You mention "Goans' inability to form a shared understanding of their sense of history....". Does this justify having Goa's administration colonised by non-Goans, from top to bottom?
Those "hundreds of years of contradictions and bitterness between goans", is it the exclusive prerogative of Goans? Are you saying that there are no contradictions and bitterness, on a much wider scale, among Indians in general? What has this to do with the current state of affairs in Goa?
Goans cannot unite, so non-Goans get a free ride, is that the implication? I may partially accept this, but not the rest.
And I wish I could understand why you bring up the "caste-based battles" of yesteryears. We are talking about the staffing of Goa's civil service! Let me ask you, isn't India a caste-based society, even today, as much as its politicians and inteligentsia try to claim otherwise? Is there any community more caste-conscious than the Hindus, in India?
Last but not least, I have not tried to portray things in a "good-guys vs bad-guys" manner. That's your insinuation. My turn to say that you missed my point. Non-Goan IAS officers can be very good ones, and Goan officers could be incompetent ones. Self-evident and unquestionable, as much as it is besides the point. And the point is this: does it make sense to you, educated and right-thinking Goans, to have ended Portuguese colonial rule, and rightly so, whose colonial administration was staffed mostly by Goans even at the highest echelons, and now find yourselves with an administration staffed mostly by non-Goans, at all levels? No contradiction here? Is this what the "liberation" is all about - replacing the Portuguese with Indians, on a massively increased scale, and give Goans only the spoils? Is this what the "freedom fighters" fought for? I don't think so!
Rui Colla�o
Lisboa
From: "Frederick Noronha (FN)" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [Goanet]Re: Goans in the IAS? Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 04:32:40 +0530 (IST)
Rui, you missed the point I was making.
Besides, when I say "many reasons have been given", I obviously don't buy the logic. My belief is that the inability of Goans (of all religions, regions and caste-groups) to form a shared understanding of their sense of history, geography, politics and culture, has fallen everyone costly. Not just on the IAS issues.
I maintain too that the local = good and non-local = bad education is far too simplistic.
Having IAS (or whatever) officers who care, however, would make a big difference. The same applies for journalists and even non-residents. Of course, we could always argue about what the term *care* means. FN
PS: Apologies that my argument below doesn't fit into your categorisation of
the good-guys and the bad-guys in post-1961 Goa.
Rui Collaco [EMAIL PROTECTED] Mon, 23 Feb 2004 19:50:12 +0000
------------------------------------------------------------------------
It is very disappointing to watch how journalist Frederick Noronha tries to
explain the unexplainable. For him, Goa's small size is the obstacle! Is
India a union of big states or a union of states? Can anyone imagine...
Rui Manuel Collac,o
Lisbon
>From: "Frederick Noronha (FN)" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
>That's true. Goa doesn't have its own IAS cadre.
>
>Many reasons have been given for this; primarily the state's small size.
>My hunch is that the prime factor is that Goans don't trust each other
>enough. We have hundreds of years of contradictions and bitterness among
>ourselves to be still sorted out. It's no point blaming communalism alone,
>because even when it wasn't around in its current form, we still had a lot
>of caste-based battles which dominated Goa for much of the 20th century.
>
>Having said that, one would like to caution against a simplistic
>categorisation of "Goan IAS = good" and "outside-state IAS = bad". We
>have seen some fairly good IAS officers work in Goa during its Union
>Territory days. I really have no answer of what has changed since, and
>why.
>
>One could assume that a local officer might have more concern for 'getting
>things right' in his or her home state. But this isn't always the case.
>Does this logic work, say, for politicians? And many others who play a
>crucial role in guiding the destiny of Goa?
>
>One needs to recall that a number of recent chief ministers, including
>Manohar Parrikar, have had severe disagreements with the Chief
>Secretaries, with the later having had to ignomiously withdraw from Goa
>for political reasons.
>
>This is an issue which surely calls for a deeper understanding. FN
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