Whether for this reason or not, people from other states especially neighboring ones will continue to resettle in Goa and swamp the local population. It's only a matter of time before Goans, like the East Indian Christian community of Bombay's suburbs before them, will act like dispossessed native communities and ask for reservations and special tax funds to compensate for their perceived loss of lands. I refer to the recent post of "Marcos" who purports to speak on behalf of East Indian and Koli (fishermen) associations.
The fault dear Antonio if one must call it a fault, is that of Goans alone. Like the East Indians who sold their lands, Goans are busy with this kind of activity too. Goans are much luckier. They are getting top dollar for their paternal legacies while the East Indians sold theirs relatively cheap because the economic situation in India was not as great then as it is now. If the East Indians had retained all their lands to this day, they would have figured in the Forbes list of the richest 500 people in the world. Ditto for Goans 25 years from now. However this is not what happens in reality. Take for example Reliance shares 30 years ago or Microsoft shares a similar period ago. Can people who had those shares and sold them for profit, now go to those companies and demand to be compensated for their opportunity losses? I have been saying to anyone who listened, for the past 25 years as one who live through the dispossession of the East Indians in Bombay that it would be inevitable that the process would affect Goans too in due course. This started happening in full swing from 2000 onwards when Goan real estate got "discovered" and Indians started getting flush with funds. Too late now to do anything. What could have been prevented is not the selling off of privately owned land by individuals - that is a factor of economics - but rather the wild west environment now prevailing in Goa where the only method to the madness is the making of money any which way by the people in power. If Goans had to value their vote and bring in good government, not so many of the hoi-polloi could have come in from the rest of India. For example if living on the streets or in ramshackle huts or in slums or on rented private property without civic facilities was strictly banned, only people who could live in apartments flats or houses would have come to Goa. Now that presents an entirely different problem. The backbone of India was built and is being built on cheap labor. No wealthy person in his senses in the subcontinent is willing to give a fair wage to labor. By fair wage I mean something that would allow a family to eat, have a decent roof over one's head and have the capacity to educate one's children. Take the police in Bombay for example. Bombay is the richest municipality in India whose annual budget is more than that in about 75 countries in the world. But a constable today gets Rs 18,000 per month and is given housing fit for a dog rather than a human. In fact his place of work, the station house itself stinks of urine emanating from its staff washroom, so you can imagine the washroom itself. He is expected to work 12 to 14 hour shifts in highly polluted environments, is expected to be on call 24 hours and is more often than not called during the hours beyond his duties. A majority of them suffer from TB due to poor hygiene. This policeman is then expected to deal with gangsters and criminals of all kinds, including businessmen who often earn in a day what he makes in a year. By comparison, a waiter in a crummy restaurant in a slum in the suburbs earns Rs 20,000 a month in tips alone. These are not my figures and examples. They are from leading Bombay dailies of not more than a week ago. The inequities are great, the people too rich or too poor and the politicians too greedy to solve problems in any meaningful way. There is no national pride, self respect or value for life in any major city however seemingly affluent. In Bombay there are buildings that have flats of 5000 sq feet each that cost foot for foot, more than real estate in Manhattan, New York City. Below those same buildings there are the most disgusting huts with no water or sanitation where a whole family sleeps in 50 square feet. That is going to be the fate of Goa and no one can prevent it as long as those in power have no accountability or have bought off that accountability with the very money that they have gouged from the very taxpayers they are supposed to serve as public servants. Goans in Goa have more or less resigned themselves to that reality. It is the Goans abroad who having seen another better reality, want to transplant it on their home soil. That won't happen. Not for a long time. And not until something drastic happens, like the Arab Awakening. And even not then. It will quickly get back to the same old, same old after some time. Goans and Indians can make themselves richer. Getting them to make their society better is quite another matter. Roland. Toronto. -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Antonio Menezes Sent: Wednesday, June 29, 2011 9:22 AM To: goanet Subject: [Goanet] Pyrrhic victory The progressive and forward looking parents of Goa may have won a victory for their children to be educated in primary schools in English language medium of instruction. But I foresee a situation which may not be to the liking of lovers of Goa. It is possible that in the decades that follow there may be an invasion of mothers with children aged between five and ten settling in Goa for a limited period for their children to be educated in the English language . And many of them could make their stay permanent. These lower middle class and middle class families could be mostly from Maharashtra and Karnataka.
