Religious Fissures In Goa’s Villages: Hindus, Catholics Asserting Identity Now, Says Damodar Mauzo

It isn’t death threats that have weighed heavily on 2022 Jnanpith award winning writer Damodar Mauzo. 

It’s the slowly altering social ethos in Majorda, a quiet South Goan beach village where he lives, which bothers the 78-year-old Konkani writer more. 
Mauzo’s name had cropped up on a hitlist seized from one of the alleged killers of Bengaluru-based Gauri Lankesh in 2017. 

Mauzo told Outlook in an interview that a brewing sense of unease has been fermenting between the Hindus and Catholic communities living in Majorda, a village from where the art of baking bread spread across Goa in the colonial times. 

“I have played football with fellow Catholic students. Nowadays, it is slowly brewing… Earlier, say ten years ago, I was invited very often to functions at the Church during Christmas, New Year... Of late, it has stopped… Probably, they are not on bad terms with me, But they do not want to give exposure to me or maybe look at me as ‘the other’, which I am opposed to,” Mauzo said. 

Invitations from fellow Catholic villages for house-warming ceremonies have also dried up, he said. 

“Many of my well-wishers, good friends in the village would invite me to conduct their house-warming ceremonies in my presence or to raise a toast at (Catholic) weddings. I have raised at a toast at not less than a dozen church weddings till some years back. It has stopped now, why? I am not haunted by this, but I see this change happening,” Mauzo said, adding that his one-to-one equations with Catholic villagers in Majorda however have not altered. 

The population of Majorda, like several parts of the Catholic-dominated Salcete subdistrict which were a part of the Portuguese empire’s first military conquest, was tipped in favour of Catholics. Out-migration of Catholics and influx of new residents has skewed the equation somewhat now. Both developments have taken a toll on the social ethos in Majorda, he says.  

“There was a time when this village was predominantly Catholic. Now, the ratio is reducing. Many new people have come. Hindus are still here. (But the) Catholics are migrating. I am not generalising… The Hindus here have become more Hindu, whereas Christians are also becoming conscious, that they have to retain their identity or exit,” Mauzo said. 

When asked how long does he think it would take for the socio-religious unease in Majorda and in other parts of the country to tide over, Mauzo said: “I am optimistic. I think ten-15 years later, people will realise their folly and we will be able to re-establish democracy”. 

“In the immediate future I do not see (it happening). Because I move around, I find people who are educated, who are sensible otherwise, they speak about things which I cannot even imagine. People are thinking in such terms, particularly when it comes to Hindu-Muslim or Hindu-Catholic (issues). Earlier, even during the Portuguese times I have never felt this,” Mauzo said. The writer was still in his teens when Indian armed forces liberated Goa from Portuguese rule in 1961. 

A prolific short story writer, Mauzo’s short fiction has spotted disturbing social trends like lynching and beef-politics years before they erupted nationally. 
His short story ‘Burger’ for example, is about two school-going friends, Irene, a Catholic and Sharmila, a Hindu, and the trauma which Irene undergoes after she offers Sharmila, a beef burger at a picnic and the latter eats it with relish. 

Contrary to common perception, Hindus in Goa do not generally consume beef. 

“The Catholic girl becomes so guilt-ridden. She is scared that she would lose a friend and feels sorry for the suffering she has put her friend through by making her eat a beef burger. She goes to church for confession, etc. But it turns out at the end that the Hindu girl and her father also eat beef,” Mauzo said. 

Writers, Mauzo says, should be able to foresee trends and articulate such social tendencies in their work as soon as they spots them.  

“The beef eating story came before the beef ban. Many writers sometimes foresee things. Not deliberately. I spotted this too and it is best to hit at such a tendency at the earliest,” Mauzo said. 
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