Saturday, March 22, 2014

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OP-ED
Some fan of Modi in the party wanted to remind the voters of the great leaders virtues 7% of Goas convicts are now foreigners, against a national average of less than 2%, and second only to West Bengal For views, opinions and more, mail us: letters@thegoan.net

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Managing foreigners
A view from afar
Constantino Xavier

Culture of lies and subterfuge

Unwinding culture
Teotonio R de Souza

s Goa emerges as a global tourist and expatriate hub, the state is prone to get entangled in a variety of diplomatic disputes. To reduce this negative impact, India will need to revamp its structure to attract, manage, and deport foreigners with greater efficiency. In November last year, after a Nigerian was killed in Goa under mysterious circumstances, dozens of his compatriots staged a violent protest that blocked a national highway. The dispute escalated as a local minister called the African community a cancer, the government promised a crackdown and massive deportation, and a Nigerian diplomat responded by threatening to expel the Indian community in Nigeria. More recently, in February, an Indo-Russian music festival was banned in Goa following a scuffle between taxi operators and Russian tourists, following which a Russian diplomat warned that the traditional cooperation between Russia and India had been compromised. Once again, Delhis South Block went into crisis mode. Both cases highlight how localized incidents involving foreigners can rapidly escalate into damaging disagreements that put Goa, Delhi and foreign governments on a collision course, affecting Indias foreign relations and image as a hospitable destination. Indeed, Goa has all the ingredients for many more such explosive diplomatic cocktails. Besides Nigerians and Russians, there are also thousands of Israelis, British and other Europeans who visit the state annually, and some 7,000 Portuguese nationals reside in India, most of which in Goa. As with any other global mass tourist destination, this has fueled a crime nexus including drug and human trafficking, illegal land acquisitions, and corruption of key governance structures that regularly attract international media attention. Big cities like Delhi, Mumbai or Bangalore have had their own challenges in dealing with rapid globalization of their respective populations, but the case of Goa is extraordinary in terms of scale. In 2012, a record 450,000 foreign tourists arrived in the state, half of which on almost one thousand charters mostly from Russia. Many without a proper visa were reportedly issued landing permits, which could have grave security implications. 7% of Goas convicts are now foreigners, against a national average of less than 2%, and second only to West Bengal. 10% of Goas undertrials are foreigners, five times higher than the national average. And between 2005 and 2011, almost half of all foreign deaths registered in Goa were of unnatural causes. Besides short-term visitors, more than 5,000 foreigners from over 60 countries now reside in Goa on a variety of visas. As Goas global tourist profile expands and an increasing number of foreigners reside in the state, there are a few challenges that must be address in order to avoid further damage control exercises and negative diplomatic repercussions. First, control must start at the source, with Indias foreign missions. Immigration and visa regulations are clear and cumbersome, but Indian diplomats retain significant discretionary power that must be checked to curb the number of fraudulent applications and visa rackets. Second, a more efficient monitoring system must keep track of the foreign population in Goa. Upgrading the registration office previously under local state and police control to a full-fledged FRRO under the Home Ministry in 2012 was a first positive step in this regard, but much more is needed. Third, greater crisis-mode liaison must be ensured in the complex structure involving the local state government and police authorities, the central ministries of external and home affairs, and the foreign diplomatic missions involved. Other countries should be encouraged to follow the example of Russia, which recently appointed an honorary consul in the state. Finally, efficient law enforcement must ensure that foreigners that violate local laws, whether by overstaying or committing a crime, are accorded proper punition and eventual deportation. In 2012, the Indian government identified over 71,000 foreigners to be overstaying, including well over a thousand American, British and Nigerian citizens. But with a paltry penalty of a few dozen dollars, an overburdened immigration bureaucracy, and a complex deportation process, theres hardly any incentive for foreigners to comply with the law of the land. If unchecked, especially in Goa, such mismanagement will continue to cost Indian diplomacy dearly.
Constantino Xavier is a Portuguese of Goan and German origin who was made in Brazil, lives in Washington D.C., and tweets at @ConstantinoX

ll humans tell lies, and there is even a category of the socalled white lies, but only those who make it a habit we usually call liars. Lies may represent our insecurity, but they also represent arrogance in those who have power. Lies may be a strategy of survival , but they are also used as a strategy to dominate. We could identify a vast gamut of lies, which depending upon circunstantes and contexts, may even serve to buttress the truth or to promote good intentions. Without willing to be sarcastic, could we call it the wealth of the human culture? Most of the readers will be familiar with George Orwells The Animal Farm, a metaphor that was applied to the culture of double-talk in the Soviet Russia during the Cold War. But Lenins strategy that made possible the success of the Bolsheviks was also based on control of media. The opponents were given an impression that the whole country was already under the control of the soviets, at a time when they only controlled the main centres of transport and communications. The Bolshevik revolution of October 25 was anything but a bloody coup. The fascist regimes in Europe followed similar strategies to mobilise mass support and de-

A more positive contribution to mankind was the creation of Red Cross services. It is something the West learnt from the Turkish tradition of Red Crescent
veloped sophisticated propaganda machineries. Even the Portuguese brand of fascism had its Department called SNP (Sociedade Nacional de Propaganda), which was later replaced with SNI (Sociedade Nacional de Informao). It was led by Antnio Ferro till 1949 (the surname sounds meaningful in the context). He developed a cultural policy for the New State of Salazar. It came to known as poltica de esprito. Shall we call it a spirited politics? It was largely aimed at transmitting abroad the image of a happy rural people of Portugal. Arquitecture, cinema, theatre and music (fado and marchas populares) were exploited for this purpose, and strangely continue to be hailed till today as Portuguese national heritage. Also the so-called Portuguese Philosophy has hardly evolved much beyond that spirited politics, despite Ferros attempts to attract the collaboration of some better known art and language cultivators, such as Almada Negreiros and Fernando Pes-

soa, whose ideological stands were at odds with that of the New State. Curiously, and contrary to the popular reading of the Salazar regime as favouring 3 Fs, namely Fatima, Fado and Futebol, the recent research has no evidence to prove that Salazar ever associated himself personally with any Portuguese Football Club or their activity. The most popular SLB (Sport Lisboa e Benfica) had to even replace the designation of vermelhos (red) with encarnados (rosy, crimson) to avoid being victim of the PVDEDGS surveillance of the communists (reds). The Club had to stop singing its first anthem composed by Felix Bermudez, because it began with the word Avante (= forward), as was titled the clandestine bulletin of the Portuguese Communist Party. The propaganda machineries are aimed at gaining the collaboration of the unwary or insufficiently informed. They fuel nationalisms and patriotisms, to mobilise masses to carry out orders without fully understanding their implications and consequences. They also serve to coerce and subdue those who refuse to fall in line. History is filled with illustrations of these exercises, confirming the dictum that history repeats itself. It only means that human nature has its natural reactions to threats to its goals and wishes. The most recent Crimean crisis takes us back to the Balaclava war of 1854, in which the dominant imperial Anglo-French forces, joined by Turkish forces, sought to stop Russians from

gaining foothold in Crimea. Tennysons Charge of the Light Brigade, which ended disgracefully in the valley of death has not been very popular with British public and remains unknown except to literary scholars. Instead of champagne dinner, Tennyson would have to opt now for a vodka dinner. What continues fixed in the language and practice is the use of balaclava which serves to mask the assault forces. A more positive contribution to mankind was the creation of Red Cross services. It is something the West learnt from the Turkish tradition of Red Crescent. Earlier, the West (including Portugal) had learnt from the Muslims tradition of zakat to set up Misericordias, the confraternities of the Holy House of Mercy. Goa had a similar system of assistance to the urban poor already in the 12th century. All ships involved in national and international trade entering the port of Goa had to contribute a zakat to the city mosque to assist the city poor. Mankind continues stuck in its culture of lies. Those with more power lecture to others. USA -EU combine and Russia are presently engaged in a match of denouncing each others 10 lies, while both sides have many skeletons to hide.
Teotonio R. de Souza is the founder-director, Xavier Centre of Historical Research, Goa (19791994). He presently resides in Portugal, where he is a University Professor and Fellow of the Portuguese Academy of History since 1983 and tweets @ramkamat

Modis incorruptibility: what WikiLeaks cable actually said

Spotlight
Ashish Mehta

ay back in 2007, when few saw a future for Narendra Modi as bright as it has turned out to be now, he used a funny one-liner in the assembly election campaign: Hun khato nathi ane khava deto nathi (neither do I eat that is, take bribes, nor do I let anyone else do so). Everywhere you saw, there were posters and hoardings with his photo and this slogan. Unlike claims made during poll campaigns go, this was a credible one. At least, the only opposition around, the Congress, had no way of countering it. Amarsinh Chowdhary, a former chief minister who was the leader of opposition in the eventful year of 2002, used to say in public that the Modi is not corrupt of course, the late politician used to say so in the tone of there are hundred things wrong with this man, with only one exception. Manoharsinh Jadeja, a Congress politician from Rajkot,

would repeat the same party line to a US diplomat in 2006, the conversation would be captured in a confidential diplomatic memo, and the memo would be leaked by WikiLeaks. Thus, in March 2011, when The Hindu published the India Cables, the headline highlighted Modis incorruptibility. Who was saying this? Modi on his blog thought it was coming from the US itself. Wikileaks cables are accurate. I am glad to learn that America admits Modi is incorruptible, he said, according to his blog. That was back then. In the current campaign, some fan of Modi in the party wanted to remind the voters of the great leaders virtues, and thus came the tweet that nobody less than the ultimate whistleblower Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, himself says Modi is incorruptible. America fears Modi because they know Modi is incorruptible runs the line in the tweet with a picture of Assange and what looks like his signature. This led to a mi-

nor farce with the international organization tweeting that Assange had never said anything like that. To which, BJP spokesperson Mukhtar Abbas Naqvis response was, we dont need certificate from Assange. Though he didnt explain why Modi bragged about it back then. Like everything else in politics, there are two ways to respond to the WikiLeak content, and that depends on who you are rooting for. When the content is in favour of your favourite leader, you can say that now even the US or WikiLeaks (or the actual source of information) says so. That is the Modi scenario. But before responding in one way or the other, it would also make sense to read through the whole cable and not just what the apparently secular Hindu newspaper put in its reports. Here is the stuff from the cable that for some reason did not make it to incorruptible Modi report published in the Hindu [the original here, courtesy the Hindu again: He has successfully cultivated the image of a clean politician who has reduced corruption in public life in Gujarat. Views differ on how clean and non-corrupt Modi actually is,

however. Thus, the endorsement, dear reader, is not coming from the US, WikiLeaks, Assange or the Congress. This is Modi endorsing Modi. Yet, All our interlocutors acknowledge that Modi is a modest man who, unlike many elected officials in India, has not used his position to enrich himself or his family. Most contacts also say that he has purged the state administration of petty corruption at the mid- and lower levels of the bureaucracy. However, several people tell us that big ticket corruption is still common. Now comes the meaty party, which has (or lacks) as much truth value as Modi-is-incorruptible line. Journalist Javed Rahmatullah claimed that Reliance Industries Ltd. (RIL) paid a large bribe for permission to expand its refinery in Jamnagar. The money went into the BJPs party coffers, Rahmatullah claimed, and not to Modi or any other individual. Other contacts have told us that business money flows to the BJP in Gujarat, but nobody had been this specific. We have been unable to verify Rahmatullahs claim.
Ashish Mehta is deputy editor with Governance Now