Indian Nationalism as Modern Art

Visiting the National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA) at Bangalore has always been a happy experience, especially because I get to see the works of Goan artists like F. N. Souza and V. S. Gaitonde. The NGMA’s most recent exhibition, however, focused on an artist whose legacy is far more nationally known, and not least for nationalistic reasons. On display were a rare collection of lithographic prints by Ravi Varma (1848-1906), whose fame is largely attributed to the popularity of his depiction of gods and goddesses from the brahmanical canon. The images of the goddesses Saraswati and Laxmi, popular on calendars in many households today, are largely the result of Varma’s representation of them. Places like NGMA should ideally be hosting cutting-edge modern art, so one wonders why the administrators are happy to fall back on century-old work by Varma. The NGMA seemed to be trying to justify Varma’s presence by claiming him as ‘modern’ artist, which he is clearly not. At best, Varma’s work can be classified as neo-classical; painting ‘Indian’ themes in a European style, which was in fashion at that time.

Painting by Ravi Varma

Varma’s paintings continued to influence contemporary visual culture in India, as they formed the basis on which many artists and television serial-makers, like B.R. Chopra of Ramayana and Mahabharata fame in the 80s and 90s, imagined the characters of gods and goddesses for their projects. Apparently, even Anant Pai, the creator of Amar Chitra Katha comics (which retold brahmanical Indian stories and mythological tales), asked the comic book artists to look at Ravi Varma’s paintings and draw their images in a similar vein (Pathak, July 2, 2016).

In discussing the legacy of Varma, art historian Niharika Dinkar in her article “The Enduring Myth of Ravi Varma” (2010) , writes that he “was by no means an exceptional painter, but his aristocratic background and proximity to royal patrons granted him a profile quite unlike those of artists from more modest backgrounds”. It was Ravi Varma’s upper caste and class location that led to his popularity in India. Dinkar further argues that “the heroic narrative that has canonised him in the popular imagination as the ‘painter prince’ seized upon precisely these elements, establishing him as a worthy native who could equal the colonial master.” Varma’s work was part of the nationalistic project of framing Indian modernity in the early twentieth century, as it was used as a medium through which a ‘glorious’ Indian past could be imagined. The advancement of upper-caste Hindutva ideology in his art is also the reason why Varma continues to be popular today.

A typical reaction to Varma’ art is epitomised by Krishna Iyer to the news of the exhibition at NGMA. Regarding Varma’s work he writes, “Great Artist. I recall my mother, when asked to describe the qualities of a beautiful girl, said she must have all the characteristics of a Ravi Varma painting. Such was his reputation as a painter” (The Hindu, April 24, 2016). Such reactions lead us to question the intentions of NGMA, given the values explicit in the artist’s work. Varma’s stereotypical imagining of Indian women, in the early twentieth century, wrapped in expensive silk sarees (which are still out of the reach of most), has been embedded deeply in the psyche of the average Indian, as is seen in the opinion of Iyer’s mother. It is interesting that Iyer did not profess his own independent opinion but, rather, chose to abide by his mother’s. So much of such ‘saree-beauty-Indianness’ is embedded in saas-bahu relationships that it has perpetually been the fodder for soap-operas across all TV channels in India - stories which usually revolve around ‘traditional’ mothers-in-law domesticating the ‘western’ attired (and therefore ‘modern’) daughters-in-law.

The problem with nationalistic Indian modernity is the singularity of imagination that marginalises other cultures in India, including that of Goan Christians, and thereby marks them as anti-national. Often in a bid to ‘appear’ Indian, marginalised populations have to perform their allegiance to the nation by dressing in sarees and other similar traditional forms of attire. In fact, T. B. Cunha offers advice of this nature in his book Denationalization of Goan (1944) when advising his readers on how to demonstrate their loyalty to the Indian Nation through their garments. It is interesting how the patriarchal state has always burdened women with displaying the markers of identity.

In his essay “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatus” (1970), French Marxist philosopher Louis Althusser argues that the Nation-State operates in many subtle ways in advancing its dominant ideology. The larger argument for the promotion of Varma’s works in India today is that institutions like NGMA function as Ideological State Apparatuses (ISA) that endorse the idea of upper-caste Hindu nationalism. Which is also why there is a desperation to claim upper-caste Varma as a “great modern artist”.

NGMA - Bangalore

While the Varma exhibition has been given high curatorial priority, important works of the Modernists, Indian artists like F. N. Souza, V. S. Gaitonde, and M. F. Husain are left neglected in the deepest corners of the gallery. There is neither sufficient lighting there to appreciate the art, nor the right conditions to maintain them for posterity. As per Dinker, “at [the] contemporary moment… the elite and popular are increasingly intertwined”, and because what is popular today is nationalistic art, places like NGMA work as ISAs, and  continue to ‘rediscover’ (the neoclassical) Varma as a ‘modern Indian artist’ once too often.

[This article first appeared on The Goan, on August 28, 2016]

Greenwashing Second Homes

Is conscientious consumption possible when second homes in Goa are vacant most of the time?

Acquiring a Green Building certification seems to be the latest fad for promoting luxury second homes in Goa. Real-estate projects are invariably profit-driven but there seems to be a rise in ‘conscientious consumerism’, especially amongst status-seeking urban Indian elites. The problem with ‘green’ second homes, though, is that they are not socially and culturally sustainable, especially in the context of a small state like Goa, where land is a scarce resource and cannot even adequately cater to the needs of locals.

Take the case of Nivim Goa, a building named for the part of Aldona where it is located, and which is apparently the ‘first green certified home in Goa’. Built by the company Build Grounded (www.buildgrounded.com), its website tries to impress upon the reader that the company is invested in sustainable practices. And probably to prove the company’s credentials, the construction of Nivim Goa is elaborately documented on the website.  Highlighting the architectural features of the property, the website states that “Nivim is an expansive country home meant to rediscover the quiet luxury found in nature”. The location of property in Goa is itself a unique selling point, of course, but note how luxury and nature are equated in the aforementioned description to attract investors from congested Indian metros. Properties like Nivim fit the aspirational desires of Indian elites who are seeking to prove that they have arrived. This is because owning a property in an exotic destination like Goa, a property which additionally claims to offer access to ‘nature’,  while bearing the badge of ‘green-certification’, surely symbolises the ‘status’ of these new urbanites within the elite class in India.

However, there is a major problem in engaging in such ‘conscientious consumerism’. When the website claims that the house is “perched on a lush slope amongst tropical trees”, it is meant to create the impression of Goa as not just natural, but also devoid of a local population. Deliberately rendered invisible, the seeming absence of locals offers up a scenario where this ‘certified green [second] home’ can be consumed without any guilt or concern for Goa itself. No wonder many elite estates have tall compound walls, which cordon off their residents from the ordinary masses and allow them to remain blind to the issues facing them.

Real-estate companies, like Build Grounded, often claim to be honestly working towards sustainable architecture in order to ‘save’ the planet. American urbanist Daniel Brook argues that green certification programs like Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) is a “system that's easy to game and has more to do with generating good PR [Public Relations] than saving the planet” (2007). The promoters and builders of  Nivim Goa also seem to do “honest soul searching” when they ask on their blog, “[W]hy would a person choose to live in Goa (part-time or full-time)?” Already suggesting that Goa is a vacant land, this rhetorical question is aimed at an elite settler who is invited to participate in a vision of conscientious consumerism, which is exactly what the problem is.

The ‘Gold’ green rating awarded to Nivim is by the Indian Green Building Council, a certification program that is apparently based on LEED. The cons of such programs far outweigh their sustainable claims, writes Vanessa Quirk in an article titled ‘Where is LEED Leading Us?... And Should We Follow?’ (2012). The entire LEED certification has a fatal flaw, asserts Quirk, and it is that “no matter the un-sustainability of the context (the middle of a desert, for example), no matter its purpose (even a structure for parking), if a building adheres to the requirements, a fundamentally unsustainable building could still attain LEED certification”. This is as much true of a vacation homes, which unlike primary homes remain largely unoccupied throughout the year.

Despite this, second homes like Nivim, are certified as “Gold”. Even if the building boasts of features such as “100% use of solar power for water heating… Use of [a] 3-star energy efficient refrigerator (40% less energy use) and 5-star rated air-conditioners (25% less energy use)…”, among others, the project remains socially unsustainable because it leads to the exploitation of resources meant for locals. The vacation homeowners and users seem to fit the stereotype of those who seek the ‘outdoors’ as epitomised by the natural setting in Goa, but cannot do without the luxury within, including the use of air-conditioners. Most local Goan homes, for instance, are not fitted with air-conditioners, and therefore are probably much more energy efficient.

There is a wide gap between the comforts which the urbanite seeks in tourist destinations and the comforts which the average locals are accustomed to, and therein lies the problem of green certifications. Such certification assumes standards that are applicable to elites, while ordinary homes built by locals, within their means, would never be eligible for such certifications. Green Building certifications are status-seeking mechanisms, another PR stunt for the elites.

Nivim being sold, the promoters have moved on to the next project, another “beautiful contemporary [second] home that retains the charm of a traditional Goan-Portuguese courtyard home… [while again] targeting Green Homes certification from the Indian Green Building Council”, as the website maintains [emphasis mine]. While such conscientious consumerism is just a greenwashing of the ugly world of luxury consumerism, local housing needs are marginalised as such projects drive up the cost of land, making housing unaffordable for many Goans.

This article was first published on The Goan Everyday on 17.07.2016

The Ecological Impact of Luxury Second-Homes

The environmentalists might have more important issues to pay attention to on a global scale, but the second-home ownership issue is the hidden giant that is being unjustifiably ignored (Müller & Hoogendoorn, 2013). Second homes are of many types and it is important to distinguish them in order to understand which ones cause higher environmental and social problems. The real evils are the ones used especially for the purpose of recreation and luxury, such as vacation homes and weekend homes. Owning of such second-homes is a continuation of a colonial way of being and operating, where there is a hierarchical interaction with people and a misappropriation of limited resources, given the size of Goa, with no stakes in the future of Goa.

The menace of second-homes is on the rise in Goa because Goa is treated as a pleasure periphery. Sociologist Anthony King (1980) argues that the capitalist economy produces not only a surplus of wealth, but also, for a sizeable minority, a surplus of time.  King claims that the motives of owning vacation homes include seeking compensation for city living, understood as escaping from perceived overcrowding, noise, traffic congestion, air pollution, and the pressures of city life. Goa enjoys scenic settings, with world famous beaches, ‘green’ landscapes, as well as its Europeanised culture, which makes it a cosmopolitan destination for elite Indians. Many who invest here are looking for a ‘getaway’, to ‘have a good time’, rather than to merely invest their money in real-estate.

Premium property promoters, such as Saffronart, proffer the leisure incentive as the main incentive for buying a property in Goa. “Here’s one purely fun situation where buying a [second] home clearly trumps renting one”, writes R. Rashmi (2014) in an article on the Saffronart’s online portal.  Her strongest argument to buy a home in Goa is because now the owners of this new property can “think nights of shenanigans with friends—pool parties, booze, loud music, dancing into the wee hours of the morning… is mainly possible when you buy a home [in Goa]”. Real-estate promoters like Saffronart seem to goad their clients, the elites in Indian metropolises into not just buying a second-home in Goa, but also buying into a certain lifestyle. The implications of these lifestyles on locals are severe especially the unaffordability to get basic housing.  Clearly, the focus of the tourists who once came to Goa for its sights has moved on to the ownership of sites (Trichur, 2013), in the form of real-estate properties.

An article on www.moneycontrol.com, a website which claims to be India’s number one financial portal, states that “majority of real estate investments [in Goa] come from Delhi and Mumbai as people from these states, who once used Goa as holiday destination, are now buying their own cottage, villa or luxury house in the enchanting Goa”. In another article on Guide to Buying Properties in Goa, Dhruv Bharua writes that “in terms of property prices, North Goa gives the investor better returns on his investments”. Not surprisingly, this article is featured in The Holiday Home Times, an online magazine in India that claims to be a “trusted guide for second homes investors”. The decision of buying a second home in Goa is made easier as the real-estate prices are comparatively lower than those in large Indian metropolises. Improved mobility from the Indian metros to Goa, be it in terms of faster highways, train connections, and cheaper air connections have made this place into a weekend ‘getaway’ for the urban Indian elites.

The steering committee for the Regional Plan Goa 2021, headed by the late architect Charles Correa, did identify second-homes as a problem and proposed to tax them. But would mere taxation resolve the issue? The British government has increased taxation on second-homes, but as Clive Aslet, a second-home owner argues,  such moves are not going to solve the basic housing issues of the poor because the problem of housing is a structural one. Apparently, the British Government is not doing enough to supply homes for first time owners, and methods like taxation of second-home owners are actually a deflection from the real issues of housing. Moreover, since the rich anyway invest in vacation second-homes for luxury, taxes would not deter them.

Switzerland is another place that inordinately suffers the menace of second-home buyers, essentially, elites from urban areas who occasionally want to live with ‘nature’. Not surprisingly therefore, on 11 March 2012, in a popular vote, the Swiss population approved an initiative proposed by ecologist Franz Weber calling for a halt on the construction of new second homes in districts where such homes already exceeded a threshold of 20% of total housing stock (Schuler & Dessemontet, 2013). A similar initiative needs to be taken up in Goa, for which the first step would be a detailed survey and building utilization mapping of luxury weekend homes.

After all, the tourist who buy second-homes in Goa are not here to settle. They are here to consume Goa and move on to greener pastures when the going is not good and the green is gone. Their primary residence continues to be the Indian Metropolises from which they control this territory. As R. Benedito Ferrao has argued, Goa has now become a colony of a post-colony, literally, as its land and prime real-estate is controlled by the elites from Indian metros.

[This article was first published on The Goan on 22.05.2016]

No Bamboo Banawing!

On a recent visit to the Konkan Bamboo and Cane Development Centre (KONBAC) at Kudal, I came to know that there has been a drastic change in strategy to promote bamboo as construction material. Rather than endorsing bamboo as an affordable material for the poor, especially to build cost-effective houses, it is now being popularised as a material that satisfies the upwardly mobile elites’ fad of sustainability. Although the desire to replace unsustainable materials is laudable, the question is whether these projects, using bamboo, are truly as sustainable as they claim to be? Moreover, there also arises an issue of appropriation of material culture, especially of the poor in tribal areas by the dominant elites.

One of the strongest criticisms of the appropriation of the architecture of the poor has been made by the sociologist Anthony King, who writes that the rich often appropriate the architecture of farmer’s cottages (farmhouses) for their vacation homes (which are usually their second or third home). These elites, King observes, only absorb the aesthetics of a farmer’s house and not their lifestyle. The problem of the cultural appropriation of marginalized cultures without assimilation of the marginalized population seems to be prevalent everywhere. Raising the issues of cultural appropriation of hairstyles is a recent video titled Don’t Cash Crop on My Cornrows by Amandla Stenberg. There are many similarities between hairstyle and architecture. Both are about identity, and clearly about style. In so many ways, hairstyles are, in fact, a form of architecture. Stenberg’s major criticism is that white Americans love black culture more than they love the black people.The video demonstrates how hip-hop and pop have been appropriated from African American culture especially in terms of hairdos such as pleats, cornrows and so forth, while continuing with the racist hatred towards black people. These hairdos, as Stenberg notes, are ways in which black hair is kept from knotting. Stenberg laments that while these hairdos are stereotypical of the community, when white Americans adopts them, they turn into high fashion. This is a similar way in which vernacular architecture gets appropriated when architect claim them as ‘contemporary-vernacular style’. While the rich appropriate the poor farmer’s cottages to model their vacation-homes, these houses are always fitted with appliances and systems (air-conditioning etc.) needed for the comfort of upmarket modern living, which the vacationers cannot do without. Additionally there is also a failure to acknowledge the role of vernacular people, the ones who have championed the use of sustainable materials and forms in the first place.

In his book, The System of Objects, Jean Baudrillard argues that a suburbanite who aspires to move up into a higher class usually does so by buying antiques – symbols of old social position brought with new money. Essentially, he argues that the upwardly mobile class signal their social standing through material signs such as antique furniture, works of art, and so forth. Today, it is materials like bamboo that are being pressed into the service of consumption, because they give the image of sustainability. Using bamboo is fast becoming fashionable as appearing sustainable can symbolize that one has truly arrived in the elite world. Bauldrillard further discusses that every object has two functions – to be put to use and to be possessed. While a plastic chair in a living room can be put to use, it never seem to be dearly possessed, whereas the antique voltaire, may at times not even be used but is dearly possessed as an object. The argument for the bamboo is similar. The rich use it in an attempt to possess it as an object rather than utilising it functionally. It seems that the dominant cultures intermittently stoop to peripheral ones in order to appropriate from them, without the guilt of further marginalizing them. The violence is doubled as the poor are made to believe that there is legitimacy in the marginalized culture only when there is a sanction of it by the dominant ones.

The use of bamboo as ‘sustainable’ material in the construction of elite houses is also problematic because of the cost and distance of procuring it, as it is usually not locally available. Holistic sustainability has to factor in the ecological implication of transporting materials, plus the carbon footprint of the air-travel that the ‘designer’ architect would spend on travelling to the site. Moreover, even if sustainable material is used for the building of a second or third home, then the very idea of sustainability is defeated because sustainability has to be about satisfying only the primary needs of living and not about luxury.

It is not that architects and clients should completely ignore bamboo as a sustainable building material. In fact, organization like KONBAC have resorted to the marketing of bamboo to elites because there is no culture of building in bamboo in our society. Today, bamboo should not be a material of choice but that of convenience and compulsion. What is then required is a system of making bamboo easily available by creating a network of bamboo farmers, as KONBAC claims to have done. It is also important that the government create bamboo forests in close proximity to urban areas so that its transport from the source to the site is sustainable. Building in bamboo should not be about style but that of real ecological and social responsibility.

[This article first appeared on The Goan on 24th April, 2016]

Namazgah: a Kafka-esque Castle

A recent newspaper report, ‘Bicholim’s Forbidden Namazgah’, brought back distant memories of the place. Bicholim is my mother’s birthplace, and as a child I spent many summers there. The Namazgah could be sighted from a distance, if one were seated on the right side of the bus while approaching the town, as I often did. Perched on a hill, the historic monument, which evidences Goa’s Islamicate heritage, always seemed like an intriguing place, one that I often yearned to visit as a child. Even now, between the monument and the town, midway along the hill, is a busy mining road where trucks full of ore ply from the mining areas to the river port. From a distance, these trucks seem like robotic guards to the Namazgah. The monument, because of its location and the restrictions surrounding it, reminds me of Franz Kafka’s novel The Castle, a haunting tale of a man who struggles relentlessly with an inscrutable authority to gain entrance to the castle.

During our school vacation days, the enigma of the Namazgah would frequently feature in our discussions; some older kids would boast of flying kites from there. Apparently, the kites flown from the Namazgah would disappear into the misty skies above the town. Such claims made a deep impression on me and I hoped to reach the hilltop someday.

I grew up in Vasco da Gama, the port town from which the ore mined from places like Bicholim is shipped to distant lands. My father worked for one of the mining companies, often driving from Vasco to Bicholim and back. When the mine company he worked for closed down, he was made redundant, and our family suffered in the process, just as many bahujan families do today.

I had to return to Bicholim to continue my education, partly because of these economic troubles. This is when the Namazgah became more accessible to me. I often climbed up the slopes of the hill to study in preparation for the 12th Board Exams. The place is a few minutes hike from my grandmother’s house. The hillside was tranquil, without a soul around, so one could read aloud. Also, I needed to move about while revising my lessons. This place provided multiple choices to study, including sitting on rocks; walking up or down the gentle slopes; or, if boredom was taking over, even running from one side to another, while screaming out some stupid chemistry formulae in order to better memorise them. I must have seemed like a fool to the occasional locals who came there to collect firewood. The side of the hill I studied on faces east, so after about 2 PM, it would turn shady.

Although I found the place relatively quiet, it was not as if the mining trucks had disappeared. They continued to ply across the belly of the hill, even having increased in number. The steady rumbling of the machines could put a baby to sleep.

In those days, the Namazgah merely appeared inaccessible, and people were not physically forbidden from visiting it as reported recently. The denial of access, for some time now, is because a huge mine lies across from the Namazgah. Although the hill as seen from the town appears normal, the western side is completely mined, with the excavations going extremely deep. The devastation is such that anybody seeing it from the Namazgah would justify the mining ban.

While I am skeptical of the appeals for a complete or immediate ban, I would like to argue that the recent mining ban in Goa had less to do with saving the environment and more to do with who benefits from mining. There is no denying that mining has been an important source of livelihood for many in Goa. A documentary produced by Time magazine in 1953, under its ‘March of Time’ series, suggests that mining made many prosperous then. In fact, the rise of the first Goan political bahujan leader Dayanand Bandodkar would not have been possible had he not been a mine-owner. That he was able to be Goa’s first Chief-Minister is a testimony to the power of mining as mediator of social change.

Apparently, the beneficiaries of the recent mining boom were largely the bahujans of Goa, many of whom were able to rise from the pits of poverty into a middle class life. This was because the benefits of mining were directly accessible to them. The rise of bahujans is apparently not easily digested, and one could read the mining ban as a systemic tool to weed the bahujans out from the business.

Given that we are on the cusp of resuming mining operations, the Namazgah will once again bear mute witness to the drone of machines. However, this time only a select few will benefit from the operations, while many bahujans dependent on mining will continue to live on the crumbs. As in Kafka’s tale, only some are allowed entry into the castle.

There is no doubt that mining has to be done in a different way – by ensuring that local communities benefit, that environment is minimally damaged (and then repaired as much as possible) and that heritage does not get obstructed or damaged.

[This article first appeared on The Goan on 27th March 2016, on the Easter Sunday] 

To Plaster or Not

The Basilica of Bom Jesus needs to be re-plastered, without which it won’t survive for too long.

The Basilica of Bom Jesus in Old Goa is important not only because it houses the relics of St Francis Xavier, but also because it is a critical part of Goa’s architectural history. Apart from being a religious building, constructed between 1587-97, the Basilica represents the flowering of Renaissance style architecture in Goa.  

A generation of Goans has grown accustomed to seeing the Basilica’s exposed laterite walls, but this is not the way the building was designed, nor indeed the way it looked until about 60 years ago.  In his research paper, “On the Trail of Baltazar Castro, a Portuguese Restorer in India” (Proceedings of the EAHN 2015: Entangled Histories, Multiple Geographies, Belgrade), architect-scholar Joaquim R. Santos reveals that it was discredited restorer Castro who, in the 1950s, brought about the dramatic transformation of the external appearance of the Basilica, by having the plaster removed and leaving the underlying laterite stone exposed. Santos claims that such de-plastering was a part of President Antonio Salazar’s nationalistic ideology, where monuments were falsely ‘restored’ to look ancient, or rather medievalised, to proclaim the antiquity of the Portuguese empire. Santos also adds that many such ideologically motivated restorations were initially undertaken in Salazar-ruled Portugal during the 1940s. Apart from the de-plastering of the Basilica, Castro also affected the removal of its pyramidal sloping roof which was over the bell tower. Today, these changes still haunt the Basilica.  Replying to the recent discussion in the media on plastering the church, the rector of the Basilica, Fr. Savio Baretto admits that “[t]he bell tower is a real problem during the monsoon. Maximum leakage takes place there” (The Goan Everyday, 10 Feb. 2016).

Source: Souza and Paul Album (Central Libray)

But despite the deterioration, Fr. Baretto and many others seem to be against the idea of re-plastering the Church. The Rector echoes a romantic appeal that “[m]ost of the Goans have been born to the sight of a red bricked [laterite] Church. Having it plastered will hurt the sentiments of the people of Goa more than anything. I agree with the fact [that] the church is deteriorating, but there must be more modern ways of preserving and improving the structure”.  The fact is that there is no better way to preserve the church other than plastering it. History also suggests that such sentiments are misplaced, because the Basilica was always meant to be plastered since the time it was built in the late sixteenth century. If the public affection in Goa for the Basilica did not dim, despite the removal of its plaster, why would it happen now when the result would be the protection of the Basilica.

In his book Whitewash, Redstone: A History of Church Architecture in Goa (2011), architectural historian Paulo Varela Gomes claims that the Bom Jesus is a “unique façade in the history of Christian architecture” (p.68). A closer observation of the façade will reveal that it consists of two kinds of stonework - the hard and intricately decorated Bassein basalt, brought all the way from the Bombay region, and the porous local laterite stone. Of these, it is the hard stone which is meant to be exposed and un-plastered. The story of the exposed stone in the Basilica’s design is more interesting than it appears. The design of the church, the construction of which began in 1587, was a modest affair, writes Gomes, and that around 1596 the complex (Casa Professa) was practically finished, with only its façade yet to be built. Gomes argues that there was a decisive shift from modesty to monumentality when the Jesuits decided at the last moment to have the Basilica’s façade built of pedra do norte (northern stone), that is Bassein basalt. This stonework is indeed exquisite and truly marks the uniqueness of the Basilica.  Discussing the lasting contribution of the Bom Jesus façade, Gomes declares that “it could have been the building that allowed Indian artisans to domesticate European architectural and ornamental vocabulary, to make it their own” (p.70). It is clear that it was the Bassein stone with its ornamentation which was to be seen in relief against the plastered and the whitewashed walls of the rest of the Basilica. 

Source: Souza and Paul Album (Central Libray)

The Basilica was already renowned for its aesthetics of exposed hard stone and whitewashed walls before Castro’s intervention. He seems to have followed the politically motivated aesthetics used in Portugal to justify de-plastering.  But, monuments which were de-plastered in Portugal were made of hard granite, which can withstand the vagaries of nature; the same is not true of Goan laterite.  A porous stone, laterite absorbs water by capillary action which leads to the soaking of the entire wall. The damage is therefore not restricted to the exterior surfaces alone.  

The fact that the exposed laterite walls of the Basilica have miraculously withstood the onslaught of the Goan monsoons since the 1950s should not make us complacent.  The same fate, Santos claims, was not accorded to the Arch of the Viceroys in old Goa. It was also de-plastered by Castro, and soon afterwards crumbled during a heavy monsoon storm. The arch which is visible today is the reconstructed version. The clerical authorities in the Archdiocese have to decide, therefore, if the current aesthetics of the Basilica are more important than the monument itself.

[This article was first publish on The Goan Everyday on 29/02/2016]