Title: The Probllem in Goa lies in Delhi Author: Shri V.A. Panandiker, The Founder-President of Centre for Policy Research, is based in Goa. Publications: The Indian Express Date: February 23, 2005
For Goa, it is now time to go back to the people
A spate of articles on Goa suggests that democracy in Goa has gone. Nothing is farther from the truth. What happened in the Goa assembly on February 2 is a reflection of what is happening to institutions of democratic governance which could have long term adverse impact on them rather than on democracy itself. For the present �democracy� - which basically means the freedom of Goa�s citizens - is not only sound but also hale and hearty. Indeed, democracy in Goa, after its liberation in �61 from 450 years of oppressive Portuguese rule, has given Goa the highest social indices in the country: a birth rate of 14.5; a literacy level of 90 per cent and a per capita income of over Rs 75,000 - the highest in the country.
The Goa legislature and therefore elected governments since the �90s have unfortunately fallen prey to the malaise by which political power has the highest rate of Return on Investment, as economist Govind Rao put it. The roots of Goa�s political problems lie in Delhi where both major political parties - the Congress and BJP - want to retain power in the states at any cost, even at the cost of institutions of democracy. Increasingly, elected representatives have become commodities in the market place of power and Delhi has been the principal source of the unseemly political developments in Goa for more than a decade.
The roots of the present crisis lie in the election to the state legislature in May �02. Thanks to the selection of highly undesirable candidates by the Congress, even the Roman Catholic church campaigned against the notoriously corrupt politicians nominated by the Congress from Delhi, some of whom were Catholics. Ironically, studies showed that Manohar Parrikar, BJP�s CM, won his own seat in the �02 election because of the Catholic vote!
The media has gone hammer and tongs against Goa�s speaker and governor and has ignored the role of Manohar Parrikar in this whole affair. Like the present chief minister, Pratap Singh Rane, now in his sixth term, Parrikar is not known to be a corrupt politician. But the politics of power he practiced is not transparent. Parrikar was very shaky with his coalitional supporters and therefore managed a defection of a Congress MLA from Poiguinim in South Goa in �04. Rumour mills quote various figures running into crores for the defection. Unfortunately for him, the NDA government gave way to the NDA government in Delhi in the meanwhile. This January when Parrikar dismissed Antanasio Monsserate, his minister of Town and Country Planning, for corruption it was obvious that the chickens had come home to roost. Everyone knew what Monsserate was doing. So why did Parrikar discover his �corruption� suddenly? Goa is a small state but it can be the site of enormous deals involving some of the country�s top leadership.
Parrikar and his party, the BJP, are now appealing to the Supreme Court against the dismissal of his government. The Court should in fact examine when Parrikar and his party in Goa discovered the Constitution. Did the BJP government in Goa - between �02 and �05 - go by the Constitution? How many MLAs in the Goa legislature, as in other state assemblies, have read the Constitution apart from the oath of office? Very simply, it was the chief minister, the speaker, and the governor who constituted the political triangle of this crisis. And behind the local actors are the �great� party headquarters of the Congress and the BJP in Delhi. For both, the main mantra is �power� at any cost. It may be too much for the media to understand what democracy is about. But citizens must know the history of both governments and governance - especially after great evil forces of caste, creed and greed were unleashed in the �80s, particularly after the V.P. Singh government in �90 shook the moral foundations of our political system. All parties today practice the policy of electoral politics for power at any cost.
Behind all this is the inability of institutions of democratic governance to give Indian citizens their rights. The citizens, rich or poor, are completely at the mercy of elected representatives and �select� bureaucrats. Gandhiji, in a profound statement in 1934, said: �the state represents violence in a concentrated and organised form. The individual has a soul. The state is a souless machine. It cannot be weaned from violence to which it owes its very existence�. We should revisit these words.
Goa�s problem is not of democracy but the nature of the state and the need to redefine it in terms of the Constitution. The prblzem is more political than legal. The answers do not lie in the portals of the Supreme Court but in the two main parties. Is there hope? Your guess is as good as mine. For Goa, it is now time to go back to the people, hold a fresh election and hope the BJP and Congress have learnt some lessons
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