The issues raised by villagers as on 17 May 2010 are definitely genuine and
extremely important just like the concerns of November 2006 when the RP 2011
got notified. The picture of that supper with the judases, scribes and
pharisees sitted at that table are still fresh in some of our minds. In
2006 it was Babush Monseratte who was the 'monster rat' systematically
constructed by the politician-press combine. Then it was Babush who was the
traitor responsible for real estate development and cause of the migrant
influx in Taleigao and Panjim. Anger of Goans towards the mass-scale
environment destruction and their political alienation was simmering
beneath. The time was just favourable for the politician-corporate combine
to exploit the emotions of the people. It just took a cutting of a mango
tree near Madhuban complex in St. Inez for the opening scnene of a superhit
thriller teatok (tiatr and natok) that was to unfold. The scenes of a
screaming lady activist and a former student activist trying to prevent the
cutting of the mango tree being dragged by police and thrown into a waiting
police van with excerpts of the Taleigao MLA stating "I know what is best
for my constituency" kept rolling on the local TV channels for days.
Emotions were running high, 'Babushachi xacuti zaalach pahije!'
The Goa Bachao Abhiyan was born on 3rd December 2006 at the Don Bosco
oratory hall in Panjim. A Jhansi ki Raani and a Shivaji were reborn to take
on the onster Rat. The movement recieved a boost with support from the
church bodies. The show down on 18th December 2006 brought back memories of
the Konkani agitation. It revived the confidence of the Goan people that a
second liberation movement was to happen. This was followed by a mamoth
rally at Lohia Maidan in Margao in January 2007. The government was forced
into revoking the RP 2011 as the Assembly polls were due in just a months
time. GBA was to be the new liberation army of the Goan cause. Pressure to
field candidates was systematically mounted on the GBA but to the misfortune
of the political architects their designs gotfrustrated. GBA insited that it
is apolitical. This saved the elections for the Congress which managed to
cobble together the required numbers to form the government. A bolt from the
blue saw Digambar Kamat ascend the throne of the Chief Minister of Goa in
June 2007, a fact hard to bite for the BJP which saw him as a traitor. But
from there on GBAs script of the unfinished task on the final rites of RP
2011 and the process of putting in place a new RP began to expose the
script writers of the entire 'teatok' producers from the mango tree till the
elections. We shall reseerve those larger socio-political truths of
2006-2007 for another day.
The 17th May 2010 backdrop of a Secretariat complex with screaming women and
police brutalities with the repeated publicity of the CMs remarks, " I do
not want Goan votes" is the opening scene from a new block buster teatok
that seems to be hitting the political theatre in Goa. It is on similar
lines of the earlier teatok staged beneath the falling mango tree in St.
Inez. "Digambarchea batatwada karnarich pahije!" seems to be the new refrain
for 2012. He is the new sacrificial lamb upon whom is cast the burden of
Goa's woes. Except that this time the script writers are different. This
time the cement and pastry king with his jolly boys are in no mood to act as
they are preoccupied in playing footsie with their paramour chief minister.
The climax of the teatok is being systematically built up with Goan emotion
rousing media coverage. There are some interesting and popular veteran
politician teatokists amongst the supoporting cast. However, attempts to
once again give a seal of church endorsement to this teatok by dragging the
name of Fr. Maverick, head of CSJP into the supporting cast has not yet
materialised. That Fr. Maverick has denied press reports about his
association at the meeting on 17th May is bound to draw accusations of him
being a spoil sport. The cover page of a stray thought migrant mouthpeice
which was the key player in the 2006-2007 teatok has already begun to
blackmail of the church by portraying the Archbishop on his cover page. With
emotions running high the ever gullible goan is once again in no mood for
rationality and any attempts for a rational approach is bound to meet with
outright allegations about causing disunity and the favourite icing coat of
goan crab mentality.
There is absolutely no doubt that Digambar Kamat, Churchill Alemao and
several of the politicians are anti-goan and should be brought to book for
their crimes against the Goan people. But without a long-term scientific
approach for a lasting solution to the problems of the Goan people, the
future could be no different then the post-election scenario of June 2007
when GBA began dancing footsie. We Goans have been cheated again and again,.
be it the Konkani movement, Anti- Meta strips, anti Konkan railway or
anti-RP 2011. The teatokists have run off with the cake while the audience
remains hungry. But who are we the illiterate and inexperienced campaigners
to be the party spoilers? No matter how much the wife of an alcoholic
complains she goes back to his rescue again and again inspite of being
cautioned against such behaviour. The counsellor is left helpless and
sometimes even accused of encouraging a marital break-up.
So is the case with many gullible goans who have never really cultivated
their reasoning faculties. To reason is to oppose, to blindly accept is
support. Nothing besides this. We have always had a dearth of ded-xanne
Goans who know better than any strategist even of international repute. So,
this is our plight in 2010, 49 + years after liberation. When emotions over
take reason there is no scope for a sane approach to a problem. Anyone who
dares to inject reason is the villain and the slanderer. One can only pray
for divine illumination to a gullible and emotionally charged Goan teatok
audience. Till such time we can also well predict another teatok not only in
2012 but also in 2017 but by then there will emerge migrant script writers.
Till such time that reason (what in management parlance is called Logical
Analysis) also gets incorporated into action, all one can do is repeat the
refrain from Remo's song, I cry Goaaaaaaa! Adieus Goa!
