The Accidental Activist - The Simple Things in Life By Venita Coelho
I remember the exact moment that I decided to get out of Mumbai. I was stuck in a traffic jam on Andheri link road. The road was a mess of untidy excavation and garbage, the rain was pouring down, we had moved a few inches in an hour, and everywhere you looked grey and peeling concrete met the eye. I knew I had to get out before I suffocated on the sheer ugliness. I started the New Year in Goa by taking my regular morning walk. The fields were misty and heavy with the smell of burnt leaves. Down the road my usual gang of mongrels welcomed me with waving tails. The river ran by the road, green islands floating lazily in the middle of it. Neighbours smiled and called greetings. Where the road bends a white mongrel put his front paws around my waist and gave me a hug. And I knew that I had made the right choice. This is what the fight is all about really. I am an activist only so that when I take my walks it is green fields that I see, not concrete. So that when I walk by the river I don't have to hold my breath because it is a mess of raw sewage. So that when I breathe I'm not choking on exhaust fumes. Clean air, clean water and a clean life. These are the basic rights that we are fighting for. They have been under siege from mega projects, from mismanaged garbage, and from development that randomly converts and destroys precious ecological resources. Now is the time to secure them, and the questionnaire sent out with the Regional Plan 2021 is a tremendous tool to be able to do this. The first question is 'what symbolizes or indicates the identity of this village?' A lot can be salvaged in the way you answer that question. You can protect heritage areas, ecological zones, even scenic views. If that is what makes your village then you have the right to ask for it to be preserved. Another key question is 'are you satisfied with the classification of this village done in RP2021?' Feel free to say a resounding no, and ask for a different classification with a lower FAR if you feel that will protect your village from over building. The table of 'infrastructure' asks you to indicate whether you are happy with roads/ water/ power/ education/ solid waste management/ Health care and more. Here is your chance to go on record to protest the lack of infrastructure you have been feeling in your village. To protest your lack of a garbage disposal plan. To point out that you have no decent health care centre. Besides the questionnaire you can get your Regional Plan Committee to add to it's report an analysis of what is lacking and what the village really wants. The question on ecological and heritage zones allows you to suggest survey numbers you want protected or added to preserve. In Moira our church and temples have been missed out. We are even planning to add our scenic views and our river. Unfortunately all our forests are long gone. The last section allows you to add 'comments to improve the village plan of your panchayat area'. Here at last you can officially voice needs unique to your village - and if not just the questionnaire, but the Committee report backs this up, then you have a good chance of getting what you want. The questionnaire can be just a 'tick mark' exercise, or you can rally your villagers around, discuss your real issues, and answer the questionnaire such that you overwhelmingly voice the real concerns of the village. And this cannot be ignored by the powers that be if they truly claim to make this a people participative exercise. Our concerns are the simple things in life. Clean air, clean water, and a clean life such as we are used to. And so we fight. For the New Year, let me wish you the simple things in life. May we succeed in our fight to preserve them and may they stay with us a long long time. (ENDS) ============================================================================== The above article appeared in the January 6, 2009 edition of the Herald, Goa
