Return of the best minds

In crafting Goa’s Vision 2020, some space must be reservedfor its intellectual future. It was in this context that the concern forstaunching the flight of “intellect and educated minds of Goa to other statesand countries” was raised. Furthermore, what are the possible ways in whichthis flight could be reversed in the next eight years? This is a broad frame ofreference, and one whose possibilities would quite understandably not beexhausted within the limits of this article. In addition however, I have toconfess that the perspective I offer would be limited to the immediateexperiences of a professional social scientist. I stress this location fromwhich this article is written to draw attention to two facts. The first, is thedistinction between the social scientist and the (so-called) natural scientist.There may be substantial differences between the requirements for the socialscientist to return and those engaged in the pursuit of the natural (or pure)sciences. For one, it seems that the former are not dependent as are those fromthe natural sciences, on high investment laboratories, depending on moremodest, but regular investments in libraries and working spaces. The seconddistinction I seek to make, is between the professional academic, and thecategories presented to me, that of the intellectual and educated mind. I wouldlike to stress, and the observation cannot be stressed sufficiently, that thecategory of the academic, does not exhaust the possibilities of intellectualsand educated minds. Thus in Goa, we could have the flight of both, theacademically inclined, as well as intellectually inclined and educated minds.The reasons for both may be quite different and we perhaps, need to be aware ofboth. With these caveats in place we could possibly address the two questionsthat should animate this article; why do people leave? Why do they not comeback?

A good amount of the flight from Goa begins with departurefor further education, starting at times with the search for a solid Bachelor’sdegree. For those who are academically inclined, this departure often signifiesthe start of a much longer journey further afield for the Master’s degree andpossibly a Doctoral degree and then subsequently post-Doctoral opportunities.At the very outset it needs to be stressed that this departure for furthereducation is not unique to Goa. It is a feature of spaces across India andindeed, across the world. Departure from one’s natal environment for a periodis good. It needs to be encouraged. In addition to providing exposure, itallows one the opportunity to internalize the fact that there are multiple waysof understanding the world, not merely the one we learned within our natalenvironments.

All too often, one of the recommended routes to prevent“brain drain” is to ensure some form of self-sufficiency, thus ensuring allmanner of higher education possibilities. While this is a welcome development,what we should also remember is that self-sufficiency is not always thebrilliant option it is trotted out to be. Indeed, one need only take a leaffrom Dr Ambedkar’s view of the Gandhian option of village self-sufficiency. Forthe upper-caste Gandhi, self-sufficiency was the ideal situation, for the DalitAmbedkar self-sufficiency translated to local tyranny. Self-sufficiency cantherefore be suffocating, if this creation of educational options is notaccompanied simultaneously by an embrace of the outside.

If departure is not necessarily a problem, then it stands toreason that the problem is the failure, or the disinclination to return. Thereare two standard responses to this challenge; one is to offer larger amounts ofmoney as a carrot to encourage persons to return; and the second is to set upwhat are called “global centres of excellence”. I would like to suggest thatboth these solutions may perhaps miss the mark in terms of addressing theproblem of a failure to return. To be sure, money can very often be a goodreason for a person to return. However, for the truly promising academic, moneyis often not the only consideration. What is also critical is the ability towork in a stimulating environment surrounded by colleagues who challenge one tohigher standards of work. If a person is attracted by money alone, then we maypossibly be dealing with a person for whom the establishment of a commonculture of inquiry is not the first priority. Similarly the route of establishingthese “global centres of excellence” seems to be grabbing the wrong end of thestick. Centres become global centres of excellence as a result of the manner inwhich they operate and every centre must aspire to these standards, increasingin the process, the quality of education and research within the territory.

If I were asked to present just one reason why Goa is notthe site of return by either academics or other educated minds, it lies inidentifying the reason in the manner in which Goa is imagined. Ambitiousacademic and educated minds flock to centres, not to peripheries. Centres areimagined as the place where things are happening, where the ether is abuzz withideas and opportunities. It is the locus where the outside is invited to comein, and then radiate outward from that central location. Peripheries on theother hand are the opposite of these centres, they exist in a queerrelationship with centres, where they provide their material, and they receivefrom the centre. Goa’s problem is that it is seen as a periphery and imaginedby its people in ways that prevent it from becoming a centre. Thus take forexample the fact that it is not as if Goa does not attract the “educated mind”.On the contrary, for its size, Goa is actually awash with academics of allsorts, who have either chosen to retire here, or use it as a base for theirsecond home. Thus the problem is that it is imagined, not as a place where theycould work, but as a place for rest and relaxation. And the problem is not thatit is these non-Goan academics wish to see Goa in this manner. On the contrary,a significant academic of Indian origin who has enjoyed a fairly internationalcareer, was rumoured to have been grumbling that after having lived for Goa foraround six years, he had not once been asked to engage intellectually with theacademic community. The fault then, dear Goans,” is not in our stars, but inourselves, that we are underlings.” This is to say therefore, that if there isone way to attract the intellectual and educated mind, and not merely those forwhom Goa was a natal space, then it is this imagination of Goa that would haveto change.

Ever since its integration into the Indian Union, Goans,including the most (Indian) nationalistically inclined, have imagined Goa as asmall space, a space under threat, and a space for Goans alone.  Forgotten is Goa’s history as an importantnode, a sub-imperial centre, in a global system. A Goa that was open to all, aGoa that profited from their presence, even as these ‘outsiders’ profited frombeing in Goa. While there may have existed a threat in those early yearsfollowing integration, this definition of Goa, and the maintenance of thethreat perception has enabled not the resolution of the problems that Goafaces, but  the maintenance of amind-control over the Goan public sphere by a handful of economic and casteelites.

The most pertinent example that could perhaps be afforded inthe present context, of the tragic manner in which Goa has been defined, andthis mind-control exercised, is the manner in which those associated with theGoa University rejected the option presented before it, of being awarded aCentral University status. Foregone in this rejection, were the possibilitiesfor greater funding, for the necessary compliance with more exacting academicstandards, and an opening for students and faculty from outside the state tobring in their wealth of experience to the largely forlorn Goa University. Thearguments that were forwarded for rejecting this possibility, were that if theGoa University were to get Central University status, it would be the Goans whowould get sidelined.  If one is to creditthe rumblings of discontent by those from within the University who welcomedthe transformation of the University however, one gains a different impression.One would learn that the real reasons were the fear that the less-than-rigorousdefinitions of merit, processes of nepotism and the fear of losing control overthe productions of mythologies that often pass off for social science. It turnsout then, that it was not Goans as a group that would have been sidelined, butrather the domestic cliques that control and limit the intellectual culture ofGoa that would have been sidelined.

Jason Keith Fernandes is a doctoral student studying thecitizenship experiences of Goan Catholics at ISCTE-IUL, Lisbon. Interested inpostcolonial theory, he has traversed a variety of disciplinary boundariesincluding, law, sociology of law and cultural studies. In keeping with hisnom-de plume ‘The Itinerant Mendicant’, he is often away from Goa, butmaintains his links with the Goan public sphere through his op-ed columns in avariety of newspapers that are archived at www.dervishnotes.blogspot.com