Uhura's Mazda
Banned
The Seventy Year Lease
An article appearing in the Sunday Dispatch, 13th March 2016
An article appearing in the Sunday Dispatch, 13th March 2016
Goa is hot.
That might not be the most enlightening sentence you have ever read in a journalistic article, but it’s really the only thing I noticed in the first hour after my arrival at Vasco da Gama Airport: the gangway between the plane and the terminal was unpleasantly muggy for my English constitution, and although the air conditioning inside was a treat, I was never unaware that the relative coolness was utterly artificial. Then, as I ventured out the front entrance towards the taxi rank, it almost literally floored me. The driver waiting for me just about had to carry me to the car as I melted through his fingers. Goa is hot.
I am here, of course, to write an article about the febrile situation in Goa – this seemed like a good idea for a weekend away when I proposed it at the editorial meeting in the swish, cool offices of the Sunday Dispatch, but I can barely switch on my Speech2Text Dictaphone without the sweat patches on my shirt growing noticeably larger. Luckily, I barely need to interrogate he driver, Bhavin, at all for him to wax lyrical about the standoff.
“We’re fucked either way,” says Bhavin in clear enough English for the purposes of my equipment, “and we’ve been a laughing stock since 1948. I mean, my cousin has a restaurant in – how do you say, Doncaster? – and he says that everyone knows about Goa, but only the stupid facts that come up in the ‘pub quizzes’ and nothing about the real Goa. So do we keep going as a politically repressed laughing stock of the world, or do we join a country which has half as much wealth as we do and a million times as much poverty?”
“Do you have much of a choice?” I ask. India has been known in the past for forcibly annexing areas which it perceives to be rightfully its own.
“Operation Polo, Kashmir… that’s all ancient history. We have you British and your United Nations to protect us if our Government decides to defy the Ultimatum.”
If only. I refrain from informing Bhavin that our own Government couldn’t really give a fig about him, let alone the undemocratic rulers of his country, if only to prevent him from driving recklessly through the throng of vehicles in his rage. But it’s true: while the people of Doncaster know of this place for the sole reason that it comes up every week in a pub quiz somewhere, the political Establishment are hardly more knowledgeable, and those that are seem not to see any reason for us to get involved. Truth be told, I don’t either at this point.
So why is this place such a magnet for lovers of trivia? Well, first a bit of history: Goa was conquered from the native Indian rulers by the Portuguese in the sixteenth century, and you can still see lovely old colonial buildings (such as the delightful, gleaming-white edifice of the Se Cathedral) dotted around the older parts of the various cities – for while we think of this place as a city-state on the level of Singapore, it is in fact half-forest, and is a shade larger than Hampshire, with half the population of Wales.
Anyway, the Portuguese colonial era lasted past the end of the Portuguese monarchy and the Second World War, and into the Fascist era, but not by much. In 1946, the Nizam of Hyderabad, the richest man on the Continent, paid three billion pounds for a seventy year lease on the area as he was desperate for access to the profitable trade routes of the Indian Ocean. This was a mutually beneficial deal: not only did the Estado Novo regime get a quick influx of cash, it also didn’t have to pay for the upkeep of a relatively unprofitable colony anymore, which was a great boon for a state which was soon embroiled in endless wars to keep some semblance of control of its African colonies.
It was the Nizam, Osman Ali Khan, who was to benefit the most from the venture. Barely a year later, the British Raj (of which Hyderabad was a tributary) became independent as the Indian Union, and all the various Princes and Maharajahs were strongly advised to give up their sovereignty in its favour. The Nizam didn’t like this one bit, and held out as an independent state until 1948, when the new Indian Army overran the main portion of his lands in the interior of the subcontinent in Operation Polo. But the Nizam and his loyalists had already fled to their new territory of Goa, and the Nizamate of Hyderabad continued. For every single Indian was frantically asking themselves thorny legal questions. Was it valid to invade territory that technically belonged to Portugal? Was it worth inviting the fury of the West by angering Portugal? Was Hyderabad conquered, or merely reduced to a rump which would expire for good in the distant time of 2016?
The answer to all of these questions was ‘I don’t have a clue’ and as such, the Hyderabad regime was left untouched in Goa. To this day, the place is marked on maps as ‘Hyderabad’, despite the fact that the city of Hyderabad and all the territory it once controlled are not connected with the place at all. It is an anomaly, ruled by a foreign-born, near-autocratic Islamic monarch in a modern trade hub of a city where the population is only 8% Muslim. Which is the only country which doesn’t control any of the population it claims and yet is still an independent nation? Hyderabad. Which country is in the UN despite not having existed for 70 years? Hyderabad. Which country only possesses territory which is technically owned by another country? Hyderabad.
And in August, the lease will expire.
My first appointment of the weekend is at a rather nice restaurant in central Pangim, the capital of the country. Fortunately, the air conditioning is effective and silent, so I don’t embarrass myself in front of my host, Anand Pacheco. He is a charming young member of the Hyderabad Legislative Assembly, which was introduced by Mukarram Jah, the third Nizam reigning in Goa, to curry favour with the USA in 1979. Mr Pacheco is a half-Portuguese half-Konkani man with a sparkle in his eyes, a vigorousness in his movements, and a moustache of questionable quality. He was elected for the Partido Cidadania (‘Citizenship Party’) which favours a return to Portuguese rule at the end of the lease and is generally centre-right on other issues.
“We in the Partido believe that it is unjust not only for the autocratic Nizam to rule our people, but also the corrupt, venal, economically illiterate rulers of Delhi to have any say whatsoever in our affairs. As far as we are concerned, New Delhi is much further from Goa than Lisbon is.”
“But surely the parlous state of the Portuguese economy since the Lesser Depression puts a damper on your enthusiasm?” I ask, munching on my salt cod curry. The food is an eclectic mixture of the Portuguese and the Indian: Mr Pacheco is having the Piri Piri Vindaloo, but he’s a braver man than I am.
“It is true that our share of the vote decreased in the 2012 elections, but the problem is that people do not realise that our economy is capable of existing in tandem with that of the Motherland. Yes, we would have to subsidise our cousins and our friends in Portugal, but we would not be appreciably worse off. Compare that to how we would be within India – the money we make would simply go into the black hole of the Gandhi family’s private coffers, and what did go to helping the poor wouldn’t be nearly enough to prevent them from coming here in droves to beg on our streets and rob our affluent citizens. For our citizens are affluent, by and large, and don’t let the Communists tell you otherwise.”
I had told Anand Pacheco of my itinerary as an ice-breaker – I am meeting representatives from all sides in the dispute as to what to do about the crisis in the interests of creating a balanced article, of course. But I had done some reading beforehand to prepare me for a culture of which I knew nothing but tasted much, and it seemed that this affluence was not fairly distributed. I asked him about this.
“Well, it is true that there are poor people in Goa, but we have a very high GDP per capita here, and a lot of that has to go to the people who actually create the wealth, don’t you agree? Our businessmen are some of the most successful in South Asia, and we have more millionaire here per capita than in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh combined. And obviously that trickles down to ordinary working people. The only problem here is that the Nizam uses billions and billions of public funds for his own private purposes – he is the State, you see, in his own vision. But this is not the way the Portuguese Republic does things, as I am sure you are aware.”
Now his face becomes graver and the friendly spark behind his eyes momentarily disappears: “You are not a Communist, are you?” Of course I protest my innocence: the Sunday Dispatch would never employ a Communist, after all. Although I do admit that I live in Hackney, and tell Mr Pacheco all about our ridiculous Socialist Alliance Mayor – I don’t need to bring Britons up to speed with her antics, of course.
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But the next figure I am to meet is, indeed, Aziz Lal, the Leader of the Communist Party of Goa (Genuine Marxist). We meet in his office in the Palace of Negotiations, a newly built home for the Legislative Assembly. It is all concrete, glass, and swooping curves, which all combine to refract and reflect all the glorious sunlight of Goa directly onto my chair, opposite Mr Lal’s desk. This is by no means pleasant.
“Aha! Anand is a character, all right!” laughs Mr Lal, the garrulous, grey-bearded, sun-weathered old man in traditional native dress who nevertheless seems at home in this festival of modernity. “Let me tell you something: his Party has only nine seats in the Assembly, whereas we have twelve. This should tell you something about the will of the oppressed People of Goa!”
“That they don’t like either of your Parties?” I ask, rather puckishly if I say so myself.
“Well, I admit that the two main parties have the other forty-one seats to themselves, but this is entirely down to the unjust practice of Appointment to the Legislature by the Nizam and the Chairman of Ministers. In terms of the popular vote, we are only 10% away from the major parties. And is it any wonder when unemployment is at 7%, and the peasant farmers desperately need land reform just to last out the next few years? Joining India won’t save the starving farmers; joining Portugal won’t give urban workers fair pay and conditions; and the continuation of the Hyderabad monarchy won’t bring about a free press, or women’s rights, or any of the freedoms which humans ought to have. What we need is an independent Republic of Goa, based on Marxist principles ideally, but even if it were a liberal democracy it would be far better than being ruled by any one of three groups of foreigners – from New Delhi, from Lisbon, or from Hyderabad.”
“But you only have a matter of months to change the conversation at the Madrid Talks. How will you actually create an independent Goa when the main players are butting heads about whether to renew the Hyderabadi Lease or allow Indian Annexation?”
“Ah, well, there you have me. This is the reason why we are campaigning for the continuation of the status quo in this international dialogue – it is easier to create a Democratic Goa out of an Undemocratic Hyderabad than from an Undemocratic India, after all.”
That’s the rub. After I discuss the Mayor of Hackney with Aziz Lal in the most glowing terms I can manage with a straight face, I have to immediately meet with one of the main players in the debate: Chairman of the Council of Ministers, Vijay Shet. He is the equivalent of our Prime Minister, but in Hyderabad, he plays a comparatively minor role: most power still resides in the Nizam. However, Mr Shet is anything but a figurehead, and has been engaged in an ever-messier war of words with the Nizam since he was elected to the highest office in the country back in 2012. As Leader of the largest Party, the Union of Indians in Goa, Mr Shet is ex officio the Chairman, but the other three Parties together have a majority over him, and occasionally they are able to outvote him, for they are all opposed to Indian Annexation – they all see Goa as something more than a part of the subcontinent, even if they do not agree on what it is that makes the place special.
So Vijay Shet is a man under some degree of stress. The UIG has been fighting for this moment ever since it was founded in the 1970s, and the sentiment is much older. But now that the Seventy Year Lease is coming towards its end, will this turn out to be a damp squib? I ask him what the future holds for him if the lease is renewed.
“Well, I have formally requested that India do not use force to take its rightful territory here, so I stress at this point that we will not see another Operation Polo. Do not even ask me about that – every journalist in Goa does, and I have to tell them it’s a load of rubbish every day, which distracts me from the exercise of Government. So don’t even start. If India accepts the Hyderabadi-Portuguese proposal, and if the New Lease is passed through, then… well, we will have to keep going. A lot of people will simply leave Goa and settle in the rest of India – for Goa is Indian, even if our oppressors do not admit it.”
And what of complaints of corruption in New Delhi, and the idea that India would be an economic weight pulling Goa down to its own level?
“Jesus Christ! If they’re complaining about Indian corruption now, I hesitate to think what would happen if they ever realise that the Nizam is literally a semi-autocrat. Bloody hell! Their claims that this is a democracy are nonsensical, and I will hear no more on the subject. And if we have to subsidise India, would that be so bad? They are our brothers, and they need our help in order to get away from the slums and the sweatshops. I can’t believe these people are so self-interested that they wish to keep our money to themselves, in their little parochial country of millionaires!”
Vijay Shet seems to be a man troubled with deep exasperation, and it is no wonder: not only is this one of the most stressful times in the political history of the nation, but Mr Shet is also struggling with the treachery of his own Party. The UIG has always been a coalition of far-right Indian nationalists, centre-right business interests connected with the Congress families, and centre-left voices arguing for a fairer democratic system than the current model. Shet is on the left of the Party, and has been denounced by many influential rightists in the media. And because the Nizam is so opposed to Shet’s views on the sovereignty question, he refuses to silence the newspapers which print such articles.
Now that’s an interesting example of censorship being purposefully not used in order to bring down an ‘enemy of the state’.
I ask Shet a few questions about this aspect of Goan politics, but he simply sighs and says that he’s very busy running the country. Eventually I give up and return to my hotel for the evening. Along the way I stop at a McDonald’s for tea – the fish curry disagreed with me, and I feel on much firmer ground with a mass of ground-up cow tendons in bread. For some reason.
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My final interview, the following morning, is with a big prize: the Nizam of Hyderabad, Mukarram Jah. He is an elderly man of 82, and grew up initially in the old state of Hyderabad. After an education on Britain (Harrow, Cambridge and Sandhurst) he returned to Hyderabad to discover that it had moved a hundred miles to the West, and shrunk considerably.
“My nation is comparable to the Ship of Theseus,” he says in his plummy, public-school accent, “it may contain none of the land and very few of the people that it did when I was born, but it is still Hyderabad, and it is still ours.”
This is a man who has been the Nizam since his father’s death in 1972 and enjoyed the fantastic wealth of his family ever since. It is hard to estimate how rich he is, because there is no line drawn between his personal wealth and the coffers of his public treasury, but suffice to say, his Palace is full of quite a lot of gold and diamonds. I’m convinced I saw an anteroom full to brimming with pieces by J M W Turner as I was ushered through to the Nizam’s study (by the way, I am under strict instructions from the Palace apparatchiks not to raise any questions about democracy or human rights). He was born as one of two brothers, but his grandfather, the Nizam who originally leased Goa, had 34 children. So it’s fair to say that family occasions are well-attended. He has a son and two daughters from three marriages, and the younger daughter is engaged to the son of the Duke of Braganza, who claims the Portuguese throne. This fact gave almost orgasmic delight to Anand Pacheco when I asked him about it the day before. But that’s not to say that he’s a monarchist: no, the monarchists seem to be entirely limited to the Hyderabad Party, who have twenty seats in the Assembly and are transparently only there to do the bidding of the Nizam. Most of them are related to him in some way.
“We do not have control of the Government in the Assembly, for the first time since it was established, but I am confident that we shall prevail. India will have no choice but to accept a renewal of the Lease under diplomatic pressure from the Western Powers.” he pronounces.
“But will Portugal accept the renewal of the Lease? I have heard that a majority of their population would prefer to place Goa under the same kind of regime as exists in the Azores. And if they are encouraged by the Partido Cidadania…”
“This will not be a problem. Portugal is in dire need of money in the aftermath of the Lesser Depression, and as you see, we are hardly short of money with which to pay them for our continued sovereignty.”
But this is the problem: the Nizam may see the fusion of his own wealth with that of his nation as an advantage, but so does Portugal. If they resume sovereignty, they will get the whole lot, and the Nizam will be left with nothing. No matter how much of a payoff he offers, they would get more out of him simply by letting the Lease lapse and taking the billions invested therein by his grandfather. Needless to say, he is in a very sticky position.
“The Madrid Talks will be successful for us, I am sure. When even the Communists are defending our position over that of the Indians who wish to finally destroy the last remnant of Hyderabad, you can be sure that your people, and the people of the world, are on your side.”
Perhaps global sentiment really is in favour of the continued existence of this perverse country – a country with an expiry date, if you will. But in Britain, certainly, its only purpose is as a piece of trivia with which to one-up one’s friends. It was not unheard-of for Britons to support the regime of Colonel Gaddafi just so that the factoid that Libya was the only country with a completely featureless flag would remain true. Is that enough to keep the Nizamate of Hyderabad going? Probably not, if I’m honest. Either Portugal takes the place back out of desperation for money, or they make a deal to transfer sovereignty to India. It seems that nobody actually likes the Nizam’s regime. They only tolerate it out of pity and a taste for trivia. But Goa is becoming far from trivial now that the crisis of sovereignty is becoming more and more urgent.
The alternative is an Indian invasion, which nobody wants to even think about, but is nevertheless a possibility. They have done it before, after all. And despite Vijay Shet's assertions, it remains true that the Indian Army has been out on maneouvres in the surrounding region at various points over the last two years.
Goa is hot. And it’s only going to get hotter from here.