Herald, 18 April 2008 THE DESECRATION OF GOA: A MANIFESTO FOR CHANGE
By Vidyadhar Gadgil Aldona is the latest in the seemingly unending list of Goan villages to be rocked by the scandal of anti-people development. One of the most pristine of Goan villages, it is not as if it had remained completely insulated from the malaise that is now threatening to submerge all of Goa. In the twelve years that I have had the good fortune to live here, there have been numerous assaults on its environmental and cultural heritage. But like the rest of us in Goa, we residents of Aldona have been in deep slumber, and have allowed these invaluable foundations of our lives to be nibbled away little by little. But for once the corporate marauders went just that bit too far, and received a fitting reply. For this, we can thank Alban Couto and Maria Aurora Couto, eminent residents of Aldona . Once the ravaging of the hillside near the Calvim-Carona ferry point was brought to their notice, they went and saw the situation for themselves , and then acted decisively to ensure that the authorities acted firmly to halt the desecration of Aldona. The scale of what has begun to emerge has shocked the residents of Aldona. As more and more skeletons tumble out into the open, Aldona -- like Carmona, Siridao and Benaulim -- has seen the birth of a spontaneous people’s movement opposing this epidemic of anti-people development. Shocked out of their stupor, the residents of Aldona are organising to resist, and bring about change. Meanwhile, the corporate PR campaign and greenwash has gone into overdrive, claiming that what they were doing was perfectly legal, and even implying that they have the best interests of Aldonkars and Goans at heart! But there are far too many irregularities for a cover-up to be credible. In the first place, the hill-cutting that has taken place has ravaged the hillside. There is the issue of the inordinate haste with which all permissions were granted by the various authorities, in stark contrast to the usual situation where an ordinary villager has to run from pillar to post for months to get permission to make even a small renovation of his own house. The people’s movement that is emerging is grappling with the issue of how to tackle the problem. The Panchayat and the Gram Sabha would appear to be the obvious mechanism for correcting matters, and expressing the will of the people. But as the recent Goa State Finance Commission points out, rules and regulations defining the Panchayats’ powers, rights and duties have have not been clearly laid down. While the 73rd amendment to the Constitution is in place, without rules and regulations for implementation, it has no teeth. But I would submit that the solution lies within that very document -- the Constitution of India. During my schooldays in Loyola High School in Pune, one of our most revered and beloved teachers was Fr. Theo de Sales, S.J., who was later also Principal of St. Britto’s, Mapusa. One day, Fr. Theo came into the class with a book in his hand, and said that he was going to read out something very important and that we should listen carefully. Opening the book, he began in his powerful voice: “We, the people of India, having solemnly resolved to constitute India into a sovereign socialist secular democratic socialist republic...” and he read through to the end of the preamble to the Constitution, ending “...do hereby adopt, enact and give to ourselves this Constitution.” There was pin-drop silence in the class for over a minute after that. Fr. Theo then went on to tell us (and I paraphrase from a 30-year-old memory): “This document was produced, after a protracted democratic consultative process, by the greatest minds and towering personalities produced by India’s freedom struggle. Treat it as you would a holy book. It was their promise to themselves and future generations, our hope for the future, our bulwark against tyranny, and a solemn pledge which it is our duty to ourselves to honour.” I think none of us 15-year-old schoolboys in that classroom, respecting Fr. Theo as we did, has ever forgotten his words. As Goa stands today on the brink of disaster, and no solution seems in sight, ordinary citizens are beginning to get desperate. But whenever I find myself overcome by gloom, which is all too often nowadays, the words of Fr. Theo come to mind. The Constitution of India places the will of the people above all else, and it is up to us to enforce that will. We are all busy looking for somebody to blame, and there is no shortage of legitimate targets which are the cause of many of our problems. It is too obvious to need restating that our present lot of politicians are, almost to a man, petty minds driven by twisted communal agendas and venal greeds. And then there are the bureaucracy and administration. The ‘steel frame’ envisaged by Nehru has, a few honourable exceptions apart, by now rusted beyond hope of repair. There are the corporate marauders, and there are the super-rich elites in search of another playground. But this blame game is leading us nowhere. They all conveniently externalise the issue. Any meaningful process of change must begin with oneself. What are we doing? Playing these blame games, we conveniently abdicate all responsibility for any of our problems. Let us first look in the mirror and accept one harsh truth. All of us, citizens of Goa -- Goans, ‘outsiders’, ‘ghantis’, Hindus, Christians, Muslims, and all others -- are the ones who bear true responsibility for the pass we have come to in Goa. Because we are the people, and it is our will that the Constitution was designed to implement, and we have failed to ensure this. But there are clear signs of hope. As Goa rises up in anger against the desecration of everything of value , it is clear that people have realised the importance of at least the first three words of the preamble to the Indian Constitution. The people are rising up and beginning to take charge of their own lives. They are calling the forces who seek to destroy us to account. They are now actively intervening in governance, instead of leaving it to the politicians and bureaucrats. They are now fighting to ensure that since power flows from the people, the will of the people must prevail -- not through a five-yearly ritual which gives us the illusion that we have reached democratic nirvana -- but all the time. Let us never again make the mistake of forgetting those three words: “We, the People!” Not they, the British. Not they, the Portuguese. Not they, the politicians. Not they, the bureaucrats. Not they, the fundamentalists. Not they, the corporate marauders. We, the people , must now take charge. The voice of the people must make itself heard with such deafening power that it cannot be ignored. That is our only hope. -- Question everything -- Karl Marx
