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Democracy as politics of pop culture

https://shar.es/1euJTu 

Teotonio R. de Souza

It is commendable that the Goa University has come of age and entered the phase of creating

research chairs [http://ow.ly/4nbKEv]. DD Kosambi chair, DB Bandodkar chair, Mario Miranda

chair, Anthony Gonsalves chair, “Nana” Shirgaonkar chair, and the latest, JH Cunha Rivara

chair. With the exception of the last mentioned chair, almost all the others tend to honour

popular personalities of Goan culture in its various aspects. Also Cunha Rivara, a high ranking

colonial administrator during two decades as Secretary of the Estado da Índia, was intelligent

to combine colonial interests with the promotion of vernacular literature.

The Goans need to be proud of DD Kosambi, recognized as a tall figure in the academicresearch at the national level. He focused his research about Goan past in a way that sought to

redeem it from the colonial underpinnings. He saw Goa’s past as integrated in the culture of

the Indian subcontinent, and as ongoing struggle of people to develop their potentialities. This

was very different from viewing Goan history as made of chapters of the national histories of

the colonial powers. It implied researching and writing histories of the unlettered – men and

women who produce goods and services, not documents.

Getting back to the chairs in Goa University or any other University, what culture do these

high-sounding अधासन  (adhyasan / upadeshasan) represent? Do they truly represent a tribute

to the personalities they seek to honour and fulfill their life objectives of reaching the

common folk? Does folk culture need a chair?

Mario Miranda I know was a shy person and would hardly feel comfortable in or before a

professorial chair. He left Mumbai and retired in his village home in Loutolim. He felt most at

ease reaching the public through his cartoons and sketches of Goans in their Sunday’s best.

The same could be said of most others chosen for honour through GU “chairs”. DB Bandodkar

was probably more relaxed at playing table-tennis, than on CM’s chair in the State Assembly. 

All peoples have their folk culture, high culture and popular culture. The folk culture

represents a lifestyle, that is generally conservative, characteristic of rural life.

Radical innovation is generally discouraged. Group members are expected to

conform to traditional modes of behavior adopted by the community. Folk culture islocal in orientation, and non-commercial.

In short, folk culture looks for stability, whereas popular culture represents an itch

that looks for novelties and fashions, something that draws attention. It is a sort of

a disease of the middle class that seeks to combine its folk roots with the ambition

of the newly rich to rub shoulders with the upper and erudite social groups

representing the high culture. 

High culture is not mass produced, nor meant for mass consumption. It belongs to

the elites; the fine arts, opera, theatre, and high intellectualism are associated with

the upper socioeconomic classes. Items of high culture often require extensive

experience, training, or reflection to be appreciated. Such items seldom cross overto the pop culture domain as a ordinary lifestyle. The elites tend generally to look

down upon the pop culture as superficial and worn loosely, when compared to the

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sophistication of high culture. The University chairs discussed here fit better in the

category of high culture. 

The best way of remembering and celebrating the memory and contribution of the

personalities that distinguished themselves in enriching the Goan culture would be

through ways of reaching the common folk, rather than obliging those interested in

listening to the guest-speakers in the isolated precincts on the Dona Paula heights.That could take the form of extra-mural or extension programmes in rural setting,

conducted in vernacular languages, and aimed at providing the common people

with useful knowledge and skills for improving their lifestyle.

Rabindranth Tagore, our gurudev , had launched his model of a University and

higher education for India at his Vishwabharati as Shanti Niketan. But his

inspiration has almost fizzled out beneath the weight of Nehru’s favoured cathedrals

for independent India, namely the heavy industry and educational institutions to

support its growth. That may have given the country a technological edge, but the

country is regressing at the social level, widening the divide between the elites and

the masses.

The political leadership has the responsibility of shaping the socioeconomic

structures that are conducive to people’s welfare. In Goa, DB Bandokar represented

a positive breakthrough along these lines, but lately we are facing a return to the

politics that mimic democracy, making it a political version of pop culture. Votes

matter, the masses need to be pampered with electoral promises and short-term

rural projects that help winning elections.

Swachh Bharat  campaign should be seen in less traffic chaos and pollution in urban

areas, and better sanitation and hygienic conditions in rural areas, where poor folks

could do with more patth (toilets) in their homes to avoid messing porsakodde.

Anthony Gonsalves and Nana Shirgaonkar would be happier to know that their

cantaram (tiatr songs) and bhajana (devotional songs) have brought more joy to

the common folks, than the high-fallutin upadeshasan (chairs).