Goanet Digest, Vol 21, Issue 105

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Today's Topics:

   1. Disobedient Bombay (Mumbai Mirror, 1/3/2026) (V M)
   2. Fwd: Goan Voice Daily Newsletter Thursday 11 Mar. 2021
      (Eric Pinto)
   3. Game Over - O Heraldo, 1/3/2026 (V M)


----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Sun, 1 Mar 2026 17:56:32 +0530
From: V M <[email protected]>
To: V M <[email protected]>
Subject: [Goanet] Disobedient Bombay (Mumbai Mirror, 1/3/2026)
Message-ID:
	<CAN1wPW4MHyc79rLiS29Axq45ETe8H5-cp8kM5PVSYLtSf6ELTw-JsoAwUIsXosN+BqQ9rBEUg@public.gmane.org>
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https://mumbaimirror.indiatimes.com/others/sunday-read/disobedient-bombay/articleshow/128894906.html

There is just one month remaining for the gripping CSMVS exhibition
*Disobedient
Subjects: Bombay 1930?1931* built around an extraordinary corpus of
superbly composed vintage photographs from an especially fraught season of
nationalist dissent. It is not to be missed, and very highly recommended to
all before it closes on March 31, as well as its excellent companion volume*
Photographing Civil Disobedience; Bombay 1930-31 *(Mapin Publishing),
edited by Avrati Bhatnagar and Sumathi Ramaswamy.

The stunning photographs in *Disobedient Subjects *were clearly taken or
collected by someone with unusually intimate access to the Indian
nationalist movement, and also possessed an acute eye for both history and
drama, as we can see in the gelatin silver print reproduced on this page,
where the strident young activist and writer Lilavati Munshi addresses a
crowd at Azad Maidan, with the gothic BMC tower looming in the distance.
There?s a layer of mystery here too, because we don?t quite know who took
this photograph, or why this collection was put together in the first place.

The so-called Nursey Album (it is named after the name K. L. Nursey printed
on its spine) emerged only in the 1990s, when the venerable dealers
Phillips Antiques pointed out its presence to Ebrahim Alkazi, the
Saudi-Indian theatre director and hugely significant art collector who had
already amassed one of the greatest holdings of early Indian photography.

Still, as the pioneer?s grandson Rahaab writes in his useful preface to
Photographing Civil Disobedience, we ?know nothing? about how and why these
stirring Bombay scenes were recorded: ?Were the images taken randomly and
spontaneously when, camera in hand, ?Nursey? chanced upon public protest
action? Or were they planned and purposive, enabled by his prior knowledge
of ?disobedient? events, so that he was always in the right place at the
right time to press the shutter? How was ?Nursey? able to cover often
chaotic and widespread mass action from different and precise angles??

In his own evocative essay *The Suburban Congresswoman*, the prodigious
multilingual scholar Murali Ranganathan points out how women were ?at the
forefront? of anticolonial agitation in 1930s Bombay ? ?leading
processions, picketing foreign cloth shops, hoisting Congress flags,
breaking the salt laws, protesting against the evils of alcohol? ? and
tells us more about the ?ubiquitous figure? of Ms. Munshi, ?be it picketing
the departmental store of Whiteaway Laidlaw on Hornby Road or posing with
her husband, the writer and political activist K. M. Munshi, and friends,
Munshi ensures the camera is focused on her. Though wearing a sari in the
Gujarati style like the other women picketers, Munshi stands out with her
confident pose, chic handbags, and the daring cut of her short blouse
sleeves. In all likelihood, she never stepped out for a Congress activity
without a photographer in tow.?

Interestingly, that penchant for fighting in the limelight never left
Munshi, as we glean from various other archives. In 1957, for just one
entertaining example, Nehru writes to ?My dear Lilavati*behn*? that ?I
doubt if any Opposition member could have attacked our policy so vigorously
as you have done. [You?ve written] a broadsided attack on almost everything
our Government is doing.? By that time, she had founded the Society for the
Prevention of Unhealthy Trends in Motion Pictures, using it as a bully
pulpit to (unsuccessfully) petition Mamie Eisenhower to ?stop Hollywood?
ruining ?the moral fibre of future generations? as well as (much more
triumphantly) strong-arm Indian censors into their famous decades-long
supposedly informal ?kissing ban.?

Of course, all that is unknowable future for the intensely poised,
dignified woman just out of her 20s in this breathtakingly beautiful
photograph, but there is something about her comfortable half-smile and the
way she stands that lets us know history is definitely on her side.

It?s a good example of what Abigail McGowan of the University of Vermont
aptly describes in her excellent *Boycotting Women: The Street Politics of
Consumer Activism in Bombay, 1930-1931* as ?the prominence of female
agency? in the Nursey Album, where ?women appear as leaders or solitary
agents of resistance, challenging their own vulnerability as they confront
male onlookers. Indeed, the presence of women picketers upended the
gendered dynamics of boycott in complex ways.?


------------------------------

Message: 2
Date: Sun, 1 Mar 2026 08:33:46 -0500
From: Eric Pinto <[email protected]>
To: "Vivian A. DSouza" <socorrokar-/[email protected]>, Norman Coelho
	<[email protected]>,  "Goa's premiere mailing list, estb. 1994!"
	<[email protected]>, [email protected],  Marilyn
	Pinto <[email protected]>, [email protected]
Subject: [Goanet] Fwd: Goan Voice Daily Newsletter Thursday 11 Mar.
	2021
Message-ID:
	<CAJCL8L5W7CVW-jg4E8kAg63ckRcB7XzD-UXszKsfc9yeaPYA9A-JsoAwUIsXosN+BqQ9rBEUg@public.gmane.org>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: GoanVoice <[email protected]>
Date: Wed, Mar 10, 2021 at 5:20?PM
Subject: Goan Voice Daily Newsletter Thursday 11 Mar. 2021
To: <[email protected]>



OBITUARY

*Death: Joaquim Victor D?Souza (Ex Nairobi)*

click to enlarge
<https://www.flickr.com/photos/goanvoice/51022226702/in/dateposted-public/>
6 Mar. 2021: New Jersey, USA. JOAQUIM VICTOR D?SOUZA ascended to his
heavenly father. His soul met his creator with his life-long companion of
62 years, Martha, by his bedside. Beloved father to Arleen (Tyronne);
Everett (Michele); Hayley (Merwyn); and Tansy and much adored grandfather
to Ralston (Stacey), Kielan (Yujin), Kyle and Ariella. He has one surviving
brother, Francis, in England and sister Dolly in USA, many nieces, nephews
and their families. Joaquim was born in Assagao, Goa on March 22nd 1928 and
travelled to Kenya at the tender age of two with his parents. His work
history included a brief stint in Standard Bank, ten years with a luxury
car dealership and in 1960 he joined The Old Mutual where he worked for 36
years, rising through the ranks, to retire in 1994 as the Assistant
Manager. Due to the current restrictions and rehab regulations, there will
be a private wake followed by a funeral mass open to all at 12 noon [17:00
GMT] Thursday, March 11th at St Peter the Apostle, 179 Baldwin Rd,
Parsippany, NJ 07054. For those who would like to view the funeral mass
LIVE, kindly go to http://www.saintpetertheapostle.org Look for LIVE, click
the arrow and select the current stream. If viewing at a later time click
on LIVE and then Previous Broadcasts and select the funeral.
Condolences to: [email protected]
------------------------------


------------------------------

NEWS SUMMARY


------------------------------

Message: 3
Date: Sun, 1 Mar 2026 17:46:37 +0530
From: V M <[email protected]>
To: V M <[email protected]>
Subject: [Goanet] Game Over - O Heraldo, 1/3/2026
Message-ID:
	<CAN1wPW6dct1ajHYMAmtS2JOcj2-SJwOi7Ck9XbKtu0zgptPDsA-JsoAwUIsXosN+BqQ9rBEUg@public.gmane.org>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"

https://www.heraldgoa.in/edit/editorial/game-over/466275/

It became clear the tide was turning when the resplendent vendors of
?gaunti? vegetables from the Panjim outdoor morning market showed up
with their indomitable smiles at Azad Maidan this past Monday.

This would turn out to be a dramatic moment of departure from the
longstanding, bleak and familiar political theatre in Goa, where
furniture moves around, but the characters remain the same. On that
unforgettable evening of the 23rd of February, our historic old Pra?a
just kept on filling up with an astonishing array of determined Goans
from across the state, many more individuals than organized groups,
with everyone united by frustration and ire.

Then, almost leaderless, but with unstoppable collective purpose, this
hugely impressive body politic brushed effortlessly past every
attempted barricade all the way to Dona Paula to demonstrate that
democracy is still alive in India?s smallest state.

Make no mistake, we turned a corner. Things may well deteriorate from
this point ? and it is certainly true recent trends have been
relentlessly negative ? but there will be no going back to the
one-sided assault on Goa?s land, culture and people that has prevailed
especially destructively since the Covid-19 pandemic.

That awesome crowd milled into Azad Maidan to defend the young MLA on
hunger strike next to Trist?o de Bragan?a Cunha?s urn, but they were
also seething to fight for justice. Things could easily have turned
very bad, and it is hugely to the credit of the Goa Police and the
demonstrators themselves that everything remained peaceful. But what
will happen the next time? Can wisdom prevail, or is this mere setup
for more brutal crackdown?

?There are bigger battles ahead,? warns Dr. Joaquim Goes, proud son of
Cortalim and distinguished research professor at Columbia University,
who has been vocally supporting the burgeoning people power movements
from New York.

He says ?Two back-to-back victories in Chimbel and St Andr? remind us
of something powerful: there is strength in unity. When people stand
together, power is forced to listen. The attempts to bully,
intimidate, the pressure, all of it collapsed in the face of united
communities. But two victories do not end the fight. The larger
struggle must continue, to free entire Goa from the 39A curse, to
reclaim our rivers from casinos, but most importantly to rid our state
of arrogance and corruption in public office.?

An outstanding science communicator, here is how Goes summarises what
is at stake in his beloved home state: ?Goa is not an empty canvas for
speculative real estate. It is one of India?s most fragile ecological
zones, a narrow coastal state of laterite hills, low-lying rice
fields, orchard lands, mangroves, aquifers. It is a living
civilizational landscape shaped for centuries by the Gaokari system, a
community-based land stewardship model that balanced cultivation,
commons, water, and social responsibility long before modern planning
laws existed. Every hill cut, every field filled, every aquifer
pierced has consequences. And yet, in less than three years, more than
200 mega housing projects have been cleared using a cunning amendment
39A to the Town and Country Planning (TCP) Act. This is not planning.
It is rapid transformation without accountability.?

Goes explains ?Goa?s environmental limits are real, and the threats
from mega-projects are not small. Our green sloping hills regulate
drainage. Our khazans protect against flooding, paddy fields recharge
groundwater. Our orchard lands are part of a living agro-ecological
system. When these are bulldozed for clusters of apartments, many
complete with multiple swimming pools, the damage is not cosmetic, but
permanent damage to a system that breathes through its aquifers,
absorbs monsoon rains through its fields, and sustains livelihoods,
humans and animals through its soil and waters. Those in power fail to
recognize that Goan villages are living ecosystems, sustained by
traditional cultivation, fishing, toddy tapping, faith practices, and
intergenerational bonds. When large-scale projects intrude upon these
spaces without meaningful consent or cumulative impact assessment,
they do more than alter skylines. They fracture social fabric and
erode trust. We are told these projects will bring revenue and
employment. But we have seen that no amount of revenue can offset
acute water scarcity, electricity shortages, collapsing garbage
collection systems, and untreated sewage entering aquifers. Many
villages struggle to receive water for even two hours a day. It is not
uncommon to see garbage overflowing onto the streets. Yet the
government is quick to approve projects with hundreds of units and
multiple pools under lax local requirements.?

His conclusion: ?These fires of protest spreading across Goa are not
about hostility toward outsiders. Goa has always welcomed visitors and
settlers. The issue is the scale and speed at which they are
happening. When projects with luxury amenities rise in villages with
erratic water supply and fragile waste systems, priorities are
inverted. When sacred sites sit in the shadow of high-density towers,
something fundamental shifts. When aquifers are treated as
inexhaustible, when hills are carved as if they were decorative
mounds, we gamble with irreversible loss. 39A has facilitated a form
of development that does not benefit anyone in Goa, except those in
power. Goans need to be united in this fight whatever your party
loyalty. This is about the future. Dividing ourselves over trivial
issues only weakens collective resolve. The larger question is whether
we allow our fragile hills, rice fields, orchard lands, villages, our
culture and way of life be permanently altered? If we remain silent
now, no new government or amount of revenue will restore what is
lost.?


End of Goanet Digest, Vol 21, Issue 105
***************************************