THE OPEN FORUM CIRCUS
Open Forum? Sounded like a great idea. Finally, it is not going be about select speakers, I thought. We shall overcome. An even more positive proposition! But alas! The Open Forum held on 16th October 2008 to condemn the brutal assaults against Prajal Sakardande and Aires Rodrigues turned out in fact to be nothing more than a CLOSED (open?) forum. The forum it turned out was a circus of the elephants that is the Digambar Kamat-Vishwajit Rane-Manohar Parrikar(with various degrees of support for Dayanand Narvekar as 'my enemy's enemy'). This combine was holding the strings and reduced the persons on the stage to the proverbial monkeys. As you can imagine, this combination of caste and class coteries can only be LETHAL. There were also in attendance, the usual lethal clowns who form a part of the above coterie. By way of providing cover to the lethal combination, a few genuine speakers were allowed a chance at the mike. And sorry I don't want to be in any way responsible for a consolidation of these caste-class coteries or for the creation or enlargement of any Frankenstein, whether it is Atanasio Monserrate (who uses his brain and his men's brawn to terrorise villagers into silence and who even effectively surrounded and silenced me at a gram sabha when I went to speak out against the IT Park at Dona Paula and for a urban natural preserve model that would take stakes of local people AND environment into account). Or whether it is Dayanand Narvekar of the Secretariat Scandal/IT Park/etc. Scandal Fame or Manohar Parrikar who is an autocrat par excellence and who came begging to Atanasio Monserrate's residence at Taleigao to get him to share bed with him in order to take over the reins of power or Vishwajeet Rane of the reported Canacona scam fame who was the person behind the Regional Plan 2011(and in whose then residence at KAMAT WHATEVER it is alleged that that Regional Plan was actually COLOURED) or Digambar Kamat whose "OPEN AAM ADMI" Government is as open as the OPEN FORUM that was. There were probably more of these scamsters behind yesterday's meeting, but the above coteries I could clearly identify. In the backdrop of this 'WE SHALL OVERCOME' meet was a press conference by the Opposition Leader to suggest the criminalization of the cabinet, many of which cabinet members were also his cabinet colleagues. The height of all heights however, was the Opposition Minister releasing a CD that suggests that the Chief Minister is in cahoots with terrorists. The pictures were of the Chief Minister sitting along with some obviously Muslim persons, some of whom happen to now be charged in various criminal cases. The Leader of the Opposition said a campaign would be launched after the Azad Maidan meeting. Does he think we cannot see his distractive tactics? >From the choice of persons allowed to speak, there was a marginalization of space in the "We Shall Overcome" meet for anyone to look at the build up of human rights violations that have been systematically happening over a period of time. If Aires and Prajal were attacked, it was because most of us did not express the necessary outrage when the human rights violations of so many other activists have been happening over the years. We failed to do so, either because we did not share the perspectives of these activists, or we didn't deem the violation serious enough. I however am clear. I do not necessarily agree with Aires' perspectives on many issues, but I COMPLETELY CONDEMN the bodily violations against these men in a situation where the State is clearly complicit. AIZ MAKA, FALEAM TUKA. In the last few months during the present Digambar Kamat Government, the Government has openly sought to suppress the anti-mega housing activism at Benaulim. It has sought to suppress the civic and consumer rights activists at Colva and the people who were protecting their open spaces from encroachment at Porvorim by filing chapter cases against a selective few among them. The Government has sought to suppress people questioning at gram sabhas. It has sought to suppress the anti-mining activism at Colamb and Advalpal by reviving cases against the people there. It has sought to suppress the anti-mining activism and pro-hills and water activism at Maina Quepem. In Quepem, it was such a brazen scenario - where the assaulters were being watched, or can we say encouraged, by the police, while those assaulted were arrested. It has sought to suppress workers' rights. The Government has been a tacit approver as Muslims are routinely subjected to harassment and denied their fundamental right to freedom of religion. It has sought to be a tacit approver of casinos that are recognized by studies to pave the way for criminalization of society, And we watched silently or half-supportingly over all this. When I was dragged by the police at Baina in 2004, the police officer Mahesh Gaonkar watched as I and another woman were threatened with rape by some local men. This violation of human dignity was not sufficiently questioned or condemned and we allowed the debate to get framed differently. That was actually the starting point of the next phase of massive land acquisitions, sorry grabs, in Goa in the name of public interest. The Baina evictions however were made out to be a "prostitution-clearing" exercise and myopic as we are, we swallowed the argument of the then BJP Parrikar Government. And then these same persons or persons who back such politicians or builder/mining lobbies are allowed to show common cause with Aires and Prajal, to take the stage at this OPEN FORUM and wax eloquent about their concerns about human rights violations while the people who have been standing up against this are either not provided space or have to scrape through for space!!!! Something is indeed rotten in the State of Goa. We shall overcome? Of course, deep in my heart, I still do believe that we shall overcome. I am an optimist at heart. But we shall not overcome via a fake unity. We shall overcome when we go outside of these umbrellas that offer an illusion of unity while masking the injustices under them. We shall overcome by both dealing with the human rights violations and the issues of mega-housing, mega-projects, destructive mining, land grabs, that resulted in us as activists being subject to these human rights violations. We are not afraid of goons and terrorists, I mean real ones and forget imagined ones - red herrings!. We will overcome when we will walk hand in hand with the people of this land who are struggling for their basic rights and for the rights of future generations; for their right to be free. We shall indeed overcome and not allow this beautiful song of hope to be misappropriated any further. Let us unitedly call for an inquiry into all violations that have been happening against activists which culminated with the brutal attack on Aires and Prajal, even as we as citizens do a parallel review of the nexus between the State and these violations. -- (M) 9326137682 "To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe." - Anatole France
