To Goanet - I have not been reading Goanet the past few months. Today the following link was forwarded to me by a friend, hence this (one-time) rejoinder. I do not intend to engage in any further discussion.
Refer to this post on Goanet - http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg46798.html where "this person called Venita Coelho" (henceforth referred to as "TPC Venita Coelho" publicly peddles the following in the pages of Herald, and now on Goanet. I had no idea that she had cited me in Herald and referred to our private exchange. >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! TPC Venita Coelho claims that I called her a twit and a moron. Guilty as charged. But TPC Venita Coelho wants you to only see the trailer and that too her private version of it. I, on the other hand, want you to see the whole movie so that you are privy to the entire plot. Here is the link (scroll down to the bottom and work upward) - http://www.parrikar.org/misc/rajan-venita-email.pdf Note that I have replaced the name of the third individual referenced in my emails by XXX since I am publicly posting what was a private exchange in which that individual played no active part. My views on the migrant menace in Goa are well known. I have dwelt extensively on this topic on Goanet the past couple of years, in print and television media, and spoken about it in other fora. I have made no secret of my desire to (a) Stop the migrant invasion of Goa, and (b) Return most of the recent migrants to their land of origin. TPC Venita Coelho imagines that I called her a twit etc on account of her dereliction in "not banging my chest and demanding that all migrants be sent home in chains immediately. Phew!" Phew, indeed. That pea-brain must have contorted itself to exhaustion ejecting that puff of piffle. The "chains" image she conjures has merit. But she has the wrong end of the stick. At the rate Goa is being swamped by the ghati hordes and other Indians, there will be chains alright, but they will be on us Goans. We are going to be the ones called upon to surrender our peace, our homes, our land. We will be the ones hemmed in and outnumbered. Right now it is the common not-so-well-off Goan who has to sidestep ghati excrement or deal with encroachment across his street. The day is not far off when a ghati lays a turd at TPC Venita Coelho's doorstep - that will hopefully be the day we get to unwrap Ms Coelho's outrage-o-meter. This debate about migrants streaming into Goa is already settled among Goans. We have had enough. The only Goans who run counter to this overriding sentiment are the few who stand to benefit directly from the migrant presence - the builders, contractors, miners, and associated businesses. Then there is the small motley crew of 'activists' and assorted pissants. The ex-convener of GBA, for instance, was more worried about not hurting migrant feelings than he was in protecting the well-being of the Goan. (We need not concern ourselves with outsiders like Marxist schmuck.) The questions confronting the Goan today is: what are our options, and what CAN be done? We have no political allies in this war. In fact, the Goan politicos are actively selling out Goa. Kangress and the BJP both serve to only continue New Delhi's hegemony. Amid all this, the likes of TPC Venita Coelho bring NOTHING to this discussion except a palette of white noise and a gust of stale air. The term "migrant" is now a misnomer. The ghatis are here to stay. Why wouldn't they? They get free land, ration cards, and other benefits in exchange for a vote cast for their Goan benefactor (that will rapidly change when Basappa and Imran Shaikh figure out that they have enough numbers on their side to get elected themselves). Compared to the nightmarish, squalid hellholes they came from, Goa is a heavenly deal. Why would they want to budge? And having dug in, why wouldn't they want to send for the rest of their neighborhood back home? All it takes is a mobile nowadays - "Arre bhai, Goa ki train pakdo. Aa jao yahaan. Bahut achha hai Goa!" Translate that into Kannada, Telugu, Oriya etc etc and you get the picture. We are now told that the migrants contribute greatly to Goa's economy. This is utter garbage. There are a HANDFUL (single digits) of outsiders who positively contribute to the well-being of Goa and Goans. The ghatis are NOT among them. My view is not that we reduce the migrant numbers to zero. It is that we have lost all sense of proportion and balance, and now face demographic obliteration. Traditionally, the ghati at construction sites came in from Karnataka and went home upon completion of the project. Now not only does he stay back now, we have all kinds of people from all over India pouring in. Loiterers hoping for a piece of action at the beach and in the towns constitute a not insignificant number. To this mass, add the upper middle class and wealthy Sharma-Varma-Ahuja types and it is not a pretty picture. Note: In this post, I use the term "ghati," without prejudice or pejorative intent, to denote the unskilled migrant. If you and your dainty aunt find this offensive, tough luck. The rest of the Indians I refer to as "bhaile" or outsiders, again purely neutral descriptive terms. Returning to that bogus claim about ghatis boosting the Goan economy - the ghatis draw FAR MORE from the Goan exchequer and Goa's resources than they put in. This is such a no-brainer that only a willful lying dingbat would claim otherwise. But some of these pissants will stop at nothing in their agenda to ruin Goa. Besides, what about the host of deleterious effects the migrants bring in that cannot be quantified? Where the ghatis contribute immensely, however, is to the fund of excrement in our outdoors. Where in the world does a migrant get to walk in, encroach on prime communidade land, and then have it handed over to him for free? Answer: Only in Goa. Take a round of Goa Medical Hospital and witness the migrant freeloaders (Note: it is the brazen abuse of the system, not that health care is provided to those in need that is being objected to here). Rampant public defecation & urination and the polluting of our water bodies (*), the loitering in our parks and public spaces, the illegal hawking, and squatting, the encroachment on public Goan land...the litany goes on. (*) Mining does that too. So does my saying all this offend the apostles of compassion and wannabe global citizens? Why, they would rather that Goa went to seed than offend their out-of-state pals in the national media. I mean, all this feel-good we-are-all-Indians pap can get you nominated for awards. GOA IS IMPORTING INDIA'S POVERTY in alarming quantities, a ploy that simultaneously degrades the quality of life for her own people. Why are these soi-disant activists so concerned about the ghati getting a square meal but mum about the Goan poor? Can you imagine if - it is no longer "if," the invasion is already underway - even a tiny fraction of the square meal-seeking ghatis from India filed into Goa? The numbers are staggering. Have these activist pretenders ever walked around the villages in Pernem, Sattari, Ponda and Canacona talukas to see the face of the Goan poor and inquire after their needs? I guess not. The ghatis are far more convenient props for a show of compassion - so long as they defecate in someone else's yard or in a public garden. Those of us opposed to this migrant takeover are promptly branded as xenophobes. But this ruse hasn't worked and it won't work. First of all, I shall brook no lectures from the outsider on this score (Marxist schmuck, take note). When it comes to regional and linguistic chauvinism, every other Indian state stands head and shoulders above Goa. It is laughable for any Indian to pontificate on the virtues of openness and tolerance - teach them to the folks in your own state first. As for our own homegrown armchair activists like TCP Venita Coelho - in their imagination, the ghatis have all the rights to do whatever it is they want to do. Whereas we Goans have to hold our peace and make good with everyone. We Goans have been a most welcoming people for decades. Our laissez-faireism is legendary. But there is a limit to everything. When the numbers of migrants portend the erasure of our identity and our quality of life, we must draw the line. By a stroke of historical happenstance, Goa was dealt a better hand than the rest of India. For this we do not have to apologize and we must make every effort to maintain our more fortunate circumstances. This is our moral imperative for the sake of our children and grand-children. Simply put, Goa cannot accommodate every Indian who wishes to make a home here. Poverty is a terrible thing, it robs man of his dignity. But importing Indian poverty into Goa is not the answer to that problem. All it will do is drag Goa down into the same swamp. My argument, then, for stemming this migrant onslaught of Goa can be distilled into these words: Let there be ONE - just ONE - tiny haven in India where we can live the relatively good and pleasant life, the life we Goans had not-long ago. Indians have the whole of the rest of their huge country to screw up. Yes, we Goans have our own shortcomings, our own foibles. But Goa wouldn't be Goa without Goans (think of a Goa populated by UP bhaiyyas, if it helps). Yes, the traitors and the greedy among us have brought us to the edge of this precipice. Left to our own devices we have, in principle, a chance of pulling back. But with the rest of India bearing down on us, we are toast. Soon Goa will be indistinguishable from the squalid third-world desolation that is urban India. For a preview of what lies in store, drive along the Porvorim stretch of highway and then perhaps take a drive-by tour of the Zuarinagar slum. Unless Goans stand up in a massive show of force, Goa's demise is assured. But unity of purpose and conviction among Goans are not among our strengths. I don't know why I bother to write on these issues anymore, for this is a Sisyphean enterprise. I already know the outcome. We Goans have become our greatest enemies, afflicted with what is the societal equivalent of an auto-immune disease where the organism attacks its own systems and eventually destroys itself without external help (and mind you, we DO have lots of external help). In passing, I append some of the earlier material I have posted on this topic. My column in Herald, May 2008 - http://www.parrikar.org/misc/HeraldColumn-2008-05-05.pdf Image gallery: Ghatification of Panjim - http://www.parrikar.org/images/ghatification Image gallery: Ghatification of Goa - http://www.parrikar.org/images/goa-ghatis Warm regards, r
