---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: madonna Almeida <[email protected]> Date: 9 February 2011 00:30 Subject: To: Arwin Mesquita <[email protected]> Cc: abhijeet prabhudessai <[email protected]>, Ronnie Pereira < [email protected]>
Hi below is a write up. Please do send it wherever possible. Hopefully people will come in support. *Framed Farmer in Cuncolim.* 35, Well I was just gaping at the young man in front of me as he told me that they were a family of 35 all living together in one house. And the house, not being as elaborate as one would expect for such large numbers. 12 of the grand children he told me were well below the age of 12, while Mr. Vishnu Dessai and his better half are well into their 80’s and the predictably the oldest members of the family. I was in Cuncolim , the land of the late revolutionaries .( while the better half of Cuncolienkaars are mostly no more, the other ones are forever late) I ask to have a look in the house, they oblige, I arm myself with my camera and walk in. My eyes take a while to adjust to the darkness in the house. A few skylights bring in a bit of the much needed light. The rooms are few with each son having a room to himself and his immediate family. The conditions are cramped. My mind wanders thinking of the comforts I have back home and I feel a sting of guilt. After getting a few pictures through my lens I head out back to their backyard, seat myself on the hard wooden bench and wait for Dutta Dessai to join me . He takes a few minutes longer than expected , I let my mind wander again and fascinatingly it takes me to the White elephant just a stone’s throw away from the Dessai house. Not the kind to stomp into your fiels cause depressing damage and leave the place , this one stays on day in and day out a constant reminder of how the tax payer is being looted by the MLA and his band of councilor show, else could one account for the fact that it is so well maintained, spacious yet how under used it is. I witnessed for months after it was built, buses would just pass by, I’d see children playing a game of cricket. Occasionally it would even host a cultural event and I would wonder why not just have a community hall instead. Little did I realize then that Cuncolim is brimming with Community halls. Interestingly quite a few of these have been transferred to religious private parties. So ‘Cuncolienkaars’ don’t be surprised if your religious reader is specific about which councilor or MLA you should vote for. I for one see that coming. The cock crows, I hear the children chattering and it brings me back to reality,the reality of the Dessai family. It is yet another story of people who have fallen prey to a system, one that stinks of greed and power. Dutta Dessai a rather soft spoken man, in his 30’s sits across me and begins to tell me the turn of events. The family has been into farming for the past 80 years. It is their sole source of income and sustenance. They fields are sown three times a year hence never actually left fallow. Adjoining the fields they have a fruit orchard where they have a variety of fruit trees like banana, coconut, jackfruit and many more. They also have a little pond dug out to irrigate the place. I later on had the opportunity to walk through their orchard and see for myself. Dutta then tells me around 9500sq m of this is acquired by the municipality hence leaving them with a very small patch of fields that could not possibly sustain a family of 35. He tells me it all started in 2004 when the municipality first acquired the land under cultivation, for the purpose of a market complex. The family protested saying that it was their only source of income. They approached the MLA Joaquim Alemao pleading with him to intervene into the matter. As Vishnu Dessai holds his ears and says ‘ashe khanam baandun, daily vochon paim potta, aamkam saalwaar kor’. I flinch watching an 80 year old man having to bow infront of a minister for justice. But what he tells me next makes me want to roll on the floor with laughter. Joaquim , he tells me says to them ‘tum bhinaka , sorgaaran dev asam ani haanga aapun aasa!’ Good Gracious an ‘avataar’ of God , and that too Joaqim Alemao , this could be nothing short of a miracle gone bad. Anyway the lying minister does put a stop to it and the municipality aquires the land adjoining the white elephant( Oops forgive me father on earth I sincerely meant to say Cuncolim bus stand) Everything goes back to normal , the family is at peace once again and get back to their normal day to day activities. All of a sudden one day a relative of theirs is faced with the predicament of having to give up his land to mining coincidentally the party wanting the land was our very own God on earth. Innocently of course having his relative’s best interest in mind Dutta advices him not to sell off his land. Makes me think what was he expecting, Joaqim to be testing his people on earth, to see if they are good or bad ,if they were ready to sell their mother earth by earth to china or stand by and protect her through thick and thin. Well unluckily for Dutta Lord Joaqim gets to know of his folly and within the next two months his land had been acquired for the second time. Dutta appointed Adv. Anacleto Viegas to fight for him in the district collector’s court paying him sixty thousand in two installments of thirty thirty each. But they soon find out that there’s the advocate had other plans. Dutta sounds awfully disappointed as he relates to me of the day there was an inspection of the site and though Adv. Anacleto Viegas came along with him he left in the vehicle of the municipal councilors. Now though it may not be written down in any book of law that he cannot do so the family seriously doubts his integrity. And who can blame them . They lose the case in the district court. Not to mention his bad karma followed them even to the high court. We are then joined by a family friend who assisted them in trying times, he asks me to refrain from naming him. Expectedly the god on earth and his followers really are a nasty bunch. If you don’t believe me ask the bus driver who got slapped because he refused to use the white elephant(oops there I go again)and if he doesn’t agree to it I won’t blame him he’s just saving his face. So the family friend continues where Dutta left off. He says he accompanied Dutta to the high court advocate Nitin Sardessai and explained to him that there was plenty of fallow land on either side of the highway, also available was the land that was acquired for the sports complex until it was scrapped, so why deprive these farmers of their livelihood. Adv. Nitin Sardessai agreed that if there was land available then they could win the case. And when the court ordered them to raise their objections the advocate told Dutta to get the plan and index of land of all the available fallow land. Dutta did as bided but tells me that the advocate did not submit the proof at all. Instead the Muncipality came up with new projects on the available land, that too ones that were not even approved by the government. It turns out eventually the details of the available fallow land somehow do not make it to the high court. The case was lost at the high court level as well. Now what would one call this? To me the timing seems too perfect to be purely coincidental and Adv. Nitin seemed like just another chip of the block. Well I would have loved to go into the details of what happened at the Supreme court but honestly it was just a repetition of the old. They lost the case due to no evidence of land records of fallow land available. So it turns out that the bad Karma of Adv. Nitin followed them to the supreme court. But yet the family has it’s hope pinned on the justice system. Dutta tells me that he can still file for a review petition. They tell him it will cost around one and a half lakh. He reluctantly asks if my organization would help. I tell him I don’t belong to any but would spread the word around. Before leaving I try speaking to one of the children.He is shy, he sits mum, his mother scolds him saying ‘Atta kitea uloina, gharan vhodlo sangta hanv aso kortolo ani toso kortolo‘. As though he, with some magical power could save their fields; their only source of livelihood, their lives. I tell her some other time, bid them good bye and leave. Months pass by, I soon got involved in other activities but somehow thoughts of them were always there in some recess of my brain and then one morning of February I get a call. I hear the same soft spoken voice on the other side of the line he asks me to join them in a hunger strike in front of the Cuncolim municipality on the 4th of February, I readily agree but my curiosity gets the better of me I go back the same day to their house to find out what I missed out in the past 2/3 months. Dutta is happy to see me but there is that underlying loss of hope in his eyes. It breaks my heart but I ask anyways. He tells me the review petition cost around two lakhs. His voice breaks as he tells me he had to sell his mother’s gold to be able to pay for it. I find out the case was dismissed yet again. And now his lawyer has told him that he could file for a curative petition. He had just travelled to Delhi a few days ago to meet with their Supreme Court advocatepaid him an advance of ten thousand, comes back with the ‘Vakalatnama’ to be signed by Vishnu Desai, his father. He sighs it will cost one lakh. He is to travel back to Delhi on the 8th . He has been told that the chances of winning the curative petition are close to nil. The hunger strike is a last resort he tells me. I inquire as to how his father is, he says‘ Bapui piso aeso zalo, inga tinga bounta ravta’. The line sticks with me. I leave I feel anger as I walk towards the white elephant ,at what this family is going through at the hands of some inhuman and short sighted politician like Joaquim Alemao. I feel frustrated at the councilors of the municipality who are like mindless puppets dancing to the drum beats of their MLA. I mean if they lack the courage to put their foot down, when they see something so barbaric as what is being done to the Dessai family, maybe they should just jump down one of those many private wells they are busy constructing with public funds and make way for the just and the courageous ‘Cuncolienkaars’ who can handle the pressure. As I reach the bus stand ( oh I did manage to get it right) I meet a friend who gives me a brief on the Municipal Complex which is to come up in the lush fields of the Dessai’s which are opposite to the bus stand. The structure is 3 storied spanning across 100m along the road and 25m perpendicular to it with parking on either side. It would house various departments such as the post, electricity, pwd and many more, the municipality on first and a library and of course yet another community hall on the second floor. My mind wanders I think of the amount of people who would be filling the soakpits and septic tanks and then of what would happen to the remainder of the Dessau’s field. I am doubtful whether the grain would be edible anymore. So one could say it would be a loss of quantity, and then quality. My bus is here, I bid him farewell and leave with a heavy heart feeling the unjustified pain, humiliation and terror that this family is being put through and who knows how many others like them are out there suffering in silence. When somewhere along the way as I watch the setting sun I take a firm resolve to join and support the cause of the Dessai’s right not just to survive but to thrive. I hope that you will too be there at the existing Cuncolim municipality on the 9th of February at 9am on a hunger strike with the Dessai family as they give it their only chance. -- Please post your comments on my Blog: http://goanidentity.blogspot.com/ Please also see below: 1. Benaulim Village Action Committee: http://www.bvacbenaulim.blogspot.com/ 2. "Rape of Goa" : http://www.parrikar.com/blog/the-rape-of-goa/ 3. MAND - an adivasi-rights resource centre : http://mandgoa.blogspot.com/ 4. EVERY GOAN SHOULD SEE THIS VIDEO: http://infochangeindia.org/Infochange-documentary.html 5. Goa's Identity Movement group on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com//#/group.php?gid=193497031686 6. Official Government Site NRI Office (GOA): http://www.globalgoans.org.in/
