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Planning to get married in Goa? www.weddingsetcgoa.com Making your 'dream wedding' possible ------------------------------------------------------------------------ G'BYE GOA: ARE MIGRANTS TO BLAME? By Valmiki Faleiro We wail about migrants. And bray for their blood. But, are migrants really to blame? Let us briefly examine that question today. Migrants come in roughly two basic categories: the prosperous and the poor. The former are the Dilliwallahs and such from metro India, who have invested in land and built houses or purchased built-up property here. It's this segment that Goa's dubious "mega projects" cater to. However, they form an almost invisible fraction of the mass of migrants. Rich migrants would hardly alter the demographic profile of Goa. Bulk is the poor migrants from across India. They are here in the hope of better work and a better life. The same reason that Goans are spread all over the world. "Migrants" connotes these poor. (The well-heeled are "society people.") I don't blame migrants. There are among them thieves, dacoits and murderers. Every society has its own. For our Felixes and Mahanands, could all Goans be dubbed thieves and murderers? Before demonizing migrants for the exponential rise in crime in Goa, let us remember that had our politicians shaped the Goa Police competently (they have done the opposite, selling jobs, postings, even hampering investigation and demoralizing the force), criminals from Charles Sobhraj to the petty migrant thief wouldn't regard Goa a safe haven. It's this bulk segment of poor migrants that's mutating the "Goan Identity" into a miniature replica of India's diversity. But blame them? Migrants don't own land/houses to move into, so where do they shelter upon arrival? The answer will lead us to some of the areas where the blame actually rests. There are four main avenues where migrants accommodate themselves: rented rooms, shanties at construction sites, Housing Board/20-Point Programme tenements, and slums. Across the coastal countryside, there would be few houses that don't shelter one or more migrant families. It's the lure of rental money that makes us welcome migrants first, and curse them next. Who actually run many of the beach shacks allotted to locals? It's the same lure of lucre of some annual lakh Rupees that makes Goans illegally sub-lease the seasonal shacks to ostensible "Managers" from Delhi, Mumbai, or wherever. Do the hundreds of Kashmiris in coastal villages own their business and residential premises? A Goan friend in Portugal, reading an earlier part, told me two Kashmiris purchased houses/land and settled in his native Maina-Curtorim. Who sold the land to them? Older colonies promoted by the Housing Board, such as at Gogol and Porvorim were meant for locals and to this day are largely occupied by Goans. But the post-1980 ones? Looks like Housing Board colonies such as at Davorlim and the puny plots doled under the 20-Point Programme were designed exclusively for migrants. These State-sponsored shelters suit migrants and seasonal migrants admirably. Seasonal migrants work in Goa most of the year and return home to till land during monsoons. Try driving on the Davorlim colony roads at night in fair weather. Roads become open dormitories. Because migrant-owners lease out their premises to seasonal migrants, and themselves sprawl on the streets. Who creates this ready accommodation for more and more migrants? Engineers and civil servants? Or their political bosses? A substantial segment of migrants live in slum colonies that routinely sprout on public and community land. Who starts these slums? Migrants arriving in an alien land? Who protects slums from demolition? Who provides squatters with free civic amenities much faster than a Goan could hope to get paid versions? Who facilitates Ration Cards, residency certificates, and enrollment of names in electoral rolls within a fraction of the time it would take a Goan to do the same? Who nurtures these slums into vote-banks, either to bolster one's own electoral chances or screw those of the opponent? Do I need to answer? And most pertinently, pray, who elects these worthies to power time and time again? We will come to that little story in the penultimate part of this series, next Sunday. P.S: Charges raised by Rachol Sarpanch Joseph Vaz about the official attitude towards Goa's Catholic Gawda/Kunnbi community are in place. One only hopes that the Digambar Kamat regime will take proactive steps for the educational and economic uplift of all sections of Goa's earliest residents. (ENDS) ============================================================ The above article appeared in the Herald, Goa, edition of October 18, 2009
