By Marcellus D’Souza

Apr 1: Goa Chief Minister Pramod Sawant is keen on keeping his poll promise of allocating money for the renovation of Hindu Temples. This week he allocated Rs. 20 crores for the purpose. It was the poll plank on which he won his own seat in the Sanquelim constituency, with the slimiest margin and the BJP 20 seats.

There is no dispute, if the temples were destroyed, they need to be renovated. But the state dolling out money from the exchequer to these temples is shocking to say the least. Will it only open the Pandora’s Box?

Speaking at the inaugurating ceremony of the revamped tourism facilities at the historic Shree Mangueshi Temple at Mangueshi, Ponda, Pramod Sawant said, “During the 60th anniversary of Goa’s liberation, I am seeking the strength from you to preserve our Hindu sanskriti and temple sanskriti.”

The Portuguese ruled Goa for 450-years and Goa was liberated for 60-years. That makes it a total of 510 years. What sanskriti is Sawant talking about? Never during this long and arduous history was the issue of ‘destroyed’ temples ever raised? Sawant is free to have his own reasons why he has chosen this particular time to question the Goan Inquisition and spend money on something that is out and out religious. Does the Constitution of India support such blatant largesse? It s ethical for a politician to play the communal card?

How will it be determined if the claims made by various Hindu organisations that a temple was destroyed at a particular site are true or fabricated? Will the government rely on oral history, beliefs or scientific proof? Will Pramod Sawant be responsible in an event the unearthing of a temple over a church creates a communal flare-up.

Whatever happened to the peaceful Goa? Where communities live in perfect harmony with each other. Is the chief minister got an ulterior motive by playing up an emotive issue? Guess he is wearing his religious affiliations on his sleeve.

Fr Victor Ferrao, an authority and ex-professor of Rachol Seminary, who served with distinction for twenty years, at Rachol seminary, has in his paper titled “The Challenge to be a Goan Christian” held that by painting pre-colonial Goa as Hindu territory, "There is a direct attempt to turn the historical facts about conversion against the Church and the Christians of today.”

“This political motive of appropriating Goan history is highly reductionist and distortionist in its approach. I have described these attempts as Hindu-ology. In fact even the word Hindu does not exist in the entire sixteenth century Indo-Portuguese historiography," says his paper, titled ‘The Other Orientalism and the Challenge and Opportunities for the Church in Goa’.

The issue of Goa's religious past before the advent of spices and Christian-seeking Portuguese has been a matter of debate in recent times.

A large section of authors and historians have insisted that Goa has been described in ancient texts as a land reclaimed by Sage Parshurama, an avatar of Lord Vishnu, from the sea and that the state, now known for beaches, tourism, nightlife and drugs, was once called Konkan Kashi or the Benaras of the Konkan.

Ferrao, in his paper, insists that such obfuscation, stemming from political motives, was one of the key reasons why Christians in Goa now have to “lay claim to their own history” in the pre-Portuguese era.
“It is important to assert that we have not come from Hinduism of today, but the then fragmented cults that have been steadily assimilated into Hinduism of today," Ferrao said.

Ferrao said that the claims of forced conversions and demolition of temples during the early Portuguese era were essentially to be found only in “narratives of the post-colonial historiography mainly authored by the Hindu historians in our days.”

“Though the temples that were demolished were not Hindu but one(s) that belonged to different cults that have united into the Hinduism of today, the Hindu community is certainly carrying the pain of this false impression,” the paper says.

Christians on the other hand, says Ferrao, had forgotten their origins (that they were part of independent cults and religions) and ‘are wounded and continue to be victims of the aggression of their Hindu counterparts’.

This year, the celebrations associated with the novena and feast of Saint Joseph Vaz were under attack from the right wing protester who demanded threateningly that employees of the Archives and Archaeology department stop the proceedings in Sancoale.

Will the grant of Rs. 20 crore infuse a communal divide that has raised its ugly head in an otherwise peaceful Goa? Or will it apply the much needed ointment to heal the mistakes of the past.