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Dear Rajan
I read with interest your passionate protest at the state of Goa and it's
rampant development and felt that I had to give you my opinion.
My wife and I are frequent visitors to Goa, we love the place it's people
and have made some good friendships with Goans.
We are European, I'm British and my wife is Slovak (that makes us "whites"
as you put it).
The two main points I'd like to make are these:
1. Year after year I have seen and experienced huge improvements in
infrastructure in Goa and sensed a real change in the general living
standard of Goans in general not withstanding (that as you say) this
prosperity has the effect of drawing undesirables to the honey. This is
normal in a rapidly developing tourist economy and can be dealt with over
time along with the other associated problems - with the right political
will - especially in a democracy (like Goa).
2. The property developments and hillside "haircuts" are far from the evil
you portray. I have been a regular visitor to the Southern Spanish coast
for over 20 years and have seen it develop disastourosly with horrible
developments springing up (because of corruption 100x the Goan scale). Even
so and inspite of nasty capitalist developments eventually democracy voted
out the bad and this highly populated extremely multicultural society is now
one of the wealthiest, safe and fun places in the world. It's regained a
particularly Spanish culture and beauty that's the envy of the world and
it's local population is wealthy beyond expectations.
Goa could be the Costa or Riviera of India bring huge wealth and standard of
living to the Goans plus enjoyment and pleasure to millions of visitors. Why
be so mean spirited to appose the development of this young beauty to it's
full glorious potential (warts and all).
Regards
David Hardy
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