Hi Elisabeth, It's not just a question of party or principle. The issue is simply this: if a political party gets hijacked into taking a stand which threatens life and liberty (or the rights) of a section of the people, then what is there to act as the brakes on it?
In the recent past, we saw a government which had no mandate to rule (the BJP) hobble a majority in the most opportunitist manner, both at Delhi and in Panjim, and then go on to drastically change some very fundamental accepted notions about Indian secularism, indulge in nuclear adventurism, and almost make a fourth Indo-Pakistan war a reality. In Goa, the same party went about rewriting history, undertaking subtle 'ethnic cleansing' exercises in police and government employment policies, encourage some of the most dubious political leaders (as long as they supported them) and in ways the impact of which would take a long time to become more visible. It's upper caste agenda was more than visible, even to its own supporters who expected it to at least play fair to its 'Hindu' constituency as promised. In a context where political parties are run as personal fiefdoms, where does a corrective mechanism come in? We've been discussing Goa Suraj. Floriano is confident that the policies he advocates are in the interest of "Goa". But how representative is his Goa? It would have not been too bad if the only result of such a policy would have been a drubbing at the polls (though, admittedly, merely having poor policies is not the result for a poor showing vote-wise, and conversely, doing well is no indication that the party concerned has some vision... take the case of the Congress, which has kept on buying victories for much of the 'eighties and 'nineties). The bigger problem is that a party can turn into a red-herring into an electoral issue, can divide people unnecessarily (haven't we seen the MGP and UGP play the communal card for years?), and can thus set the clock back in a hundred-and-one ways. Which brings us to the point: how representative are Goa's political parties? How pro-people is their agenda? MGP spoke in the name of the 'bahujan samaj' (non-elite castes), but were in effect a vehicle for the non-(Saraswat) Brahmin intermediary and influential castes. No surprise that major landlordism thrives in a Sattari or Pernem, after 16 years of MGP rule. (It was the middle landowner who lost out elsewhere in the state.) UGP, which giving out the subtle message of being a Catholic party, actually looked after the interests of a narrow section. Congress has been a party spearheading the interests of big industry, and its own selfish leaders, willing to sell to anyone anything provided the price is right. About the BJP, the less said the better; it also remained a one-man-party for much of its tenure within power and out of power. GLP had a lot of dreams, but it ended up in the inexplicable position of a Matanhy Saldanha allowing the BJP to survive on his single vote! Ideology is pretty meaningless here; some politicians have changed parties 7-8 times; at one Goa Union of Journalists discussion many moons ago, Dr Wilfred de Souza made a lengthy and impassioned argument on why it would be wrong to say this about his case. Floriano needs to build a more sharper understanding of what makes Goa, its diversity, and what could make a difference to the lives of the people here. Incidentally, there's an interesting story behind the 1980 dramatic win of the Congress(U), that ousted the December 1963-March 1979 uninterrupted sway of the MGP in power in Goa. Two persons credited with swinging that victory for the Congress(U)-turned-Congress(I) are a younger-and-probably-more-reasonable Dr Wilfred de Souza himself, and his Man Friday, the late Govinda Panvelkar. Apparently, they sat down and charted the demography of Goa, across its diverse constituencies. They made it a point to ensure that major groups in each area (both on a community and caste basis) were represented in their nominess for the elections. Any surprise they won a landslide that year? Contrast this with 1963, when a flush-with-victory Congress allowed one tiny group to dominate the process of selection of candidates. Any surprise they got wiped out, the MGP and UGP was formed, and Goa's politics remained communally-polarised till the start of the 1980s? One is not suggesting that placating to community and caste interests is the only or best way of winning elections. But at least it takes local realities and complexities into account. Floriano's suggesting of no voting rights for migrants isn't tackling the root of our many problems. -FN >From what I understand of German politics, the Greens never became "representative of the majority". Given the rivalry between the Big Two (the CDU-CSU i.e. the conservative Christian Democratic Union and their Bavarian allies on the one hand, and the Social Democratic Party of Germany on the other), the Greens merely got a chance to squeeze into an alliance. On 08/07/06, Elisabeth Carvalho <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I've been thinking about this the whole morning. > Actually your night. What comes first, the party or > the principle. Always the chicken and egg conundrum. > > I think a party has to base its platform on what they > bring to the table. However repugnant or irrelevant it > maybe at the time. Sometimes it takes years for their > concerns to become representative of the majority, as > in the case of the Green party in Germany. They > peddled their "environmental platform" for decades > before it caught attention at the national level. -- ---------------------------------------------------------- Frederick 'FN' Noronha | Yahoomessenger: fredericknoronha http://fn.goa-india.org | +91(832)2409490 Cell 9822122436 ---------------------------------------------------------- 2248 copylefted photos from Goa: http://www.flickr.com/photos/fn-goa/ _______________________________________________ Goanet mailing list [email protected] http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org
