For a community which is perhaps among the least caste-conscious in India, the Goan Catholic tends to get lambasted about its "casteism" all too often, quite strongly, and undeservedly. Why this happens is a story in itself, worthy of being understood and dissected.
Before going further, let's get one thing clear. Catholics in Goa are not all free of caste sentiments. Scratch below the surface, and one can see traces of it emerge. But, relatively speaking, the encoded feelings of superiority and inferiority are not so deeply embedded.
It doesn't have religious sanction; even if informal bias might linger on in some ways. Since the 1940s at least, the Church has taken steps to minimise the influence of a trend that can only divide its flock. Caste discrimination has been termed as "structural sin" too.
At one level, our Portuguese rulers saw caste within Catholicism as unacceptable. At other points in history, the rulers and religious of those times also saw the hierarchies here as parallel to their own. So the attitude towards it ranged from attempts at reform, building a single community, or sometimes just tolerating it.
Local interests also got their way. It is impossible to deny that that much of Goa's past history is one of caste-based conflict. There were attempts at one group to fight another, and claim supremacy; Bamons versus Chardos, or vice versa.
This situation changed in the post-1961 scenario, where numbers and electoral strength turned important. (But the power to manipulate also remained crucial, admittedly.)
We can find occasional references to attempts at battling bias. Yet, not much has been studied about the Church's role on this. Occasionally, from older priests, one can hear about caste-based camps emerging; but that hopefully might be a thing of the past.
Today, subaltern Catholics have entered seminaries in a significant way. This is a welcome development for the Church and the community. Maybe one can expect a more representative Church in the times ahead, not long into the future.
The latest talking point to emerge in cyberspace is a video which notched up 68,000 views in two days, focussed on 'Roman Catholic Brahmins' or 'Bamon Catholics'. It comes from a YouTube channel called Scholarspace with ANubhav.
Occasions like these should not be an excuse to simply feel outraged over how a tiny, miniscule, minority community gets projected. Rather, it should also be an opportunity to see how one is perceived, what's right with the criticism, and what we can learn from it.
The problem is that when discussions about Goa, and its people, get 'outsourced' to someone who barely knows the place, then stereotypes, misreadings and bias clothe the debates. It might be ignorance.
Scholarspace with Anubhav's hurried work has obvious mispronunciations. The Goan poet Bakibab (BB) Borkar's photo is shown as "Lucio Rodrigues". People's caste has been wrongly identified (not that this matters, but just a debating point).
The video makes the point that a number of Catholics achievers from Goa trace their roots to a particular caste. It doesn't go further to say that some of them might actually be proud--covertly or otherwise--of the generations-old caste affiliations, pre-conversions. If the video had to say this, it would have not been wrong; at least in some cases. We grew up in the 1970s and 1980s, when Nehruvian secularism ensure that it was impolite to even mention this five-letter word.
Given a chance to brag, some would do so about caste as well. The most odd line goes something like this: "I don't believe in caste of course, but incidentally, I'm a Brahmin." Or whatever.
As someone curious to understand how exactly this played out--but steadfast in refusing to feel an iota of inferiority or superiority due to supposed caste connections--one was keen to understand how this worked among Catholics.
It is true that caste has left its mark on almost all religions and groupings that entered South Asia. Even those who came in without caste, were assigned some status. Take the case of the Siddhis, slaves or soldiers originally from Africa.
In Goa, casteism among Catholics doesn't have ritual status though. It does show its bias in social and economic terms, with caste-based dominant groups getting a disproportionate share of the resources even in our times. Privilege gets inherited, especially among the 'upper' groupings.
Caste rears its head at the time of marriage, for reasons of endogamy (wanting to marry within a closed group) or whatever.
Goan Catholics have had these biases somewhat unsettled however. Not because they are more liberal, but because of two powerful forces that changed them after conversions---education and out-migration. For families in the Daizpora, this institution is often alien and even unknown.
(A rider here: some writers on the Goans in East Africa point to caste in the clubs there. In a recent reading, it was surprising to find how class- and race-conscious the British clubs there too were, in the pre-Independence era. Now only class remains. Were the Goans mimicking those divides with one they know of back home?)
But caste in Catholicism has little to do with 'impurity'. Some of the best cooks and 'raanpins' (traditional chefs) from the community are from the most deprived segments. Everyone relishes the food they cook, without bigotry.
Education has also helped many rise from their deprived position, even if equality (of opportunity) is a distant goal. But some of Catholic Goa's greatest musicians, sports persons, and achievers in some fields come from once-deprived background.
So yes, why does a community which has limited biases about caste have to face the rough end of such a strong stick over it? Is it because much more is expected from a supposedly egalitarian religion? Surely, it is time to wipe out the biases that still exist.
