Amyopic political vision, further bridled by narrow, short-term goals at the direction and discretion of vested interests, is what Goa has been burdened with for the last 55 years since Liberation that came in 1961. When the Indian army liberated Goa, and power passed on to the hands of the locals under a democratic setup, the people directing the moves from behind the scenes remained almost unchanged.
Anthropologist Robert Newman who has researched politics in Goa, illustrates in his essay ‘From Traditional Colonial to Bourgeois Capitalist’ how a few families that received favours from the Portuguese colonial government, continued to remain at the top of the political system after Liberation, despite not entering into the nitty-gritty of electoral politics.
“A handful of small-businessmen, traditional landowners, and profiteers received iron ore mining licences, and were encouraged to dig and ship the ore to Japan,” says Newman. He goes on to write that even after liberation the families “hardly missed a step… Goan mine-owners were allowed to keep possession of their mines and to expand their activities at will. They became the only private mine-owners in Goa. From 1961 on, these controllers of the major wealth of the territory came to control its politics as well.”
When the discovery of ore beneath the layers of mud was made, it shook up and disrupted the prevailing social system in Goa, and the bhatkar who until then, to use the words of a character in Orlando da Costa’s play Sem Flores, Nem Coroas (No Flowers, No Wreaths), measured his land ‘in cumbos of rice and baskets of coconuts’, turned mine owner and industrialist, introducing in Goa a new section in society. But it was not every bhatkar, for as Costa’s character goes on to say, “it was necessary to have a new way of thinking in order to admit – to take the risk – to see that within that subsoil of our most arid, stony and remote estates, which yielded next to nothing for a century and a half, there existed mineral ore.”
And so, while the subsoil exported to Japan and later much of it to China brought in the wealth to a certain section, it also bestowed upon them a power to control the political system. Over the decades governments were voted in and governments were voted out, but control somehow remained with the mine owners, perhaps till the time the real estate lobby entered the picture and teamed up with the mine owners to direct the fortunes of the State.
It is this control on politics that needs to be broken so that Goa gets a new group of politicians who will keep the focus on Goa in mind as they plan for the State. Last Thursday’s ‘Rally For Goa’ that brought together over 50 non government organisations, along with activists to prepare a people’s manifesto that will be presented to the political parties and candidates contesting the February 4 elections, played a role in initiating this change. But while the Rally For Goa focused on issues, it is the leadership qualities of the politicians that also need to be changed. With that aim in mind, there should be no space and time given for traditional politics in 2017 for Goa needs to surge forward towards new ideas and ideals. If the politicians will not reinvent themselves, voters will have to play their role in changing how politicians think.
While the political leadership has been prejudiced in its thinking, which has reflected in its working, Goa needs to bring in a new breed of politicians who are dynamic and visionary, while also being able to differentiate between pragmatism and populism in their policies. That can only happen if the electorate decides to disrupt the existing political setup this election.
Journalist Norman Dantas in the introduction to the book ‘The Transforming of Goa’ wrote, “The vast majority of Goans have had little opportunity to become capable of analysing and understanding the larger forces at work in the changing world around them… Then again, coming out from under colonial yoke into the ‘free air of democracy’, the Goan people have been led by politicians as blind in perspective, but made worse by singular devotion to self (and of course, pelf).”
While Dantas wrote these lines two decades ago, not much has changed in Goa as a large crop of politicians still remain blind in their perspective. Today, however, information reaches the people easily and quickly, unlike in the past, when large segments of the people were given information on a need to know basis. The social media plays a major role in this easy dissemination of information, and this empowers the people to analyse and understand issues much better than in the past.
Can 2017 then be the game changer for Goa, a year when the electorate decides to disrupt the existing political system and bring in the change?
Perhaps it will, perhaps it won’t. But if it doesn’t happen, then, like Tob the narrator in Lambert Mascarenhas’ novel Sorrowing Lies My Land, we may someday have to lament saying, “This Goa, this happy land of mine, what unkind star was casting its shadow on it? Why was gloom descending on it when only until recently it was all sunshine, joy and laughter?” Tob, in the novel, was awaiting Goa’s freedom, which finally came years after the novel was first published, but around the time that Sorrowing Lies My Land was serialized and published in Bombay, there were other changes happening that would affect Goa in the decades to come. New uses were being discovered for the land in Goa – mining and much later real estate.
It is perhaps time to now use our fingers on the electronic voting machines to reject the false promises of populism and bring into the political system the assurances made with pragmatism. It is time that the voter becomes the change he wants to see.
