------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Documented by Goa Desc Resource Centre Ph:2252660 Website: www.goadesc.org Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Press Clippings on the web: http://www.goadesc.org/mem/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ --------------------------- Death of a migrant --------------------------- It sounds like an unrealistic Bollywood plot. Yet, this week's death of ten-year- old street-child under the wheels of a Margao municipal garbage van, even as he was fleeing from the police, is a story that should make us all sit up and think.
Is this the shape of a Goa we would like to see? For all the affluence and sophistication we've seen come the state's way, is it worth losing basic human values and the way we treat each other? For a change, the issue didn't get polarised on the lines of ethnicity or origins.
Nobody so far has sought to deflect opinion and do some spin-doctoring, other than the expectedly-defensive police.Suresh "Rocky" Durgappa Gollar, a street-child, died tragically on Tuesday. Since then, there has already been an angry outcry from social workers, local politicians and even the stray foreign tourist who wrote in to relate their encounters with the boy who died before his time.
Police argued that their intention to arrest him was to "change his habits" and send him to a remand home. Like many cases here, a smoke-screen of contentions and counter-contentions got created on this issue too. Unfortunately, the 'facts' come in the way of finding out the truth.
Public memory in Goa, as we have often lamented, is alas simply too short. Newspapers too have a 24-hour vision, which is itself hardly helpful. But how do we see this issue in context? How do we go beyond merely condemning? While responsibility has to be pinned, one further step is to make sure we have the mechanisms in place to ensure that such shocking incidents don't ever get the chance to repeat again.
Margao case is all the more tragic, because the boy died at the hands of the Police, a force which is expected to protect, and that too in a tragically unintended though telling manner. It's a reflection of how brutally our structures operate. Inspite of Goa claiming to be India's best or most advanced, one of the most literate, and a fairly enlightened state.
We've seen incidents of this kind in the past too. Some years back, this paper had reported the strange case of a young migrant child whose body was coated with oil paint as a bizarre kind of punishment and almost died as a result of the complications.
Someone has argued that events in history need to be viewed as achievements or failures of the human family, rather than just seeing it as the doings of key actors. So, the victory of an Alexander and the defeat of a Porus, the devastation of Halaku or a Nadir Shah, the compassion of an Ashoka, the statesmanship of an Akbar, the aberrations of a Hitler ... these all are not failings or victories of one individual, but of a larger society.
Seen through this prism, the manner in which the police act, say, with migrants and poor children only reflects the wider contempt that Goan society has for these sections.
That Goa has been one of the first states in the nation to boast about its anti-begging act sometime in the 'seventies if we recall right, is a reflection of our priorities. 'Garib hatao' and not 'garibi hatao'. To make matters worse with insensitivity, the official claim is that Goa now has just 4% of its people living in poverty.
Once the Margao boy's death got widely reported in the Press, local non-governmental organisations were quick to respond. Whatever the perceived failings of the NGOs and the political class is quick to take pot-shots at them, question their funding sources, accuse them of 'blackmail' or otherwise blast them and plant suspicions in the assembly the fact that they're willing to take up issues like these for the voiceless is to be appreciated.
It is no wonder therefore that the politicians view Goa's NGOs as a challenge that needs to be tamed, if not replaced by another set of dubious paper organisations close to the politicians themselves.
This issue has also raised other issues. How do children get treated once in police custody? What is the gap between reality and rhetoric? Does Goa really care? Can we take steps that would make a difference? --------------------------------------------------- Editorial in HERALD 2/4/04 page 6 --------------------------------------------------
======================================= GOA DESC RESOURCE CENTRE Documentation + Education + Solidarity 11 Liberty Apts., Feira Alta, Mapusa, Goa 403 507 Tel: 2252660 mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] website: www.goadesc.org ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Working On Issues Of Development & Democracy =======================================
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