admin Vithai Zaraunkar
Once my professor at Goa University said to me that I had changed a lot. “You were so quiet, seated on the last bench in the class, afraid to be noticed by teachers. You are not the same Vithai I met five years ago. Do you think you have changed?”
I thought for a bit and replied,‘Yes.’
Now I will tell you how it all happened.
As a child, I enjoyed my life at home. I had major fun at home rather than in the ‘outside’ environment. Within the household, I was the princess of my father. My life journey started in a very poor family in the beautiful village of Gaval Kholain Goa. My father was a mason and my mother worked in the fields as a sharecropper. My parents had four children and there was no major source of income, yet we lived a very happy and beautiful life. I had many friends with whom I enjoyed a lot. At the age of six, I started my schooling. At the primary school level (from first to the fourth standard) all the students were from my village and belonged to the Velip community. Our village, Khola, which is located near the Cabo de Rama Fort, has four primary schools. Therefore at the primary level, there were no students from other communities in our class during my school days. We shared many things—games, tiffins, studies, fights—and life was too beautiful. At the primary level, I was the only student who was actively participating in competitions such as storytelling, elocution, spelling completion (Marathi as well as in English). Till the initial stages of high school, I remained a very active student. We have only one school in our village from fifth to tenth standards and all the students from other primary schools come here to study. From the fifth standard onward I slowly started keeping away from participating in many of the events or the activities conducted in the school curriculum. This was because of two teachers, a couple who taught us in high school. They lived in our ward, Gaval, in a rented room as those days there was limited transportation. The husband was our sports teacher and the wife taught us Social Science and Science. Both started hating me as I was a bright student. This is something I realised when I reached the eighth standard. In the eighth standard, the lady teacher (who taught us Social Science and Science) was not teaching us because she was a middle-school teacher and hence she taught from fifth to seventh standards. But her husband continued to be our Sports teacher. I realised why they used to hate me as I remained a favourite student of all the teachers, except the two of them.
(Cabo de Rama Fort)
Whenever I, or my friends, didn’t complete our homework, the lady teacher always commented, ‘Kulmi tumi ani kulmich urtali tumi ani kenna sudharchi naat,’ (You are kulmi and kulmi you will remain and you will never improve). Hearing this constantly I stopped participating in school activities. The teacher also used to hit us for silly reasons. For example, if we didn’t answer any question, or memorise (what we call ‘by heart’ in our education system)an answer she had given in a previous class she would throw the duster from where she was sitting, basically from the teacher’s table to the student’s bench. I was very feeble in ‘by hearting’ as compared to other students. I was made to believe that since I could not memorise answers I was no good at studies. I thought to myself that my inability to memorise was the reason she constantly said that we were Kulmi and we would never amount to anything. We also heard similar remarks from her husband who was our Sports teacher. Whenever he came to our class, from the fifth standard till the ninth standard, instead of teaching sports, he asked me and my friends about the sportsbook. We never participated in sports and were never asked to participate. We were never taught the games and were denied all sports activities. Even those students from my community who took part in sports did not receive any training from him. These students were also made to do domestic work during school hours such as grinding masalas, fetching water from the public tap to their room, etc. Whenever the sports teacher came to our class he spoke about the people of my village (as he lived in our village) in derogatory terms, saying that they were barbaric, didn’t know how to wear clothes, or didn’t use toilets, or were defecating in open toilets. He would also highlight the names of our elders. For example, “Shaba ponnevadyavelo sakalichya 6 varacher daily tamyo ghevan bhair sarta ani parat yeta tenna ani tanchyakade ravpache aasana ghaani kide khata mhan konak khabar,” (Shaba from Gaval village goes out at six in the morning with a utensil for toilet and when they come back they smell very badly…I don’t understand what these people eat).Other comments would be on our eating habits: Pez jevtat sakalche 6 o’ clock, ‘jungli aesole, Ranvoti,’or on our ways of dressing: They roam half naked, kashti martat, botvo laytat (a small bag made of cotton cloth), paan-supari khatat, unclean ravtat and on and on. For around five years we were hearing the same theme from the two teachers with varying examples and names of our elders.
For a student at the primary level, a teacher is a kind of god; for us also it was the same. I felt whatever our teacher was saying about my village people was true—we were not developed, we were backward educationally as well as socially, my village people didn’t know anything. From this experience, I moved forward in my life and tried to change my identity. At first, I started masking my identity.
The image of my people created by my school teachers embarrassed me. When I passed my SSC and started going to Higher Secondary school I adopted a different lifestyle. I changed my school. I joined the United Higher Secondary School in Cuncolim village where I took admission in the Science stream. Changing the school made it a little convenient to hide my identity. When I was a little girl I was wearing a salwar-kamiz or a frock that most girls from my community wore, but now I switched to wearing jeans, t-shirts and tops, so-called modern dresses. I changed my hairstyle (a modern hair cut), I spoke differently, modulating my Konkani differently from my village people. I adopted these ways basically from the eleventh standard onwards. When I joined the higher secondary school I had made up my mind that I would not make any friends from within my community thinking that if I did so it would affect my development, my image, and that other students would look down upon me. Hence all my friends at the higher secondary level were from other communities—Naik, Dessai, Chari, etc. Also, most of the time I felt that they were not accepting me in their group. This could have been just my feeling and it’s possible that they did not have any intention to avoid me. All the students were from one school, Maria Bambina High School, Cuncolim and I were the only alien to that group. Most of the time I felt lonely because the other students never shared any joke, or tiffin with me as they shared among themselves.
I had studied in the Science stream till class 12 and I wanted to pursue a career in agriculture science. For that, I had applied for a course on Agriculture in Maharashtra. I was selected for the course but I couldn’t pursue my career due to lack of financial support. I was completely unaware of the facilities available for students from ST (Scheduled Tribe) such as free hostel accommodation and other related benefits. Due to a lack of financial support and knowledge about provisions for ST students, I lost the opportunity to take up my desired career. I know I am not the only one who has missed out on such an opportunity; there are thousands of Vithai who have missed the opportunity just because they were unaware of their rights and the benefits given to them by the Constitution of India.
At the same time, I lost my father. To do BSc (Bachelor of Science) I had to go to Quepem, which was a little far from home and my family was not in a position to afford it. So I continued my studies in Arts. I joined CES College of Arts and Commerce, Cuncolim. Here, too, I continued with the same strategy of staying away from my community people and hiding my tribal identity. Since I did not have a surname such as ‘Velip’or ‘Gaonkar’ that would give away my identity it was a little easy for me to hide my Velip roots. Many a time I received negative comments on the dialect of Konkani that I speak, and I was being corrected to speak the so-called upper-caste dialect.
As an example, during my college days, I came across many comments on my language. During those days I spoke my native language, which is my native Konkani which is spoken in my village. Sometimes I managed to speak like the elite class, but I retained some words from my native dialect. One day one of my classmates met me on the bus stand. She started talking to me, then I asked her something about the lecture and she said “Ago bai hi ani kasali language uloyta tu? Asalele ani nasalele mhanp asana go ashille ani nashille mhanap” (Hey girl, what is this language you speak? Don’t say asalale, and nasalele, say ashille and nashille). I was so disturbed hearing her, fearing that she might tell her friends and they would start laughing at me.
Throughout college life I remained a person who was very quiet, shy, lacking confidence, never mixing up with others, afraid to be noticed by teachers, ashamed of myself thinking that I knew nothing. But this situation did not remain the same.
When I went to do my M.A in Sociology at Goa University, I easily got selected on the basis of my ‘merit’ since my academic scores were good. But, I used to deliberately hide the fact that I belonged to a tribal community. The identity or the image that a tribal has is a negative ‘primitive’ image of humans, dressing poorly and using a distorted language, and I didn’t yet know the actual reason behind it, that is, ‘why is it so?’ and how it is constructed. Thus, I was careful about hiding my identity so that I could avoid the atrocities that I had faced during schooling which had affected me psychologically. There were discussions regarding STs in our classroom but I used to keep quiet. It was in the last semester when I opted for the course titled ‘Tourism Culture and Development’ that I disclosed my identity for the first time, and that too confidently. In this course, we were given to study the local cultural festivals of Goa with reference to tourism and how the tourism industry is helping to popularise different hidden cultures. For that reason, we were given an opportunity to study the Lokutsav of Canacona taluka, a tribal festival of the Velip community. It is an annual festival wherein the traditional way of cooking, use of traditional utensils, instruments, and dresses are displayed for three days. In our course, we were introduced to different concepts such as Orientalism, Othering, Auto-Orientalism, Auto-Othering, Folklorisation, etc. I had referred to my senior, Elizabeth Bara’s dissertation, Why Dance? (https://hanvkonn.wordpress.com/2019/07/26/why-dance/), where she mentions her experience in college. One of her friends said to her: ‘You do not look like a tribal.’ This statement of her’s touched me a lot and also disturbed me. It made me think about the experience of my life. Several questions arose in my mind: Can we recognise a tribal just by looking at them? How do they look? Who created this type of image? Why am I running away from ‘myself’? What are the factors that are responsible for the same? Why can’t I live a normal life like others? Why do such problems occur? Many questions emerged in my mind for which I did not have any answers. It is not just the dressing style or the use of a ‘distorted’ language, but people expect tribals to be different in particular ways. After reading different concepts like ‘Othering’, ‘Orientalism’ etc. and relating them to the ‘Lokutsav’, and discussions in the classroom I realised how reality is constructed and certain cultures are made inferior. The introduction to these concepts stimulated me and I learned why I was ashamed of my culture, why I was running away from it, and I also came to know why my school teacher and my classmates had passed negative comments about me and my community. It made me realise that I was nowhere. I tried to become so-called ‘modern’ but I couldn’t achieve that and in reality, I am not fully modern and neither completely traditional.
When I made the classroom presentation on Lokutsav I presented it as ‘our culture’. It made me feel proud. That was the first time that I represented myself with reference to my community in front of my classmates. Some of them were not able to accept the fact that I belonged to a tribal community. Perhaps they never expected a person from a tribal community to be in their class (this is what I gathered from their expressions). The ‘markers’ for tribals are totally different from my appearance. Even today people believe that tribal people live in jungles, wear few clothes and lead a primitive way of life. This might be the reason why people did not expect me at the post-graduate level.
It was during the second year of MA that we were exposed to the studies of Authenticity. It refers to something genuine or real. Within this study we had a reading on Orientalism—what does Orientalism mean? According to Edward Said, Orientalism is the description or depiction of the eastern cultures in the west. This view is being continued from the colonial times. It has divided the world into two parts—‘ours’ and ‘theirs’. Orientalists linked the western cultures to the eastern cultures through which eastern people were seen as uncivilized beings. The image of eastern cultures was represented in a stigmatised way and it continues till today. A combination of authenticity and oriental writing made me understand that whatever is contained in the writings of orientalists is not authentic or real, rather it was the image through which the western cultures were represented in a superior manner.
Through this, I come to know that backwardness is something that is created through oriental literature and imposed on the people who were not in power to show the difference between what is to be called ‘high’ status and ‘low’ status. From this, I understood that my culture, the language we speak, the dressing style of my community is nothing to do with backwardness as supposed by my two school teachers. My culture is very rich and beautiful. When I saw the celebration of Velip traditions, traditional songs, dance, food, traditional ways of cooking, medicinal practices, equipments, utensils, etc, at the Lokutsav in Canacona, I understood that I am not ‘I’ what I say I am, but I am ‘I’ what others say I am. This realisation acted as a turning point in my life. I started developing myself. I read more on orientalism and oriental literature and decided that I’m ‘I’ what I say I am.
I undertook a project entitled Old Songs, New Stories: The Tales From Velips of Goa. The project was sanctioned by the Ministry of Culture, Government of India, as part of the preservation of intangible cultural heritage. This project gave me the courage and the means to collect the stories of my community. While collecting and recording the stories I visited many tribal villages of Canancona, came across distinct lifestyles, encountered a great culture and great people who never say no to anyone, who are happy to help but are handicapped to help themselves. Through this project, I developed an intense feeling for my culture and learned that it’s very rich and beautiful and realised that the people whom I interviewed are very enlightened people. While doing this project I come across many difficulties—I was unable to understand the language of my elders; while transcribing I could not get the meaning of many words. I used to sit with them for hours to just understand the meaning and write it in my own words.
Later, the film Ami Kon, made by Gasper D Souza which highlights my life experience, brought about an immense change in me. In 2016 when I screened that film at a workshop at Ponda I found the courage to disclose my experience. This had never happened earlier. I wasn’t afraid to highlight reality. Initially, I was very reluctant to screen that film because once, my professor Alito Siqueira, screened that film for our juniors at the university and one of my friends messaged me saying that ‘the film was very nice but your room is very messy.’ Then I telephoned Sir and told him to stop screening the film if that was the message being communicated to people. Later, I received many positive comments on the film, for example when it was screened at the Ponda Workshop. Sometimes I felt that I should not screen that film because of feelings of stigmatisation but at other times I also felt like screening the film just to look at the reaction of the audience. This film brought about positive as well as negative comments, and through all that I became a stronger person.
After finishing the project I applied for the B.Ed (Bachelor of Education) course. I was first in the list of ST category applicants for the Social Science seat. When I went to the Directorate of Higher Education for admission somebody else’s name was announced instead of mine. I asked the Director how that had happened. The Director showed me another list. The selection list had been changed overnight. I got a chance to fight and challenge the system highlighting that whatever they had done while filling up the B.Ed seat was through incorrect procedures. After challenging the system I got a seat for the B.Ed course. This experience, in turn, taught me a lesson that if I remained quiet I would miss all the opportunities in my life and I would have to suffer just like my forefathers. This is how my life took a turn towards empowerment. The denial of my rights has strengthened me. My experience has also provided me with courage and made me look responsibly towards the development of my community.
In 2017-18 my first teaching experience was at the Balram Higher Secondary College where 90 percent of the students were from the ST community. I was appointed on a lecture basis and was allotted many other duties—conducting weekly morning assemblies, class teachership, members of different committees. Since it was my first job I was not aware of the workload for a lecture-basis teacher. After a few days, I realised that we were being harassed by the principal. Attending evening events was made compulsory, as was attending all the other programmes. However many of us wanted to leave the job because we were given extra duties without being compensated for them. The salary came late somewhere in August 2018 and I was totally exhausted in terms of resources and was ashamed of asking my family for money. The worst experience was the principal telling ST category students, ‘For how long are you going to take the help of reservation?’ In a way, the principal was telling students that if they abstain from taking reserved posts every person in this society would magically become equal. This struck me hard as I was well aware of the hardships that the students of this community had to face, and how the marginalised communities are ill-treated and forced to hide their identity which begins during the process of education itself. I was about to quit the job; I had even submitted my resignation but it was not accepted. I was really suffocating and it was painful to see the students being misguided about reservation and being made to feel ashamed of utilising their rights. Whenever there was a discussion in class about reservations, I would highlight the importance of reservations and tell the students why it was introduced in the Constitution. I conveyed to the students that reservation was not charity but a constitutional right.
Another incident which strengthened my will to challenge others occurred at my job at Mallikarjune College, Canacona. I had to fight to get this job, too. I was the only qualified candidate with SET (a minimum qualification for assistant professors at the college level), but I was not appointed for the job. Instead, someone who was not qualified was being appointed for the post. I raised the issue with the Directorate of Higher Education and was subsequently offered the job.
The day I joined the College, the principal called me to his office. Two other persons were present in the office: the Head of Department of Sociology and the Head Clerk. The principal started talking about the importance of college discipline. This included: ‘You cannot make friends with students. You may know most of the students as they belong to your community, but you can’t talk to them in a friendly way. I will not entertain such behaviour.’ He also said, ‘You may be having a good social network but I don’t want it within my college campus. You may do anything outside the campus. Are you getting my point? We have built up this institution with our sweat. Seventy percent of students come from the ST community and we are catering to all the needs of these students. We are doing a lot for their development.’ He also informed me that ‘other than lecture you will be having many other responsibilities (which he did not specify). Besides 12 lectures a week you have to do other activities. You should work for 20 lectures.’ I did not say a word. Then he said, ‘You may go now.’
I felt so lonely. I felt like giving away the job. When the Principal spoke to me I could feel his anger towards me. I felt that I was being harassed by the Principal because he resented the fact that I was appointed on the intervention of the Directorate of Higher Education and he was suggesting that such ‘networks’ should be kept out of the College Campus. I was being harassed and insulted on the very first day at the workplace! Many other things were done to suggest that I was not capable of teaching at the college level.
It is a battle I will have to fight. Fortunately, I have developed courage through the help and support of Professor Alito Siqueira and my friends. Thanks to my life experiences, today I am confident and want people to notice me for who I am. I am not afraid of anyone, and certainly not ashamed of my culture. Rather, I am proud of my heritage and this gives me the strength to move forward in life.
~~~
Vithai Thulo Zaraunker is currently working as Asst. Professor of Sociology at Cuncolim
Education Society, Cuncolim Salcete- Goa. In her own quiet way, she continues to explore
creative activism for reassertion of tribal identity and rights