My 'Treason'
© Prakash J. Mascarenhas, Bombay, India.
Prakash Kadam wrote (on my Guestbook):
Saturday 09/14/2002 2:17:29pm
Name: Prakash Kadam
E-Mail: [email protected]
Comments: You are a perverted intellectual. I am also a konkani from Ratnagiri, i dont share your ideas and beware if you do something against our beloved nation, no one will save you. - Prakash
Dear Prakash Kadam,
I saw your interesting post on my guestbook yesterday, and have composed this letter in response to it.
Let me begin by stating clearly that I love India and believe in it. However, perhaps, our conception of what is India differs.
In my website, if you have surfed and checked all the relevant pages, you will find me advocating a new, Federalist Indian Union. I have at no place suggested breaking up India. On the contrary, I firmly believe that a breakup of India will harm all and everybody, even those nations that are dissatisfied by the present setup (dispensation) and seek to secede.
In my pages, I have given a coherent legal and moral logic for not considering the Indian Union's occupation of Portuguese India - presently parcelled out as the four territories of 1. The Anjedive Islands, 2. Dadra & Nagar-Haveli, 3. Daman & Diu and 4. Goa, as being in any way legal or moral; therefore, Portuguese India is not a legal and constitutional part of the Indian Union, but has been merely occupied by it. The same goes for the Kingdom of Sikkim.
On the other hand, I have also given a coherent legal and moral logic for the Indian claim to the former Kingdom of Jammu & Kashmir, disproving the contentions of Pakistan and of the secessionists.
I believe in India. However, I do not believe in untruths and myths. The nationhood of India is one such.
India is not a nation. It is a family of nations. The nation of Maharashtra is one of these nations. Another is our Konkan.
As nations, we share many common things among ourselves, the most important being a dynamic common cultural spirit - call it Indianness, if you will.
However, this logical and real India is much larger than the boundaries of the present Indian Union or even of the British East Indian Empire. It includes the entire East Indies, of which the Indian Sub-Continent is a part.
It includes Pakistan, most of Afghanistan, Iranian Baluchistan, Inner and Outer Tibet, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Burma, Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia (Khamboja), Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia (except West Papua), Timor-Lorosae and the Phillipines.
Unfortunately, most people have not realised this greater unity, and have unimaginatively restrained their world-vision to their particular state, as it happened to be. Thus, we, taking the political boundaries of the British East Indian Empire, have considered this to be the beginning and end of India, and have not seen beyond this.
However, even while this extent of India is true, we have, even within the restricted space of "our" India, totally messed up the situation.
We have not only pretended to be a nation, but we have invented a "national language" and imposed it, to the detriment of many ancient Indian languages. This mythical nationalism has bred dissatisfaction in many of the Indian nations, and they have seen that either the present dispensation must be radically reformed to conform to reality, or that they must, of necessity, secede and become independent.
Because a large portion of people in the central area of the Indian Union have been brainwashed into believing this myth of Indian nationhood, and also because they are largely uneducated and illogical, the prospect of a revolution that could change the present setup to a reformed federalism seems to be, by far the more remote and difficult task, than the option of secession. I see and recognise this fact.
However, it is my belief that the cost of secession - and the inescapable balkanisation that will follow - is far too much greater than the cost of concieving, motivating and nursing along the Federalist Revolution.
If we divide, we will dissipate our energies in fighting among ourselves and will be easy prey for alien mischief-makers. In our unity is our strength.
Let us consider the cases of the individual nations of the Indian Union, which have attempted or are attempting secession, and then let us take up our own case, that of the Konkani nation.
The Sikhs:
The Sikhs, who are the followers of a religion that is practically restricted to the nation of Punjab, too have picked up this idea, and therefore, logically demanded the right to set up their own Sikh nation of "Khalistan."
The Sikhs are not a nation; the Punjabis are. And as a nation, it is divided between India and Pakistan - Hindu and Sikhs on this side of the Partition Line, and Muslims on the other.
In the Indian Union, the native nations are not protected in their own ethnic homelands by the law. The net result of this is the gradual infilteration and colonisation by the Muslims colonists from both without - Pakistan and Bangladesh, and from within, by the Kashmiri Muslims, etc. in the Doda-Kistwar region of Dogranchal, the Kargil & Zanskar regions of Ladakh, Kutch, western Rajasthan along the Great Irrigation Canal, Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura, etc.
In many places, this is getting to be a great provocation, and the utter failure of the Indian system to deal with this problem constitutionally compels many nationalities, such as the Asom, etc. to take to arms to protect themselves from the invaders.
Incidentally, the same thing is happening in the parts of India that were partitioned in 1937 - Sri Lanka and Burma, and 1947 - Bangladesh. Thus, for example, the Tamils were forced to take to arms as a direct result of the moves by the Sri Lankan government to colonize their homeland with Sinhala colonists. In Bangladesh, the Muslim Bengalis have practically colonized the Chakma national homeland into oblivion. In Burma, the Christian nations are being persecuted by the Buddhist Burmese who too are colonizing. And so on.
The Konkan.
As you will be aware, we are an ancient nation. First the Arabs invaded our homeland, then from the interiors, other Muslim invaders came - the Khiljis, Tughlaks, Turks and Mughals. Both the Konkan and Maharashtra (the 'Desh') were dominated by these oppressive foreigners, and therefore, when Shivaji arose to challenge them, both nations joined hands in his endeavour.
Thus, Shivaji drew most of his partisans and troops from the Maolis, the Konkani people dwelling in the hill crests along the borders with Maharashtra. Thus, the Konkanasthas, Brahmins, Kshatriyas, etc. played a crucial role in this endeavour. A Konkani Brahmin from the port city of Shrivardhan, Balaji Vishwanath, became Shivaji's Prime Minister, and later Shivaji's grandson, the king Shahu, made Balaji's family the hereditary Prime Ministers (Peshwas) of his kingdom.
However, in later times, with the decline of the Portuguese power and the rise of the English, the Konkan - Bombay, Ratnagiri, etc. have seen, in the last two hundred years, a flood of Marathi coming in and settling. Today, the Marathi are the majority in many parts, and they dominate the rest. Not satisfied with this, they contemn us as inferior and pretend to be the natives of our land. They arrogantly impose their language and culture on us, and deny us our rights.
All this constitute Cultural and Demographic Genocide of the Konkani nation at the hands of the Marathi.
You say that you are Konkani. You are a Kadam, I assume, a Konkanastha Kshatriya and a descendant of the ancient and illustrious ruling family of the Konkan, the Kadambas. I assume from that that you are patriotic and love your Konkani identity: ethnicity, language, history and culture, our common Konkani heritage. Why then should we, the Konkani, countenance this Genocide? Are we second-class citizens?
I say, in the spirit of the illustrious Shivaji, that enough is enough, and that it is time for us to throw off this oppressive yoke and liberate our land and nation from this slavery.
We must reclaim our homeland, not only Bombay and Goa and Sawantwadi and Malwan and Kudal and Kankavali and Vengurla and Ratnagiri, but the entire Konkan without any exemption. Enough of slavery, it is time for us to reclaim our rightful place in the Indian family of nations.
My effort is not to break up India to create an independent Konkan. My effort is to create a new, renewed, Federalist Indian Union, where all nations are considered equal and protected within their historic homelands.
Such a Federalist Union will obviate the secessionist efforts of most, and will also appeal to the nations whose homelands are presently not a part of the Indian Union, considering that the present Indian Union does not cover even half of the actual India.
Finally, my ideas may seem utopic and unreal, unrealisable. But, though in truth it is difficult to get this movement under way, there is no other way out. The only other option is the Balkanisation of India - its division into some thirty or fourty new, independent states at constant war with each other, and easy prey for our common enemies - Pakistan, China, the USA, etc.
What do you think?
Yours sincerely,
Prakash Mascarenhas