Panaji During the day, there is an easy calm to Calangute. Tourists mill around, walking in groups from one popular restaurant to the next. By the time the sun sets, the shacks on the beach and the bars on the road begin twinkling with a different energy; loud, often raucous music and joyous laughter, the revelry continuing until sunrise. Home to what has always been known as the “Queen of beaches” because of its once endless golden sands, Calangute has built an identity as one of the epicentres of Goa’s tourism industry. Until earlier this year, when Calangute found itself in the middle of a controversy, symbolic of a larger conflict that is brewing in Goa: one crucial to Goa’s cultural and religious identity.

Panaji During the day, there is an easy calm to Calangute. Tourists mill around, walking in groups from one popular restaurant to the next. By the time the sun sets, the shacks on the beach and the bars on the road begin twinkling with a different energy; loud, often raucous music and joyous laughter, the revelry continuing until sunrise. Home to what has always been known as the “Queen of beaches” because of its once endless golden sands, Calangute has built an identity as one of the epicentres of Goa’s tourism industry. Until earlier this year, when Calangute found itself in the middle of a controversy, symbolic of a larger conflict that is brewing in Goa: one crucial to Goa’s cultural and religious identity.

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Standing atop an elevated pedestal in the centre of a fork in the road that leads to Saligao is a 20-feet-high statue of Chhatrapati Shivaji, emblazoned in bronze, on horseback, waving his ubiquitous sword. The statue found itself in the middle of a storm that unfolded outside Calangute’s panchayat office on June 20, as a group of “Shiv premis”(lovers of Shivaji) gathered outside and aggressively demanded that an order, issued by the panchayat to remove the statue, be rescinded. The situation eased only after the sarpanch Joseph Seqeuira, affiliated with the ruling BJP, emerged from the building and tendered an apology, reading out a fresh order withdrawing the order of demolition.

In the process, Calangute got a new identity -- as a symbol of a new fracture in Goa’s communal fabric.

THE STATUE AT THE CENTRE OF IT ALL The man behind the Shivaji statue is 34-year-old Sudesh Mayekar, a member of the Shiv Swarajya Trust, former aide of BJP MLA Michael Lobo (who has also been with the Congress) and former general secretary of the BJP’s Calangute unit. Mayekar said that the idea to install the statue began in 2020, but Lobo, the local MLA kept “dilly dallying” and eventually postponed the event to after the assembly elections. “We realised he was not serious. While we waited, a statue of Cristiano Ronaldo, the footballer, was erected,” Mayekar said.

Not to be outdone, the group installed the bust of the Maratha emperor on the side of one road last year where it remained by-and-large uncontested. But plans for a statue did not ebb, and a crowd-funding campaign was started three years ago. “We went door to door collecting money and were able to collect around ₹34 lakh of our estimated cost of ₹42 lakh,” he said.

In September 2022, the Shiv Swarajya Trust placed a formal proposal before the Calangute panchayat. The sarpanch Joseph Sequeira, they allege, brushed them aside and told them he would deal with the application. “But he never told us what the status was, or that if a decision had been taken,” Mayekar said.

On the night of June 2, the bust was taken down, and replaced with the statue. “It took days of planning and the involvement of more than 300 people in an operation that began and concluded within two-and-a-half hours,” Mayekar said.

Sequeira, however, told HT that the statue appeared at a traffic island “overnight”, without permissions from the local panchayat, the traffic police, and the Public Works Department , occupying a space that the panchayat intended to set up a high mast floodlight. On June 8, Sequeira called for a meeting of the panchayat that passed a unanimous resolution that the statue that was installed without permissions be “removed”. Eleven days later, the panchayat issued a notice to the trust, asking that the structure be removed in 10 days. “We had no problem when the statue was at the side of the road. “Why didn’t they do it the legal way with a formal function and a grand celebration?” Sequeira asked.

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On June 20, at least 300 saffron-clad protesters descended on the Calangute panchayat office waving flags and initially demanded to meet the sarpanch. As the crowd grew, so did the police force and the sense of tension. The police barricaded the panchayat office and outside the crown chanted “Jai Bhavani, Jai Shivaji”. Stray stones were pelted at the office, Sequeira’s car was damaged, and the protesters threatened to attack the office. “Anyone who dares to insult Hindu religious sentiments will have to face our wrath,” one irate protester told a television crew. The panchayat first suggested that they pass an order that the letter be kept in abeyance, but this was not accepted. At around 4pm, a besieged Sequeira emerged, and read out to the crowd that the order had been rescinded and said he was sorry if he had hurt anyone’s sentiments.

LOCAL POLITICS In isolation, some say that the move was borne out simply of a political rivalry that went awry. Mayekar, Lobo’s former aide, quit the BJP prior to the 2022 Goa assembly elections after the BJP ticket was given to the current sarpanch Joseph Sequeira. He joined the Aam Aadmi Party, coming in fourth behind both Sequeira and Lobo, who won on a Congress ticket, but later joined the BJP. A month after the polls, Mayekar too rejoined the BJP. Both Sequeira and Lobo have said that Mayekar’s moves are an effort to revive his political fortunes. “Some people who were dead in politics were trying to crawl back in the limelight by playing politics in the name of Shivaji Maharaj. They contested and lost. People sent them home,” Lobo said in the days following the incident.

But scratch the surface, and there is a sense that inflamed religious sentiments are on the rise. A leader close to Lobo said, “It would not be surprising if some in the BJP leadership are tacitly backing the protesters to the disadvantage of their own MLA and sarpanch. It was obvious that the sarpanch was targeted because of his religious identity. The sloganeering made that clear.”

A prominent businessman from Calangute agreed. “The gathering was unlike anything we had seen. People from outside the village were brought in,” he said, asking not to be named.

Local resident and activist Premanand Diukar, however, said he was hopeful that the issue has been put behind. “The incident, I believe, is a result of a misunderstanding between two groups that could have been settled amicably. But I believe that a solution will be found,” he said.

Not everyone in Goa shares that confidence -- and that’s because this may not just be a Calangute problem.

ROLE OF HISTORYThe territory that now constitutes Goa was once shared between the Bahmani Sultanate of Yusuf Adil Shah and the Vijayanagara empire. In 1510, Portuguese maritime military commander Afonso de Albuquerque conquered the port town making him the first European to rule over Subcontinent soil since Alexander, marking the beginnings of a 450-year rule for the Portuguese.

Historian and researcher John Marshal said that while Albuquerque captured Goa, in his rule that spanned 1509-1515, he generally allowed the people of his newly captured territories to continue with their customs, and encouraged Portuguese soldiers to marry locals. “Those that came after him tried to subdue the local populace, encouraged conversions, and made laws against Hindus. But all conversions were not forced. Entire villages converted after the village elders did so,” Marshal said.

There were limitations to this as a policy. “These conversions didn’t necessarily win over people, some of whom fled, and when they did, left their lands untilled resulting in losses,” he said.

But historians said that by the end of the 16th century, much of Portuguese-held territory had been Christianised and some temples that were destroyed had to be rebuilt in areas outside Portuguese control, such as in Ponda and Bicholim. In 1560, the Inquisition, a brutal process that ensured people stayed true to the Christian faith, was also set up.

Chhatrapati Shivaji’s military interactions with areas that currently lie in Goa begin nearly a century later, in 1664, when Maratha armies captured the areas of Pernem, Bicholim, Sanquelim and Sattari, then still ruled by the Bahmani Sultanate. “The defeated Desai chieftains of the Sultanate sought shelter in the Portuguese-held territory of Goa and launched retaliatory attacks from the fort of Colvale that was held by the Portuguese in 1667. This prompted Shivaji to attack and capture the fort and marked the first direct conflict between the Marathas and the Portuguese. Shivaji also tried to capture Ponda that was held by the Bijapur Sultanate but was unsuccessful because of the help the Sultanate received from the Portuguese. He captured the area only in 1675,” historian Prajwal Sakhardande said.

Today, Goa is culturally divided between old conquests. The areas first captured by the Portuguese in the 16th century where much of the conversions took place; and those the Portuguese acquired only in the 18th century such as when the kingdom of Sawantwadi surrendered territory, or when the Sounda Raja surrendered territory in exchange for help against Tipu Sultan. “The later territories were never Christianised because by then the ruling Portuguese empire had fallen out with the Church and expelled religious missionaries,” Marshal said.

Goa has seen these fault lines come to the fore from time to time. In 1967, for instance, Goa witnessed a plebiscite on the instructions of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi to decide if it should continue to remain an independent Union territory or merge with Maharashtra. The Catholic-dominated coast voted largely in favour of an independent identity while the hinterlands voted in favour of a merger. Eventually, 55.58% voted in favour of remaining independent, and 44.52% voted in favour of a merger. In the 1980s, there was a conflict around whether Konkani or Marathi should be the state’s official language. The battle lines were similar. The state government finally acceded to the demand that Konkani be made Goa’s official language, but as a compromise added a clause that Marathi would be permitted for official use.

By and large, however, Goa has been able to assimilate its fractious history into a tolerant communal fabric. “Over the years Goa has been able to attain a unique identity -- one in which Hindus, Christians and Muslims come together to be Goan,” Sakhardande said.

Even Mayekar, for instance, said that he had "all respect” for Goa’s first opposition leader Jack de Sequeira, who championed the cause of Goa remaining a territory separate from Maharashtra. “I have all the respect for Sequeira. It is because of him we have our identity,” Mayekar said.

But cracks are beginning to appear in this edifice.

BROADER HINDUTVA PUSHIn the run up to the 2022 assembly elections, Goa chief minister Pramod Sawant said that the government would work towards rebuilding temples destroyed by the Portuguese. “Some temples that were destroyed during the Portuguese rule were rebuilt by our ancestors, and now, the government has also helped in the beautification of some of these temples. There are more temples that are left to be rebuilt. I ask you to once again preserve Hindu Sanskriti and Mandir Sanskriti,” Sawant said, speaking at a public meeting in Ponda on December 21, 2021.

Six months and a successful election campaign later, Sawant called for wiping out Portuguese symbols, crediting Shivaji with bringing a halt to religious conversions. “Sixty years later, we should wipe away the signs of the Portuguese…We need to begin a new manner of going forward,” he said at a function commemorating the 350th anniversary of the coronation of Shivaji.

Historian Sakhardande said that the evidence only points towards Shivaji helping and funding the rebuilding of the Saptakoteshwar temple in 1668, relocated to Bicholim from the island of Divar.

It isn’t just Sawant. Former RSS mentor Subhash Velingkar in April 2022 called for Parashurama, believed to be the sixth incarnation of Mahavishnu, to be treated as the real “Goencho saib” -- Master of Goa -- a title currently associated with St Francis Xavier, a 16th century Spanish Jesuit and Catholic saint who traversed Goa and Portuguese territories in the east.

“There are documented letters in which he called for the imposition of the Spanish Inquisition in Goa. He was granted the title by the Portuguese for having saved their empire from the Marathas and to call him Goencho saib today is anti-national. We say that Bhagwan Parashurama, who thousands of years earlier claimed this land from the Arabian Sea and made it fertile and prosperous should be called Goencho Saib,” Velingkar said at the time. A statue of Parashurama, inaugurated by Sawant on June 21 now stands on the banks of the river Mandovi (also called Mhadei).

Cleofato Almeida Coutinho, a jurist and political commentator, said, “It is a clear pattern to target the Christian minorities of Goa styled as an attack on the Portuguese. The Catholics in the BJP too have not been speaking out, perhaps of the belief that it is politically inadvisable to speak up.”

BJP leader and former MP Narendra Sawaikar said these incidents were being blown out of proportion. “The Calangute incident is between the people who wanted the statue and the Calangute panchayat. The BJP has nothing to do with it. As far as the Chief Minister’s statements are concerned, he is essentially speaking against the continued glorification of foreign rule by certain elements,” Sawaikar said.

Back at Calangute, the statue continues to stand tall as the new permanent fixture in the area.