By Tomazinho Cardozo
The two major communities of Goa are Hindus and Christians. Muslims also form a part of Goan society. Communal harmony among these three communities, even during the Portuguese era, was noteworthy.
It is only in the present times that Goa has witnessed few incidents of communal violence. Although communal harmony does prevail in the state of Goa yet, I feel, today there is a need for making extra efforts in preserving, strengthening and promoting communal harmony.
The need to act consciously in this direction arises because of certain elements in and out of Goa who cannot afford to see Goa as communally harmonious destination. So they stir up religious feelings among the people, create hatred against another community in their minds and try to disturb the peaceful social atmosphere of Goa. Hence to face this threat with determination, all secular minded people must come forward to devise ways and means to defeat these evil forces and strengthen our traditional communal harmony. Being from the cultural field, particularly the performing arts, I feel performing arts can be effectively used to bring in cultural unity among Goans, which in turn will fortify our communal harmony.
Goans must admit that we do not have cultural unity among ourselves and that we do not make any concerted attempts in that direction. The concrete examples of this situation are observed at every step of our so called cultural advancement. Majority of the Christian community do not attend ‘nattoks’ (dramas) staged by Hindu artistes while majority of the Hindu community do not patronise Tiatrs staged by Christian artistes. The programmes presented by Christian artistes on Radio or Television are not listened to by most Hindus and vice versa. Kala Academy Goa started the yearly tiatr competition way back in 1974. So far 37 Tiatr Festivals have been organised in the last 37 years. Till today Tiatr has not succeeded in attracting a Hindu audience, although many artistes from the Hindu community participate in the production of tiatrs, including acting. In 1975, Kala Academy started the Konkani drama festival. In the last 36 years, Konkani drama too has failed to attract the Christian community. Kala Academy and other institutions organise various folk cultural activities which are patronised by Hindus only while Goa Cultural and Social Centre, Panaji, which has been organising the Mando Festival and other cultural activities since 1963, is supported by Christians only. The same thing happens in Konkani films too. A film produced by Rajendra Talak attracts Hindu audience likewise a film produced by Prince Jacob attracts Christian audience. Nevertheless the Konkani film ‘O Maria’ by Rajendra Talak attracted a huge Christian audience mainly because the story of the film was based on a Goan Catholic family, but a Hindi film produced by any producer attracts all communities – Hindus, Christians and Muslims - in Goa.
The aim in highlighting this attitude of Goans towards our cultural programmes is only to focus on the need to amend our ways so that our acts contribute to the betterment of Goa and Goan society.
I am of the firm opinion that to strengthen communal harmony in Goa we will have to go all out to first achieve cultural unity among Goans. Can we visualise a situation where Hindus and Christian artistes organise a drama/tiatr or cinema or any other activity collectively and the performance is witnessed by Hindus and Christians and Muslims together at the same time in the same auditorium? Yes we can definitely achieve that goal provided determined efforts are made by all concerned, including the government and its cultural institutions.
Few suggestions that come to my mind are: The government may provide separate budget for cultural activities aimed at strengthening cultural unity among Goans. Attractive financial incentives may be given to the artistes/cultural troupes to produce selected programmes in which Hindu and Christian artistes participate in equal measure. The themes of such programmes should be such that it is totally secular in nature and that it is acceptable to all sections of the society. Production of Konkani cinema of this nature too may be given additional financial benefits. The concerned authorities may float competitions in various performing arts forms so that a competitive spirit for cultural unity is created among Goan artistes vis-à-vis among the Goan people.
Through cultural unity we will be in a position to begin the process of opening our closed mind-sets. In fact this is the need of the hour. Such efforts will bring Goans closer to each other’s culture, they will begin to like and ultimately love each others’ cultural forms. Love is the greatest factor between various communities. The Government will do the greatest service to the Goan society if it invests sincerely in achieving cultural unity among Goans, which in turn will help in projecting Goa as a communally harmonious state in the true sense of the word.
