To Goanet -
Marlon Menezes wrote: >This is another example of hypocrisy by anti-immigrant, non-resident pseudo >Goans like Arwin and Rajan. One reason why agriculture is a dying industry in >Goa because of the lack of manpower. There is limited manpower thanks to the >large out flow of Goans, like Arwin and Rajan to other parts of India and the >world. Landowners would like to get access to manual labor to get farm work >done, but we have anti-immigrant bashers like Arwin and Rajan, and extreme >leftists like Soter who oppose such free movement of labor to satisfy market >needs. Have these anti-free market, anti-immigrant clowns ever spoken to >farmers and landowners about the problems they face? With the land lying >fallow, it makes a lot of sense for the landowners to sell their properties >to >the construction industry. It is almost as if the anti-immigrant groups are >working hand in glove with the land sharks. Marlon Menezes is right only about one thing: I am against migration into Goa. We are bursting at the seams here. I have laid out my reasons in some detail over many posts here on Goanet. But on the topic of fields being destroyed, Marlon Menezes is talking out of his behind. I had given the specific example of Taleigao, where communidade land has been commandeered by Monserrate and his band of thugs for construction. The space for cultivation for the local gaude has shrunk to a patch here and a patch there. Exactly the same thing has happened everywhere else in Goa. Fields - often communidade fields - have been converted from agricultural to commercial purposes for the express purpose of erecting concrete structures and filling the pockets of politicos, sarpanchas, panchas, and of course the builders. The gaude could have been elevated form subsistence farming to a sustainable operation. I am not surprised by Marlon's bullpucky about "manpower." Exactly the same reasons are trotted by others here who want cheap ghati labour. All this is so well known that it is surprising that Marlon Menezes is so out of touch with Goa. Perhaps he is a non-Goan masquerading as a Goan. Many ghatis in Goa these days change their names from, say, Rudrappa, to Ronald D'Souza. Who knows, Marlon "I-know-how-to-spell" Menezes may well be one of those. Regards, r
