The Accidental Activist - Migrant Musings By Venita Coelho
My inbox has been full of mails with titles like 'The Migrant Problem' 'Safeguarding the Goan Identity' 'Controls on Migration'. The controversy over migrants in Goa is raging hard on the internet with mails shooting back and forth from places as far away as Dubai and Canada. I found myself inadvertently involved, when someone wrote in to congratulate me on the 'Protest by Picnic' idea. He copied the mail to his mailing list and I promptly got an irate mail from some person called Rajan Parrikar claiming that the 'problem' with people like me was that we organised picnics but took no stand on the migrant issue. He then went on to call me a 'moron' and a 'twit' for not banging my chest and demanding that all migrants be sent home in chains immediately. Phew! All the heat and the name calling only underscores just how strongly Goans feel about the migrant question. And as the arguments get louder and louder, it also becomes obvious that Goans are feeling very threatened. We have reason to. Over forty per cent of the current population of Goa is estimated to be non- goan. Factor in the tiny size of our state. It makes up exactly .01 percent of the land mass of India. More people travel daily by locals in Mumbai than live in Goa. At that small scale, a further influx of migrants can easily tip the scales and throw into chaos a way of living and a unique culture that is already under siege. Who has opened the floodgates to migrants? The first culprits are politicians. Migrants have actually been trucked in to form votebanks for politicians. Mr. Digambar Kamat doesn't depend on your vote or mine. He has his own captive votebank consisting of migrants who know very well what vote they have to cast if they want a tin roof over their heads. The second culprit is the government with its misguided policies. These policies seek to create a certain kind of so-called 'development' for Goa. They fuel the building boom by creating 'second holiday homes' for people from other states. And of course to build these holiday homes, it takes labour from other states as well. It is the same government that seeks to create 'opportunities' by 'developing industries'. But these industries will be owned by non goans and operated by non goans because there are no matching policies to create a skilled labour force from among the locals who can take advantage of the jobs created in this manner. 'Development' is a word that one must look at closely and with suspicion. Any development that sidelines the people it is supposed to help should be spurned. When activists stand up to protest projects they are not saying no to development. They are questioning the very nature of development that is being thrust upon this state. Why should we have industrial zones that spew pollution into the air and water and which create more jobs for outsiders than locals? Why should we sell the natural beauty of our land in such a manner that the beauty itself ends up devastated by ugly projects that destroy ecologically sensitive areas? How can you use the word 'development' for policies that benefit only a few and snatch from the majority their right to a life that includes simple things like clean air and water? What politicians and policies have done is put the common Goan under siege. It is identity that has become the sensitive issue that underlies all the sound and fury over migrants. Just down the road from my house is an old abandoned house. Last monsoon the roof caved in. I was surprised to learn that it is the house of Jack Sequiera - the man who first gave Goans an identity by creating the poll that allowed them to vote to be a separate state. A tiny new state with an identity that bravely held its own shape despite being merged into the larger mass of India. But as the migrants pour in, the Goan is feeling overwhelmed. He is afraid that he will end up an outsider in his own land. That fear is not unfounded. It comes home in simple ways. In some villages in the South, blocks of flats have come up that will house over eight hundred families. That one development will outnumber the population of the entire village. In our own village the government acquired land to build houses under the poverty alleviation scheme. This area is known irreverently as 'phukat vado'. Migrants have moved in and rented, built and sub let, until, as we discovered in our Regional Plan survey, one third of the population of Moira is jammed into that one development. All of them have ration and voting cards. The opinion poll was a creative and apt solution for it's time. A new solution needs to be found for the troubling times that are facing us. Perhaps special status is the answer. Equally, special policies are required as well. Policies that recognize the uniqueness of Goa. Of her land and people. That do not centre around exploitation of land and industrialization. That seek to preserve what we have and to create growth for the local Goan. But where will we find the special people to frame these policies and to see them through? Not in our current batch of forty thieves. I don't know what the answer is, but the solution certainly isn't demonizing the migrant who has come here because he gets one square meal a day. Unleash your ire not on him but on those who created this problem to begin with. Cast your stones at the glass houses of those who have allowed the future of this state to be hijacked by business interests. What a shame that they call themselves Goans. (ENDS) =========================================================================== The above article appeared in the May 12, 2009 edition of the Herald, Goa
