Citizenship in a Caste Polity

Fri, 09 Apr 2021 09:16:25 +0000

The celebration of World Konkani day on the 9th of April references the death of Vaman Varde Valaulikar who is hailed by Konkani literary activists by his pen name, Shenoi Goembab, and as the father of Konkani pride, and Konkani language activism. These celebrations of Valaulikar and the Konkani language mask the fact that while Valaulikar’s language activism was received, especially in latter times, by a secular audience – i.e. one constituted by multiple religious and caste groups – the original context of his activism was that of securing the interests of the newly formed caste group – the Gaud Saraswats – to which he belonged. Konkani was painstakingly marked out as a marker of their brahmin identity, and in the context of the early twentieth century, was also imagined as the basis for a homeland that the Konkani-speaking brahmins could lead. It is only through understanding Varde Valaulikar’s occluded caste history that one is able to appreciate the way in which Konkani linguistic politics play out, not just in Goa, which is the focus of Citizenship in a Caste Polity: Religion, Language and Belonging in Goa, but in other parts of the western coast of India, namely Kerala, and coastal Karnataka.