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Convenor of Goa Bachao Abhiyan (GBA) Dr Oscar Rebello has been nominated
for CNN-IBN's Indian of the Year Award 2007 in public service category
Vote for him at:
http://www.cnnibnindianoftheyear.com/publicservice_voting_new.php
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Where people are becoming increasingly educated, entrepreneurial,
innovative and hard-working, progress will take place. In a planned
and disciplined environment, progress will become a thing of amazement
and wonder. But where instead of planning and discipline there is
corruption and greed, progress will bring along with it disparity,
filth and chaos. There is no doubt that Goa and India is seeing
progress, but no prizes for guessing which of the scenarios they fit
into.
Take the case of the US and Mexico. The outsourcing of US and Canadian
manufacturing to Mexico has greatly benefited the economy, but like
India and Goa, that benefit has not been channelized into better
living conditions for the those that need it. The Mexican rich are
super-rich (again as in India and Goa) but the general population has
remained dirt poor. Ordinary Mexicans have flooded into the US for a
better life, much to the chagrin of the US government. They cannot
stop them even if they want to, since such labor finds an easy home.
People don't report them, they employ them. They do jobs the American
doesn't want to do. But here is where the situation in Goa and the US
differ. In the US, they don't allow them to live in the appalling
conditions that Goa allows their migrant labor to live and function.
That is because they have a disciplined Government, and Goa (or India)
doesn't. Both by the way are democracies.
So the chaos in Goa will get worse before it gets better, if ever. The
Goan who has inherited property (and there quite a few) are very happy
now. Land values have gone to stratospheric levels, so he has more
money than he needs. But money if not managed properly, has a habit of
disappearing as fast as it comes. Gambling in casinos, flying across
the globe to visit relatives, drinking and dining in expensive
restaurants, having lavish weddings and building mansions with marble
flooring do not fall into the category of proper money management.
Investing it in business is, but that is alien to most Goans. Also
these land values have attracted the sharks - both local and from
other oceans. Though it must be said to the compliment of the
non-locals, that they have contributed to this demand.
It is inevitable that in this generation there will soon be no more
land to sell and in the next there will be not enough money to
maintain those mansions. So the native born Goan will empty out of the
land. They will go to greener pastures in the rest of India or to
lands abroad, whichever is the flavor of that time, as Africa and the
Middle East were, and Europe, Canada and Australia are now. Unless of
course, they work in dirty shacks on the beach or are too old or
feeble to emigrate. See the East Indian villages of Bombay, the modern
history of their population and you will know what I am talking about.
That is why I so enjoy what Rajan records. It is like taking
photograps of a young man or a young woman, fresh faced, bright and
full of hope, in school, in college, getting married and then suddenly
suffering an almost irrevesible mental decline. I will see his
pictures as long as they remind me of that young man and young woman
but when I see a decrepit person, I shall stop seeing his new
photographs (that is if he is still motivated to take them) and go
back to nostaligically looking at his older ones.
I love you Rajan Parrikar.
Roland Francis
416-453-3371
