Business and politics have had an affair since Indian independence till they have merged in such seamless unholy matrimony that much of politics is really business. Goa has painfully endured the manner in which mining industrialists used to control government. MLAs and panchayats and the State government, like good smart phones which latch on to the strongest available network while roaming, have moved from mining barons to major corporates and businessmen, to keep the wheels of governance, and the private profits from the movement of these wheels running.
Dayanand Bandodkar and even subsequent Congress Chief Ministers followed a semblance of the Nehruvian socialist philosophy and engaged with businessmen out of social graciousness, while businessmen too had a bent of mind where they wanted to serve the state and society through the fields of health and education. Many of the institutions, sports facilities and cultural spaces were courtesy prominent industrialists of the state who fared very favourably in the ratio of give and take.
However if you compare these contributions from the early sixties to the first decade and a half of the twentieth century, there has been a free fall. If you want to test this ask when was the last hospital, school, college and sports facility built by a prominent industrial house and you will get your answer.
The money has been spent in far less visible but extremely important causes by those in the mining sector including big mining companies for their own benefits. At the local village level panchayats in the majority of mining areas derived untold benefits from mining companies though it must be said that that companies have indeed provided health and medical facilities there. But the payback by the panchayats have been no less significant. They have contributed towards getting candidates desired by local mining companies elected at local, municipal and state levels.
On a larger and most important scale, the relationship between mining companies and the government, during the tenure of Digambar Kamat as well as Manohar Parrikar grew from strength to strength. They were privy to and sometimes even framers of policy, government roadmaps were drawn with them playing the role of the road contractors and in extreme cases like this, the Ordinance amending the Mines and Minerals Development and Regulation Act went through significant changes from one cabinet meeting to the next, thus ultimately favouring major mining companies.
With the sector in the doldrums and major mining giants sizing down their operations, new industrial and corporate friendships where the state benefits less while those who run the state benefit in huge proportions, are forming.
The relationship with Leading Hotels, proponents of the Golf Course and villa project in Tiracol which has developed such a close bonhomie with the Parsekar government – building on mutual friendship it had with previous Congress governments, is a glaring case in point.
Similarly, the almost blind endorsement of the Sancoale Marina project by the Chief Minister and the Investment Promotion Board of which Mr Parsekar is the Chairperson, has proven that the state and influential industrialists, like the Chowgules in this case, are partners. This puts civil society and the common man at a disadvantage. Politicians who rule the state, who should be the arbitrators of conflicts between the man on the ground who is losing land and probably livelihood, and corporate giants, have become partners of corporates and industrialists. Therefore all objections and dissent is nipped in the bud.
These occurrences are not limited to Goa alone. Historian and author Professor Ram Chandra Guha in his column in The Telegraph ‘Politics and play’ published this Saturday shows how the relationship between politicians and businessmen has moved from a time when there was a brick wall between them to the collapse of all barriers. He wrote, “The attitude of politicians to business today is not based on ideological factors. Rather, they choose to favour individual businessmen, or to disfavour others. Personal connections decide public policy.”
There were differences in the approach towards industrialists even during Nehru’s time as Professor Guha explains. “Nehru did not think that capitalists, as a class, were central to India’s progress. C Rajagopalachari (whose Swatantra party wanted a level playing field for business) thought capitalists, as a class, could best generate the jobs and incomes that Indians needed.” But neither favoured the extreme situation as exists now in Goa and India, that personal connections dictate government policy and actions, as Guha’s column elaborates.
The Bangalore-based Guha is in a position to know the Karnataka situation closely and he refers to these cosy relationships in the mining sector in that state, which borders Goa, once a mining dependent state. This paragraph from Guha’s column strikes a raw nerve in Goa. “It is surely no accident that among the most profitable sectors in India are real estate and mining. For these depend crucially on access to resources owned by the State, which has the discretion to allocate them to individuals or corporations it likes.”
As a solution, while Professor Guha advocates a system where the system of funding of elections is revamped and tracked to prevent a quid pro quo between industry and government, this may not necessarily be the right medicine. The level of manipulations and rule bending that the government does to fast track projects borders on criminality. All that will work is a pro-active media and the judiciary which will lead to criminal action and punishment of decisions taken to favour corporates against state interest.
Holistic ayurvedic treatments and change of lifestyle is a luxury when a dying patient needs life saving pills to see him through the night. Goa needs a life saving pill. Change through electoral reform may be thought of if Goa survives this long and terrible night of darkness.
