TAI RAJ
By Valmiki Faleiro
Free Goa’s first decade, the 1960s, was frittered away on the issue of Goa’s
merger with
Maharashtra. Centrally administered as a Union Territory as Goa then was,
budgetary
allocations to the politically insignificant UT were already measly. But such
was the
obsession with Merger that even those paltry funds often remained unspent and
had to
be repatriated back to Delhi.
The focus was not at all on Goa’s development. Consequently, MLAs from the
ruling
Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP), many being blissful ‘anguti chaaps,’ were
both uninspired and powerless as regards local development. The ones from the
opposition could achieve little more than highly audible decibels on the floor
of the
Assembly. Save a few strides in a few selected areas, as seen last Sunday, and
populist
statutes like the Agricultural Tenancy Act, Merger was the chorus all the way.
MGP’s
obsession with Merger, however, was understandable.
The party came into existence with the sole object of merging Goa with
Maharashtra.
Merger was its raison d’être. Article 2(a) of the MGP Constitution clearly
stated that
"The object of (the MGP) is the integration of Goa into the state of
Maharashtra and striving for the same by all legitimate and peaceful
means. The organisation believes that Goa is historically,
geographically,
culturally and economically part and parcel of Maharashtra."
With the unequivocal verdict of the January 16, 1967 Opinion Poll, the merger
issue was
dead and buried. But the MGP was not. It had no reason to exist, having
outlived its very
purpose. Neither was the party constitution amended nor an attempt made to
broadbase
it. Technically and practically, the MGP worked at cross-purposes with its own
avowed
objects. It had survived on the personal charisma of Dayanand Bandodkar. After
his
demise on August 12, 1973, his daughter, Shashikala (`Tai’) Kakodkar led the
party and
its government.
Goa’s second decade belonged to Tai. She ruled the roost and steered the
destinies of
the MGP. More like a rudderless sailing ship, with no definite destination --
directionless,
driven by the winds. Under her captaincy, MGP’s objects seemed to be, capture
power,
play puerile politics and ensure personal enrichment. Public scandals,
nepotism, and the
first signs of visible corruption in public office stood out in the six-year
regime of Goa’s
"Iron Lady."
By the end of her fourth year as CM, both Tai personally and the MGP in general
had
taken a severe tanning in public esteem. The unfortunate suicide by her young
brother,
Siddarth, who shot himself with his Berretta pistol under very suspect
circumstances,
also did not go well with the Goan electorate. At the June 1, 1977 elections,
the MGP
recorded its worst ever -- and, as would turn out, its last successful bid for
power. The
MGP was reduced to a hotchpotch assemblage of greedy politicians, masked under
the
label of a political party. By January-1980, the Congress was to inherit that
legacy.
Without a published constitution, which no partyman had ever set his eyes on,
without
intra-party democracy, without even a register of members, or a duly elected
Executive,
MGP had truly become Tai’s personal fiefdom.
Hardly surprising, therefore, that on vital issues like Statehood, Konkani, and
Prohibition
-- remember it was Morarji Desai’s India then -- MGP’s stand staggered
uncertainly from
one extreme to the other. Knee-jerk impromptu decisions of a single individual
became
the official stance of the party and its government. These were guided not by
principles
or ideologies, but purely by political expediency of the moment.
Take the instance of Prohibition. Until the 1977 polls, Tai strongly voiced
herself against
prohibition. It will kill Goa’s fledgeling tourism, she thundered. Three months
later, a
CM’s Conference was convened by the Prohibition-besotted PM in Delhi. On the
eve of
her departure, Tai declared before the local Press her avowed stand against
Prohibition.
The following day, at the Conference, she did a volte-face -- even as Afzal
Baig, then Dy.
CM of the conservative Muslim state of Jammu & Kashmir, vehemently opposed the
proposed countrywide ban. Less than three years later, in the 20-point
manifesto to the
January 3, 1980 elections, she again turned round to oppose Prohibition -- and
even
vowed to support Konkani and Statehood. Too late, her time was up.
Her less than two-year reign in the Fourth Assembly was replete with scandal and
opposition charges of corruption and nepotism -- personally against Tai, her
husband,
ministers, and even party office-bearers like Gen. Secretary, Pushpasheel
Kerkar. It was
Goa’s worst government until then. Whether Tai raj or the Congress ‘kichdis’
that
followed, particularly from the 1990’s, was the bigger disgrace, is something
that Goa’s
future historians will decide. (ENDS)
The Valmiki Faleiro weekly column at:
http://www.goanet.org/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=330
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The above article appeared in the March 25, 2007 edition of the Herald, Goa
