space for pleasure even while this goal is unrealized, this paper argues that it is Catholicism, or the message of the Gospel, which is the source of consolation in Goan society.

‘Gay Globalization via Goa in My Brother... Nikhil’ examines the 2005 film, which was the first to have focused on homosexuality in India. Despite this claim, the film articulates gay subjectivity as emerging from a global, rights-based perspective, it is argued. Central to this analysis of the film is its setting in Goa which is employed as a site of liminality between ‘traditional’ India and global modernity. Goa is both cleaved to and from India as a whole by casting the former’s historical regionality through
a misconstrual of its religious identities, as well as through references to colonial and alleged racial difference. The film’s basis for such differentiation is considered as being in large part due to Goa’s longer colonization by the Portuguese in comparison to the reign of the British in most of the rest of India. Modernity and diaspora are also explored as key features of the representation of Goa in the film, especially as they tie in to issues of gay rights. Further, the essay scrutinizes the parallels between the title character and the real-life inspiration behind the film, the Goan AIDS activist Dominic D’souza. In concluding, it is made apparent that the film centres gay male subjectivity while relegating Goan identity to an ambivalent marginality.

""Muito antes de os portugueses chegarem a Goa, já os gaudde cantavam e dançavam solicitando protecção a uma entidade espiritual que vivia no território à volta das suas casas. Todavia, o que tem sido privilegiado na descrição da cultura goesa é o património cultural da elite, onde se nota uma influência portuguesa, ausente para os gaudde. Paralelamente, como modo de contestação ao colonialismo português, algumas formas culturais de grupos socialmente desprivilegiados foram continuadas em segredo (devido à repressão da igreja católica de tudo o que não fosse cristão). Um destes grupos foi o dos gaudde católicos, tendo as suas artes performativas, aparentemente pré-portuguesas, sido mantidas e reinventadas criativamente desde há cerca de quatro séculos. As suas danças e músicas são ainda hoje semelhantes às dos gaudde hindus, o grupo a que pertenciam antes de convertidos, e, por isso, as letras das suas canções têm de ser lidas à luz da lógica ritual hindu, embora os nomes de deuses tenham sido substituídos por santos cristãos. Aqui reside uma das singularidades dos gaudde católicos de Goa.
As suas artes performativas actuais não se resumem à perpetuação da tradição oral, onde predominam narrativas religiosas hindus e cristãs, e descrições da vida quotidiana na agricultura, integram também referências aos processos contemporâneos de adaptação social, económica e política. Na passagem para o século XXI, os gaudde católicos são chamados a apresentar as suas danças aos turistas e em eventos sociais, como representação da cultura «autêntica» de Goa, traduzida como «pré-portuguesa». Este reposicionamento das tradições em práticas turísticas enquadra-se num processo de folclorização que, estimulado pelo governo, teve lugar não só em Goa, como por toda a Índia.
Todavia, a imagem de Goa que predomina na Índia e no estrangeiro é a que dá forte ênfase à sua herança colonial portuguesa, nomeadamente a arquitectura e práticas musicais e alimentares, para além das praias paradisíacas e das festas de música trance organizadas por hippies que supostamente encontraram um lugar onde o tempo parou. Torna-se então uma ironia histórica os gaudde católicos serem chamados a hotéis, solares, eventos do estado e a templos hindus para mostrarem a cultura «autêntica» de Goa, quando justamente as suas tradições foram meios passivos de resistência à administração colonial portuguesa.
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The extant representations of the late nineteenth-century personality Wamanrao Varde Valaulikar (1877-1946), known as Shenoi Goembab to Konkani activists, are marked by a hagiographical character. The present article offers a biography of the man which eschews these nationalist hagiographies to place the man in the context of his times and to demonstrate his primary role as an activist in the creation of the Gaud Saraswat Brahmin caste. In so doing, the article demonstrates how the foundations for the contemporary Goan public sphere were laid in the nineteenth century.

This case study deals with the evolution of a local god, Bodgeshvar,  from a minor tutelary being to a powerful urban deity in the provincial town of Mapusa in the Indian state of Goa. Noteworthy, the metamorphosis of the Jāgeveiḷo or local guardian to the Ishvar or high god implies also the reference to a Baba or mendicant monk. Becoming visible in the emergence of a sumptuous tem-ple and the steadily increase of worshippers,  the rise of the local god is above all the result of Goa's liberation from Portuguese rule and reflects especially the development of Mapusa from a small market town into a metropolitan city. This being so, the success of the Lord of Mapusa owes itself, however, not only to the vibrant community of Vani and Bhandāri, basically small mer-chants, small farmers and fishermen, who benefited the most from the postcolonial democratisa-tion and economic boom and who constitute the group of temple trustees of the urban god today .  A good deal of the popularity of Bodgeshvar is also owed to the large group of migrant workers from the neighbouring states of Karnataka and Kerala who are living and working in the city and who are especially attracted by the gods embodiment of a wonder working mendicant monk.

Zuari river is currently at the heart of the intense ground level conflicts of control over fishing spaces in the light of aggressive attempts to promote water sports and India’s first high tech marina. Indigenous fishermen are pitched against financial interests of tourism and shipping industries. The struggle that has taken forms of wrestling with the system as well open confrontation is ultimately directed to serve the interests of luxury tourism catering to high end tourist seeking change in use of Zuari river from fishing to water sports, marinas and casinos.
This paper attempts to intersect the popular notion of complimentary of Food and Tourism through back end prism of ongoing community conflicts in river Zuari, the biggest river of Goa. Most tasty in plates and yet costly fish is hunted in this river. However the seeds of conflicts developed due to onward march of fishing practices that is unsustainable. Further, investment plans of tourism in terms of Marinas and water sports, is pushing the fishes away from plates. This paper covers the raging debates over dredging of Zuari and threats to livelihoods of people on banks of river Zuari. It further questions the corporate-State nexus currently in vogue against coastal dwellers of Zuari with excessive bias against these dwellers. The researcher’s personal involvement as well as participant observation has been the methodological tool in writing this paper.

"A articulação do catolicismo e do hinduísmo em Goa é ilustrada a partir dos rituais hindus, pré‑portugueses, que têm persistido entre a casta dos Gaudde católicos, embora readaptados e simultâneos a práticas da igreja católica. Houve um processo sistemático de conversão ao catolicismo durante a presença portuguesa em Goa, em que as ordens religiosas ao converterem as castas da elite esperavam que as outras castas as seguissem, emulando‑as.
Parte dos Gaudde seguiram a conversão ao catolicismo, mas tal
como outros grupos subalternos, continuaram com formas culturais anteriores à sua conversão, praticadas em segredo devido à repressão da igreja católica. Desde a chegada dos portugueses, o grupo dos Gaudde dividiu‑se
em três: o dos hindus (o de origem), o dos católicos (desde o século XVI) e o dos neo‑hindus (Gaudde católicos que se tornaram hindus a partir de 1928).
As canções de casamento dos Gaudde católicos de uma aldeia do sul de Goa, demonstram a negociação dos Gaudde entre o catolicismo e o hinduísmo. As letras destas canções são ainda
hoje semelhantes às dos Gaudde hindus, e, por isso, têm de ser lidas à luz da lógica ritual hindu, embora tenham substituído os nomes de deuses por santos católicos. Transmitidas oralmente
durante gerações, as letras das canções dos Gaudde católicos foram transcritas em concani pela primeira vez durante a minha investigação etnográfica, de um ano entre eles, e, desta forma,
passaram a estar documentadas apenas em 2006. Foram também pela primeira vez traduzidas para português. Na passagem para o século XXI, as danças e canções dos Gaudde católicos são reposicionadas com um novo significado, sendo apresentadas aos turistas e em eventos sociais, como representação da cultura “autêntica” de Goa, traduzida como “pré‑portuguesa”."

Contents of online websites and advertisements by real estate companies operating in Goa suggest that newly developed properties are meant to attract urban elites from Indian metros. These investors from urban metros, such as Delhi, seek a tranquil getaway from the pollution and pressures of city life. However, more than simply Goa's idyllic location, second homeowners desire to indulge in the region's difference from the rest of India-Goa, after all, was a Portuguese territory for 451 years. For the Indian urban elites, investing in the state is not just about buying 'a piece of Goa' on which to sojourn; rather, it is about buying into what this land signifies: an exotic 'laidback' Goan lifestyle. Essentially, I aim to suggest that the contemporary image of Goa through real estate advertisements is fashioned for the consumption of elite buyers from Indian metros who are sold a version of Goa's culture that evokes the Portuguese colonial past while instantiating an idyllic present. Even as the elements from colonial-era architectural style of Goa are sustained or replicated, and Goan land appropriated, Goans themselves are not factored into the commercial imaginings of the sale of these exclusive and exclusionary properties.

This paper is the curatorial essay for the group exhibition of Goan artists at at Kalakriti Art Gallery, Hyderabad from 9 Feb to 28 Feb 2015.

In the context of this exhibition, the imperialist phrase 'Portugal não é um país pequeno' is reutilized to suggest that Goa’s small geographical extent does not limit its size. Despite the fact that Goa is the smallest territory in the Union of India, it is home to a remarkably diverse history. Not only does it play host to a variety of migrant communities; it is also the home of a migrant community that is spread across the world. The essay uses the artworks in this exhibition to demonstrate this breadth of experience allows for Goans to hold a variety of perspectives and to own diverse insights into the multiple worlds that they occupy.

The Goa 2100 project is an award winning entry to an international design competition organized under by the International Gas Union in 2003. Seven international teams were invited for the competition. Sanjay Prakash, Aromar Revi and Rahul Mehrotra were the team leaders for the Indian team. The resulting proposal for the competition was a planning project for the city of Panjim in Goa, a state in western India. The project looks at planning from a ‘RUrban’ perspective – a method of sustainable development that combines high quality living conditions, a successful economy, and sustainable levels of resource use and waste generation for both the city as well as its rural periphery. The aim of the proposal is to integrate urban and rural communities through physical infrastructure and the formation of symbiotic economic networks. It visualizes the city as a net producer of ecological services rather than a sink for regional and global resources.