Losing traditions, losing land

A friend invited me to a 'bhikareanchem jevonn' the other day.  For the few who might not know, the term literally would translate to a "beggar's meal".  Till very recently, one might not have felt flattered to even be invited for such an event.

As sociologist Biula V Cruz e Pereira explains (in her book One For The Road): "Both the Hindu as well as the Catholic communities have a tradition of offering a meal in honour of the departed souls of the family....  Among the Catholics, certain people from the village are specially invited for this meal to represent departed souls of members of the host family.  They have to match the age and gender of the dead member of the family.  They are fed in the belief that the dead souls of the family are being appeased.  Though it is called bhikream-jevonn, the special invitees are not ‘regular’ beggars but poor people from the village specially invited for the occasion." But times do change....  Today, beggars have largely vanished from many villages.  Each village had its own, till about the 1970s.  Urban poverty remains though, and visibly so.

That reality apart, you can imagine that the crowd showing up at the 'bhikareanchem jevonn' was markedly different.  A former school principal, IT gurus, accomplished entrepreneurs and scions of industry, retired folk, plus this columnist (though, strictly speaking, not entitled to) joined the event organised by the Comunidade of Goltim, on the island of Divar.

Besides prayers and fellowship, the comunidade of Goltim-Divar last weekend decided to organise the Bhikareanchem Jevonn.  There was no seating on the floor.  But the spirit of generosity was there -- a money-drop box was kept to pay collaboratively.  In the "one for all, all for one" spirit, as Luis D'Souza put it.  The popular and reputed restaurateur who runs Venite in Panaji's Sao Tome locality, Luis was one of the moving spirits behind this event.

Apart from who participated, the food came across as rather authentic.  The jevonn was prepared by a local, Nazareth, the son of the well-known late Lia, known for her traditional style cooking.  He was supported by his wife and sis-in-law.  On the menu was brown 'korgut' rice, sambarachi kodi, tendli torkari, pumpkin melgor, toillo bangddo (mackeral) and onn (aka vonn).

It's strange how we change our perceptions of things from the past.  Yesterday, nobody might want to be seen at such an event; today, we're ready to queue up for it.  But that's changing times for you.

We see our cultural, social and even religious events are getting all so commercialised these days.  Filmmaker Fernando Cabral e Sa pointed out when we exchanged a few words briefly, how all the festivals have come to look like the same, and almost indistinguishable.  In such a context, the need for authenticity is all the more strongly felt.

So this was the island comunidade's attempt at building community.  If they did so to create an event everyone wouldn't forget, they made a strong point.

But it was not just tasty traditional food and memories.  In between, a video locally recorded spoke of the changing situation of the comunidades in Goa.  An architect-lawyer outlined her work to understand and salvage the hard-pressed khazan lands of Goa.

These crucial lands lie below sea-level in high-tide, and have been reclaimed over the centuries through the hard work and collaborative functioning of so many.  Many years ago, the Goa Assembly was told that riverine 'bund' walls stretched for something like 2,000 (two thousand) kilometres all over Goa!  You can imagine how important these are for island areas, but not just those.

One breach in the bunds, and the results could be disastrous for many hundreds of hectares of land.  Yet, we are losing the skills, and collaborative team work to keep these technological marvels of the past standing. There are even wider issues coming up here.  As land prices get headed to all-time highs (which will keep growing, undoubtedly), the comunidades and all the land assets they are sitting on have become sitting ducks.

This is not an entirely new trend.  Even in the 1960s, the comunidades were being closely looked at.  Goa's land-speculation driven politics was in play then too, but not as aggressively.  Someone likened the comunidades to zamindari! Enfeebling and decimating these institutions, have, over time, been effectively brought to their knees through controversial and politicised 'land reforms'.

But, now, a range of politicians, from New Delhi to Panaji and your village panchayat, have got into the queue to make a killing on these resources built up over generations.  Locals do not understand enough of the process, or how the institutions are being subjugated.

Yet, slowly, even among the people, there is a "resurgence" in the comunidades, as the engineer-technologist Aulio Martins argued.

Those trying to preserve what remains have a tough job on hand.  The other side has huge stakes in taking the destruction ahead.  Goa clearly remembers the dubious attempts at creating a quizically-named 'bhoomiputra' land law.  Through this, squatters on land would have been empowered, so as to create vote banks.

That attempted law were fortunately given up, after the duplicity over the intended law was clearly extended.  But, already, our political class is talking about the State taking over "properties of persons who die without legal heirs, and properties having no rightful owner".  This seems rather unprecedented and bizarre.

What does this mean in a State which has had such high levels of outmigration?  Where women have property rights too, which sometimes makes family property difficult to agree over?

Only few have taken the time and trouble to understand how a people can be openly and nakedly disenfranchised in their own land.  Building awareness might be the first step in this direction; but time is short.  Plus, the stakes are ultra high for those who know why they do what they do!