ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the manner in which the state uses its ability to imagine and create the space for the expansion and implementation of its hegemonic control over the society. The development of a tourism destination is a process of producing spaces, constructed by historically contingent institutional practices and cultural discourse. Dominant theories of tourism destination pay attention to the quantifiable aspects of the tourism destination while simultaneously ignoring its historical and social nature. The Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP), an aggregate of mutually antagonistic economic classes that came together guided only by the dual objective to eliminate Brahmin domination and the marginalization of Catholic influence in Goa, won the election in 1962 and remained in power till 1979. The overnight emergence and success of the MGP had a critical impact on the postcolonial Goan economy. At the same time, the Goan mercantile bourgeoisie devised strategies to gain acceptance and soften the skeptical gaze of the masses in postcolonial Goan society.
