Modern colonial encounters

The term “expatriate” is an interesting one. It may mean one living outside one’s native country, but in practice, it seems to apply only to certain people. For instance, one never hears this term associated with the Goans and Indians working in the Gulf States. Indeed, it is reserved for white people. I remember reading an article about this unequal linguistic treatment in The Guardian some time ago. When I was working in Bombay, I had a British colleague who would meet up for drinks weekly with members of an expat community. Such people always seemed to me to be creating their own upper class, white world in India, complete with servants—a rather colonial way of living.

Similarly, I’ve observed white tourists converging in Goa. Fortunately for them, Goa is a very hospitable place. Supporting my years-long observation that Europeans in particular prefer to build their own communities in Goa, I once stumbled upon a Facebook page whose European administrator declared that he was “home”. What followed were photos composed of mostly white people on Goa’s beaches, with a few Indian tourists in the background. I wondered where the Goans were in this vision of Goa.

I have noted that some such “expats” expand their circle to elite Indians who have houses here. The latest example of this played out on a recent visit to MOG (Museum of Goa) in Pilerne. A C-grade band was performing. This is nothing extraordinary, as any foreign musician who comes to Goa will have the red carpet rolled out for them—although Goa has so many of its own excellent musicians. The crowd comprised people from different parts of India and the world. Despite the presence of families with young children, some attendees were brazenly breaking the law by smoking pot—as this is what some visitors associate with Goa. The scene at the bar was typical: The white woman pouring the drinks was chatting with the white customers; she did not notice my Goan friend—although he is a man of decent height—standing directly in front of her, trying to get her attention. She did, however, notice a white man who approached the bar around the time that she decided to end her conversation. My friend politely informed her that he had been waiting; she apologized and took our drink order—but she seemed to struggle to understand his accent. Since contact with Goans seems to happen only on a need-to-do basis, she could very well have been unable to decipher what he was saying.

Yes, Goa is very hospitable. So accommodating a place is this that if you want to pretend the Goans don’t exist, you can do that with little protest. We know that Goa is regarded by many as a playground of sorts, but beyond this, spaces in Goa and depictions of Goa that are void of Goans feed into the notion that Goa was an empty place after the Portuguese left in 1961. This is a useful exercise for those from the Indian mainland, but what do foreign tourists have to gain from this?

Take food as an example. There is a common misconception overseas that India is a predominantly vegetarian country. Over the years, I have answered many questions about this from curious Canadians, and they are always shocked to learn that I was a vegetarian until I moved to India in 2007. More than the meat itself, the call of the masala was too seductive to ignore, and I fell off the wagon—hard. Indeed, I know very few strict vegetarians in India. However, I did have an American colleague in Bombay who had a preference for eating in “pure veg” restaurants. She said that she wanted to avoid the possibility of meat contaminating her food. For high-caste Hindus, however, the term “pure vegetarian” can have a different meaning. I used to wonder why I would see dairy on the menu in some vegetarian restaurants in India, and I recently got my answer from a knowledgeable friend. Since caste was almost never discussed in Bombay, I was oblivious for years about how significant the concept of purity still is when it comes to food. Although it may refer to the contents of the food on the menu, “pure vegetarian” can also mean that no one from a lower caste has prepared the food. There is another common misconception abroad that the caste system is no longer relevant in the lives of Indians. Therefore, a visitor is unlikely to think about the politics of food in India. This is despite the fact that fatal conflicts over beef have been reported in the international media. Perhaps because it is also widely believed that everyone views the cow as sacred, and therefore abstains from eating beef, such violence is met with apathy, as it is seen as a logical punishment.

In the areas of Goa that are popular with tourists, like Ashvem, the number of restaurants boasting a vegan menu seems to have grown over the years to cater to the white tourists. In tandem with this, the yoga retreats and classes have increased. To the tourists, the beaches of Goa must seem like an ideal location to practice yoga, and as I stated above, the outside world tends to equate veganism/vegetarianism with India. So, this must all seem tightly interconnected and innocent. But this is the problem. By adopting practices they understand to be Indian (or Hindu), or compatible with what they perceive as “Indian” culture, and carving out their own isolated space in Goa, such tourists may be unwittingly endorsing soft Hindutva.

As I have highlighted in the past, the conceptualization of Indianness is very narrow. One wonders how visitors can continue to hold onto this idea after seeing different parts of this country first-hand. An incident that is fixed in my memory is when a European woman said “Namaste” to a Goan Catholic friend. My friend quickly informed the woman that this is not how we interact with each other in Goa. I have also been surprised to hear Westerners in Goa try to speak to locals in Hindi. Similarly, many people in Bombay and Canada have asked me if I learned Hindi during my time in India, as if that is the only language people speak here. One exception left a lasting impression on me. Last year, I was stuck at Pearson International Airport due to a technical issue that was delaying my Jet Airways flight. A long wait for a delayed departure is a good ice breaker, so there was a lot of conversing going on at the gate. I was speaking to an Indo-Canadian man travelling to Chandigarh, and when he learned that I was a regular visitor to India, he asked me if I could speak any Indian languages. He was the first person to phrase this question as such, and I appreciated it.

This brings to mind the controversy when Coldplay and Beyoncé released their video for “Hymn for the Weekend” (2016). Most of the criticism from the West was directed at Beyoncé for cultural appropriation. What these accusations failed to account for was the homogenized image the video was portraying of India. And while some rightly accused Coldplay of engaging in an Orientalist fetishization of India, this critique only went so far; it missed the nuances of the problem of portraying India as a Hindu country, and more importantly, an upper-caste Hindu country. The insightful article, “Hymn for the Weekend: India’s Got 99 Problems, but Beyoncé’s Not One”, highlights the problems of promoting this image of India in the midst of growing religious fundamentalism including atrocities committed against Dalits. As I stated above, all of this information is available in the digital age. That it fails to influence how Westerners shape their understanding of India only helps those who want a Hindu—rather than a secular—nation.

How can we westerners enjoy free movement throughout most of the world and continue to take it for granted, blissfully ignorant of—or perhaps indifferent to—the people in the places we visit? Just as no space is waiting to be discovered by European explorers, neither does a place like Goa—so rich in culture—need anyone from outside to come and revive it or introduce the locals to the arts. Why are only white people accorded the name “expatriate”? Because we are happy to continue our colonial encounters.