While in Goa for a conference this past December, my
brother-in-law enquired if it was the India Ideas Conclave that I was there
for. My protests to the contrary were quick, due to the nature of said event. The
conference I was in Goa for had barely found mention in any media in the state,
while the Conclave could be seen advertised on the main thoroughfare with
flashy billboards. Online, it was being avidly discussed on Goan listservs,
because the Indian right wing had unabashedly proclaimed it as a gathering of
intellectuals and politicians who sought to distance themselves from Nehruvian
socialism. Several affiliates of Hindu fundamentalist organisations were present
at the occasion, as were members of the BJP. This betrayed the Hindutva
leanings of the affair, revealing it to be more than just about politics and
the economy. So, no, I corrected my sister’s husband; I was most assuredly not
in Goa for that conference, but another. Except, upon actually attending the
Re-Imagining Theory Conference, organised by the Forum on Contemporary Theory (FCT)
at the International Centre, Goa (ICG), I wondered if there was something to my
brother-in-law’s conflation of the two meetings.
To be fair, the Conclave made no bones about why it
had chosen Goa for its deliberations, having hired a five star hotel for the
get-together. Even though the rise of religiously fundamentalist organisations
in the state can readily be charted over the last few years, it was evident
that the right wing had settled on Goa more for its location than in
recognition of its zealotry or political importance. In comparison, the theory
conference, which gave the impression of being a serious academic affair, not
least because of its inclusion of such high profile speakers as Gayatri Spivak
and Arjun Appadurai, quickly let that veneer slip. Was it a foregone conclusion
that as the site of choice for the academic conference, Goa was to be relegated
to being merely a service venue rather than an intellectual space? One is
inclined to believe so, given the quaint little note the organisers sent
participants in a logistical email before the conference began on 21 December,
2014. It said: “Enjoy Goan hospitality and return home refreshed in body and
spirit”.
That the sole purpose of Goa and Goans should be that
it and they exist primarily as purveyors of hospitality rather than as
intellectual participants in the programme, as such a missive implies, should
give one pause. And if the notion that Goa was where one comes to be serviced
rather than to be of service had not been articulated clearly enough by the
aforementioned note, then it was hammered home in the conference’s opening
session. In it, the organisers attempted to theorise the space of Goa as one
that could be characterised through the idea of “liquidity”; they clarified their
meaning by underscoring Goa’s proximity to the ocean and by hinting at the
liberal availability of alcohol. When FCT held its annual conference in Goa in
2007, similar comments were made by the organisers, who then referred to Goa
being a “spirited” location. But at least then FCT had made some attempt to be
more cognisant of the region itself and to engage it academically. For
instance, at that earlier instalment, the discussions were held at Goa
University and, additionally, there was a session convened to discuss Pundalik
Naik’s Acchev/The Upheaval (2002).
That seven years later at the ICG, Goa University’s
presence at the conference could be marked by the official appearance of just
one faculty member from that institution is just as damning of the university
as it is of the organisers. Consider, too, that the conference’s only
recognisable panel on Goa was laughably labelled “Spatializing the Local:
Kolkata, Goa, and the Locality of Space”. As a participant on this panel, I was
thoroughly confused as I wondered how the disparate locales of Goa and Kolkata
were to be bridged during the session – an impossible endeavor, I was to
discover. I was even more concerned as my presentation was about the Goan
diaspora and the Portuguese Empire rather than about the ‘spatializing’ of Goa.
But no matter, as it was quite clear that this was of no consequence to the
organisers.
If the
India Ideas Conclave represented the country’s religious right wing and the
Re-Imagining Theory Conference India’s secular liberals, to both the meeting
point was Goa. The conference I attended concluded on Christmas Eve. To Goans,
Catholic or not, Christmas is a significant date not only due to the religious prominence
it bears for some, but also because it is emblematic of the socio-cultural
fabric of the region. To have an event end right before this occasion
highlights the conference’s aim to use Goa as a destination with the added
promise of local festivities. As with the right wing gathering, the pre-Christmas
academic conference cast Goa as the religious other to India, fixing it once
more as the nation’s pleasure periphery. Perhaps Goa’s failing tourism industry
should take note of the emerging market in fundamentalists and academics.
From The Goan.
