Around 7.5% of Goans have already figured it out and therefore voted like masters in the recent assembly elections, the rest unfortunately are unable to decipher the problem/solution sham that has been going on regularly for decade’s altogether. Has anybody figured out how politicians are able to control the people that actually give them their job? Simple, they have taken advantage of our basic instinct to run to the first politician available at the slightest problem we face individually or as a society. This has motivated politicians to invent problems perpetually through Government systems that are designed to keep the elected politician in the loop. That way they get a chance to intimidate ignorant voters to fall in line, in return to their job being done. This has not only guaranteed voter loyalty, but in some cases has translated to voter slavery.
By not investing into automatic processes with set guidelines, politicians have become clerks capable of only signing forms and paperwork of uninformed Goans for every petty work they have with the government. It’s another matter that while signing they get a chance to bulldoze voters that did not vote for them, and many a times even take bribes for work that should have happened routinely. If this continues a time will come when a MLA might deprive government utility services to sections of voters that did not vote for him. If the Chief Minister wants to find out how Party C prevailed over Party B despite their comparatively better administrative performance, it might have something to do with every routine form routed through the local MLA’s office, a procedure that encourages nepotism, blackmail and corruption.
The modus operandi is to dispossess the common man of certain services as if it is some big problem and then slowly make them available so as to project they have come up with a big solution. Unfortunately most Goans fall for it and are unable to see through the noise mostly created by the politician’s paid fan club on social media these days. When the problem and the solution is controlled by a set of persons, it’s just a matter of timing the problem and the solution so that maximum benefit is derived in favor of the solution provider. This trick has worked for them time and again with such guaranteed results, that complacency seems to have has set in and now they even get away by recycling the same old problems of Goa without decisive solutions. The new airport and language issues are some of the glaring examples, where those in favour and those opposing both get elected because of their ability to take different set of Goans for different rides.
What happens in this artificial problem/solution scenario is that most politicians have become incapable of resolving real problems. One such real problem that suddenly cropped up was the Supreme Court order of location of bars near highways. The order seems to be good intentioned to most parts of India but a little stringent on Goans as they are more or less social drinkers and usually exercise self control. As soon as the order was passed, many financially stable states swiftly denotified the highways. However, Goan politicians unable to grapple a real problem could only manage to call for a meeting of the affected parties to buy some more time.
There could be two reasons in delaying the decision, even if the solution exists. Take some more time to announce it, let the problem look grave, so eventually when the public is informed of it, they start to admire the decision maker for his intellect and problem resolving talent. The other reason could be that a near bankrupt Goa cannot afford to de-notify highways, because once done, the onus of maintenance of these highways fall on the state government of Goa. Apparently so pathetic are Goa government finances, that even roads going through the center of Margao city are deceitfully called as national highways, so that the central government picks up the tab for its maintenance and repair. You happen to have some alcohol business in the vicinity, than you are part of the collateral damage that comes along, not because of the Supreme Court’s order, but because of our pathetic town planning and lousy financial mismanagement.
Goans must learn to take the blame of electing the same politicians with limited knowledge for decades as they can hardly think of modern ideas. Most of them can actually afford to be obtuse during their tenure because of the bribe they pay to the voter. Once voters accept the bribe they lose their right to demand work, instead have to run around politicians with bigger bribes they received for selling their vote, to get their work done. So rampant is voter bribing today that if Goa had a monitored consumer confidence index, it would have surely show a blip in the months of April and May, soon after the elections since most bribed voters were seen happily spending the bribe money. A Public Interest Litigation (PIL) has been filed seeking action on voters that accepted a bribe of Rs 4000 per vote in Chennai, nothing of that sort has happened in Goa even though vote bribe amount in some areas was more than the amount the Chennai voters received. Such a response is on expected lines, because the Goa Election Commission is still in a denial mode and refuses to acknowledge that voter bribery ever takes place in Goa.
This is now a test for those elected to evolve fast and show their capability if it exists. The percentage of Goans that understand the real problems of Goa might be in single digit number at the moment, but can easily turn into the highest vote share enough to form the government. Just to name a few of Goa’s real problems will be, eliminating present corruption, resolution of legacy corruption, trapping voters that take bribe, turning around the dismal financial position of the state without burdening the citizens and businesses with additional taxation, Goa’s special status, defusing the garbage time bomb, ease of doing business without the fear of extortion, are just some that needs real solutions.
Just by shouting black money, black money, don’t expect Goans to believe that we have resolved the corruption issue. Goans are getting smarter by the day; they are now learning to distinguish situations cutting through the noise. The time for hoodwinking is certainly over; at least it is, for a small percentage of Goans at the moment.
(The author is a business consultant)
