Goa on ‘hit list’ with Julio Ribeiro?Vivek Menezes,TNN | Mar 22, 2015
If anyone knows what it feels like to be on a "hit list" it is India's longtime "top cop", Goa's own Julio Ribeiro. The Padma Bhushan award winner was repeatedly targeted for assassination by Sikh militants during his tenure as director general of Punjab police during the bloody insurgency years of the 1980s. Both he and his wife Melba were injured in one attack by the Khalistan commando force in Jalandhar. Later, Sikh militants wounded him again in Bucharest in 1991, where he was serving as India's ambassador to Romania. Ribeiro galvanized worldwide attention earlier this week when he reported that he felt "back on the hit list". In a shocking, powerful newspaper column, the 85-year-old wrote "the same category of citizens who had put their trust in me to rescue them from a force they could not comprehend have now come out of the woodwork to condemn me for practicing a religion that is different from theirs. I am not an Indian anymore, at least in the eyes of the proponents of the Hindu rashtra". This most-distinguished officer earned the highest ranks of the Indian police service (IPS)—commissioner of the Mumbai police, director general police of Gujarat (the Punjab stint came later), director general of the central reserve police force—but now says, "Today, in my 86th year, I feel threatened, not wanted, reduced to a stranger in my own country"... pointing to the unchecked barrage of attacks and slurs targeting the Christian communities of India, leading to what he calls "a sense of siege". That feeling is undoubtedly less distinct in Goa—where BJP dominance was won with considerable minority support, and the party leadership remains relatively sensitive to its Catholic voters and MLAs who produced the state's extraordinary electoral wave (thus presaging blinding nationwide triumph by Modi in 2014). CM Laxmikant Parsekar has been quick to condemn the latest assault (including the rape of a septuagenarian nun) in Kolkata, while pointing to the archbishop of Goa's recent praise of his administration for efficient management of last year's Exposition of the Sacred Relics of St Francis Xavier. But as Julio Ribeiro notes, these positive statements now seem to inevitably followed by further provocation from "extremists" who are "emboldened beyond permissible limits by an atmosphere of hate and distrust". He writes, "I was somewhat relieved when our prime minister finally spoke up at a Christian function in Delhi a few days ago. But the outburst of Mohan Bhagwat against Mother Teresa, an acknowledged saint—acknowledged by all communities and peoples—has put me back on the hit list. Even more so because BJP leaders like Meenakshi Lekhi chose to justify their chief's remarks." This back-and-forth pattern of palliative rhetoric followed by injuries and attacks on Christians in India is a grave strategic miscalculation by the extremist fringe that supports the BJP. Their party—and Narendra Modi himself—did not sweep the country because of ideological bent, but for the promise of better governance, on the heels of comprehensive implosion by the Congress party. The stunning whitewash by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in last month's Delhi elections is a timely reminder that 21st century voters have no patience for sectarian mischief. Similar disenchantment is evident in Goa, where even the masterful political gamesmanship of Manohar Parrikar is showing its limits. While the administration continues to benefit from non-existent opposition, there is tremendous discontent building over craven U-turns on issues that matter most to the electorate—especially its strong minority base—deeply unpopular casinos, the emotive topic of special status. Regressive policy ideas meanwhile keep on surfacing: an outrageous attempt to censor tiatr, the proposed lifting of restrictions on the hateful Pramod Mutalik, the "accidental" delisting of Gandhi Jayanti as a state holiday. Each one of these blatant, damaging proposals by the Goa government has been promptly (and embarrassingly) retracted after public outcry. But they just keep on coming, as though the small fringe element in the state believes that peace-loving, famously-tolerant Goans will eventually let their guard down. That's wishful thinking, because it will never happen. Instead of meddling with the state's hard-won harmony, this administration's supporters should note just two years remain to keep the promises that won the electorate's trust. If the status quo persists, Goa's reckoning at the polls is likely to be just as devastating as what unfolded in Delhi last month. India's smallest state foreshadowed the BJP's rise to power at the Centre, and it could trigger its decline as well. Lose Ribeiro, lose his Goa, and you will surely lose India too. The writer is a widely published author and photographer.
