After months of testing the waters and hedging their bets the Aam Admi Party and the Congress are singing the anti-casino tune. The AAP has decided to make the battle against casinos the central theme of their 2017 campaign while the Congress, state president has apologised for his party’s role in bringing casinos. The party though has not yet risen in unison against the casino lobby. But the point is whether these anti-casino noises are serious enough to cause a tectonic upsurge leading to the removal of the casino boats from the Mandovi river and out of Goa’s waters.
The battle against casinos has failed in Goa because it has never become a full-fledged peoples movement and restricted to being a convenient political movement for parties who thought it was expedient at that particular point of time. So before the 2012 elections, the opposition BJP took to the streets against casinos and vowed to throw them out, only to allow them to bob on Goa’s waters. It get’s almost Rs 200 crores from the casino lobby by way of various taxes annually, though the Chief Minister has put the figure at only Rs 50 crores.
The Congress-led government of Francisco Sardinha, signed on the dotted line to bring the casinos in, a government, lest one forget, supported by the BJP. But during Digambar Kamat’s tenure, with Ravi NMaik as Home Minister, the industry grew and flourished. Therefore, inspite of Luzinho Faleiro’s apology and a vow to get the casinos out of Goa, the party as a whole, does not have clenched fists that are clean.
It is only a peoples movement that can bring any life and seriousness into the anti-casino movement. It has to be taken up with the zeal with which emotional movements like the anti-Mopa agitation, the anti-SEZ agitations and the agitation for a just Regional Plan.
This is not a fight against illegality. It’s a fight for the kind of Goa we want, a kind of Goa that we would like to leave for our children. While the casino business is not illegal and casino owners will exercise the option of going to court, if the casinos are forced to shut shop, let us remember that the government’s business is to legislate and the people’s business is to force the government to legislate for the greater public good. Government decisions cannot always depend on profit and revenue, when its mandate is to back what is good for the land and for its people. The continuance of casinos on the rivers of Goa, has to be viewed in that context.
Those who have a proven track record of genuine agitation should be in front of this cause. And the fact remains that the anti-casino movement hasn’t quite been a pan Goa movement, which the other agitations were. But it will be unwise to relate the opposition to casinos only to their geographical location – Panjim. The narrative of job creation, is sensitive and will be played by those who support casinos, to the hilt. But the counter to this is creating more employment opportunities for Goan youth, which in turn will driver lesser numbers to the casino boats for jobs.
At the same time, Goa must ask itself if this is the brand of tourism , where hordes of gamblers arrive by an evening flight, gamble all night and leave the next morning. And if people doesn’t want this brand of tourism, then they must speak up. The silence of Goans is being seen as tacit acceptance of the government’s lack of interest in moving casinos out of the Mandovi waters.
