'A Delicate Synthesis of Hinduism and Christianity'

[Guest guest]

GOA, India (April 18, 2004) - Unknown to most people in the country,

there is a tiny corner of India where Bharatiyata, or an Indian

identity in all its multi-layered splendour, has struck deep and

robust roots.

 

Despite the terrible vicissitudes of its history during the 450

years of Portuguese colonial rule -- mass conversions, the

Inquisition, the Edict of 1736 and the Salazar dictatorship -- Goa

has so far managed to remain free of communal conflict.

 

In its stead you find a unique, if delicate, synthesis of Hinduism

and Christianity, of Indian tradition and European modernity at all

levels of society.

 

All of this has now been chronicled in Maria Aurora Couto's

magisterial "GOA: A DAUGHTER'S STORY" (Penguin/Viking). With

material drawn from family chronicles, archives, literature, art,

gastronomy, music, the author -- a distinguished teacher of English

literature and a specialist on Graham Greene -- celebrates pluralism

and the cosmopolitan spirit in her native state. Her verve and

sensitivity command instant respect.

 

So do her intellectual rigour and honesty. While Ms Couto is

unsparing in her criticism of the havoc wrecked on Hindus by the

proselytising zeal of the Portuguese colonialists, she makes a

persuasive case to debunk the thesis that people converted primarily

out of fear or inducement. The motives, she argues, were both

temporal and spiritual. Conversion doubtless offered the possibility

of retaining ownership of land, gaining access to modern education

and European culture and joining the professional classes, but

Christ's message also provided hope of salvation and an escape from

an unequal social order.

 

However, regardless of official pressure, notably after the

promulgation of the Edict, the Christians, and especially the

Saraswat Brahmin converts, continued to adhere to ancestral

traditions and rituals, to engage in indigenous cultural practices

and, not least, to actively cooperate with their Hindu caste fellows

in a wide range of activities, including the building of temples in

areas outside Portuguese jurisdiction.

 

Significant in this respect is how the two communities jointly

celebrate the traditional feast of the Milagres Saibin generally in

the third week of Easter. Milagres Saibin is the Virgin Mary of the

Christians who the Hindus worship as Shanta Durga or Santeri. It is

this Goddess who provides the bridge between Christian and Hindu

traditions.

 

According to Ms Couto, it is not uncommon for Christian families to

seek the blessings of the kuldevata and the gramdevata of their

ancestors on special occasions such as marriage. The marriage

ceremony itself includes several Hindu rituals.

 

All this has enabled the Christians in Goa to evolve its

distinctive cultural consciousness. Some of the most moving passages

in the book concern those Hindus who refused to convert and yet,

braving all kinds of threats and pressures, chose to remain in Goa .

They excelled in the professions and particularly in trade and

commerce. Their contribution to the arts and to Konkani literature

and journalism inspired Goans of both communities in the darkest

period of colonial rule.

 

Maria Couto is rightly concerned about the VHP's designs in the

state. But she ends her book on a reassuring note. Forces of bigotry

and divisiveness, she asserts, will not succeed precisely because of

what continues to prevail in Goa: "A recreation of myth in a soil

reclaimed, nourished by Indian traditions and the streams of history

which connected India and Europe, Hinduism and Christianity, and

after 1961 the challenge of establishing a liberal democracy within

which the cosmopolitanism and harmony of our past is preserved."

 

In Goa , a daughter's story you find a definition of Bharatiyata

which does the Republic proud.

 

SOURCE: The Times of Indian, "Ode to pluralism," TALKING

TERMS/DILEEP PADGAONKAR [sUNDAY, APRIL 18, 2004 12:34:56 AM]

URL: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/623479.cms