By Tomazinho Cardozo
In the past, Goans used to live as a community wherever they settled, in Goa as well as in other parts of the world. However, today, the concept of the word ‘community’ has changed. Today, more than ‘Goan community’ we prefer to call ourselves ‘Goan Hindu community’ or ‘Goan Christian Community’ or ‘Goan Muslim community’.
The segregation of the Goan community does not stop here. We are proud to be called the Saraswat community, the Bhandari community, the Kharvi community, etc, and by doing so we are strengthening the divisive walls between us.
A community is a human group living in a definite locality characterized by one common life. Community sentiment is the feeling of unity among its members. Community sentiment arises naturally among people who spend a common life, live together, speak a common language, accept the same customs and traditions and share a common goal and interest. Its intensity differs in different communities, and among different members of the same community.
In a rural community, villagers help each other in various ways. They participate in all important occasions. They are present at marriages, deaths and births. They celebrate festivals together and jointly face calamities that descend upon the village. Thus a sense of brotherhood is generated among the villagers. They tend to identify with each other’s joys and sorrow. This attitude is community sentiment. Due to this people sacrifice their own little interests for the interests of the community and begin to look upon the good of the community as their own good.
The most important element in community sentiment is the ‘we feeling’. As a result, an individual, instead of regarding himself as separate from others, identifies himself with the people of the community. The people look upon the pain or pleasure of community members as their own. The fundamental cause for this feeling is a similarity of interests.
‘Role feeling’ is another factor that strengthens community sentiments. In the community, every individual has a definite role to play as per his/her status. They make contribution towards the working of the community in accordance with this status. The community sentiment inevitably induces this desire for contribution because this is a part of the community sentiment. As a result, an individual looks upon himself as a specific part of society and shoulders responsibility in accordance with his status.
The third element of the community sentiment is the sense of dependence. An individual believes he is dependent on community and denies his existence apart from community. It is the sense of dependence that stops him from objecting to any designs the society has on him, and he always tries to work in its favour.
There is no doubt that community sentiments are great forces, which can be positively used for the betterment of the whole Goan community provided we inculcate ‘Goan community’ sentiments within us. Unfortunately, our vision has narrowed to such an extent that we are unable to recognise what exists beyond the boundaries of our religion, and caste. It is for this reason that today’s politics is also based on the influence of these small communities.
A political party will nominate a Hindu candidate to contest an election in a constituency that has a majority of Hindu community. In the same manner, constituencies having more Christian voters will have Christian candidates. If members belonging to Bhandari community are influential in a constituency, a political party gives preference to a candidate belonging to Bhandari community to contest the election from there. The same thing happens when the Kharvi community or other communities have significant influence in a particular constituency. The elected members, in the capacity of MLAs and ministers, then set themselves in motion. They go all out to support the welfare of their respective communities. The Goan community as a whole does not figure anywhere in their agenda. This attitude of our political leaders is disastrous in nature and instead of uniting all Goans under one umbrella they promote disintegration.
It is high time we worked selflessly towards building a strong Goan community instead of wasting our precious efforts in promoting communities based on religion and caste. True, living within the walls of small communities benefits the political future of certain individuals, but it will definitely ruin Goa. Our political leadership must realise that all sections of the Goan society progress as the ‘Goan community’ and not as communities based on religion and caste. Such an attitude will also help Goans to be a part and parcel of the Indian community, which believes in unity in diversity. This mindset needs to be changed and this process should begin with the political, social, religious and other leaders of society.
