The book - ‘India’s First Democratic Revolution: Dayanand Bandodkar and the Rise of Bahujan in Goa’ by Parag D Parobo, assistant professor, Department of History, Goa University - will be released by Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar, on November 15, at 11 am, at Institute Menezes Braganza, Panaji. Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar will also be present, while Padma Vibhushan awardee and National Research Professor, Dr Raghunath Mashelkar will deliver the keynote address. The book is published by Orient BlackSwan, a prominent Indian academic publishing house, under the series - New Perspectives in South Asian History, University of York, UK.
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Shubhankar Shah
REWRITING HISTORY: Assistant Professor of History (Goa University) Parag
Photo Caption:
Parobo with his soon-to-be-released book - ‘India’s First Democratic Revolution – Dayanand Bandodkar and the Rise of Bahujan in Goa’ - at his residence in Margao
A new perspective will be added to South Asian history with the release of the book ‘India’s First Democratic Revolution – Dayanand Bandodkar and the Rise of Bahujan in Goa,’ an extensive and stringent research work by Parag D Parobo, an assistant professor at the department of History in Goa University. A wonderful result of a tedious, meticulous and persistent process that stretched over five years, this book opens a new chapter in the history of Goa’s Bahujan movement seeded soon after Goa's Liberation in December 1961 – more precisely, during the first panchayat election in October 1962, and then with the first general elections in December 1963 in the Union Territory of Goa, Daman and Diu.
The variations in State policies, implementation and investments are the result of political will and are not predetermined by socio-economic and cultural constrain alone. In what way were Goa’s land reforms different? How different was it for Goa’s education and health sector to have a leader whose vision for Goa was very different from that of Nehru? By the time North India embraced Bahujan politics why did Goa’s Bahujan movement fragment?
"Answers to these questions are important in the broader context as they would help us to understand the transformations which came about in Goa once the fundamentals for continuing economic growth were in place," says Parobo whose soon-to-be-released book highlights these historical introspection. Parobo travelled to libraries and institutions for collecting his data across India and also made a trip to Portugal. His written text had to undergo several reviews, comments and critical appreciation before the content was approved by Indian academic prestigious publishing house, Orient BlackSwan.
His book engages with Goa’s transformation, by exploring the agency of Goa’s first chief minister Dayanand Bandodkar and his policies for democratising Goa. It traces Goa as betwixt and between British and Portuguese colonialisms recounting the reconstruction of castes, emergence of a Bahujan ideology, land reforms, expansion of the social sector and deepening of democracy in a broader pan–Indian context. While, political power has come to the Bahujan dramatically with the very first election, economic power was acquired by destroying the centrality of land in power–privilege relations and liberated tenants from subordination and dependency. The rise of the Bahujan was accelerated by substantial investments in education and health, and employment opportunities opened up for the Bahujan for the first time after the liberation.
“My work locates the early rise of the Bahujan in a broader pan–Indian context for an understanding of South Asian history,” says Parobo pointing out that in Independent India, democracy was immediately captured by the dominant castes, Goa, in contrast propelled the first Bahujan government in 1963, and was the second Legislature to have a non Congress government. This book examines the concept of Bahujan as it emerged in Goa and elaborates on the uniqueness of Goa’s social formation to have a democratic revolution as the State emerged from colonial rule.
Highlighting that Goa features in academic and popular discourse as a place of exceptions, contrary in several ways to national trends, Parobo mentions that along with its small geographical size, Goa’s legacy of Portuguese colonialism is often cited as the leading reason behind its character. “However, such explanations disregard its complex history and fail to address one of its most important distinctions: the fact that it brought to power in the Assembly elections of 1963, a government driven by the Bahujan Samaj; the first of its kind in India. This government was headed by chief minister Dayanand Bandodkar, a lower caste mine owner and philanthropist, whose popularity continued to wax over the next decade,” he cites.
Tackling the question of Goan exceptionalism in India’s First Democratic Revolution, the writer focuses not solely on its Portuguese past, but rather on the variety of influences that shaped modern Goa. Central to this issue are the comparatively little explored story of caste-based land and power relations in pre-colonial and early colonial Goa; emerging caste movements and identity politics among both upper castes and lower castes in the nineteenth and twentieth century and the interactions of caste politics with competing colonialisms, both Portuguese and British.
Parobo traces the history of land relations and caste movements into the post-Liberation period of Bandodkar’s far-reaching land reforms, which destroyed the centrality of land in power-privilege relations, liberated lower caste tenants from crippling dependence on landlords, and opened up new employment opportunities for the Bahujan. Accompanied by substantial investments in education and health, they ushered in greater equity and democratisation. Goa, therefore, scripted a distinctive story of Bahujan success. This volume explores that history, and its implications for Bahujan politics in India.
