Goa, Sept. 2 -- VICTOR FERRAO

Politics is never merely about the present. It is chronopower, the pow er that seizes time itself and bends it into an instrument. It politicises time so that time produces more time for politics. In this process some forces fall upon the past. They dig up old wrongs and open old wounds, convert ing memory into emotion that shields the present and authorises whatever is done today as necessary justice or correction. Other forces gaze at the fu ture. When the present feels ruined or inadequate, they offer a horizon of promise, a tomorrow that will redeem to day. Politics can work both reg isters at once. It anchors itself in a politicised past while pro jecting a politicised future, and in that double movemen...