Insiders and outsiders. Those who belong versus the unwanted. Fraught politics of immigration and xenophobia preoccupy the world from South Africa to Sweden, with the latest shock result coming after the far-right Party for Freedom under Geert Wilders won the largest vote share in the recent Netherlands elections on the back of familiar nativist sentiments: “We will make sure that the Netherlands will be for the Dutch people again. We will restrict the asylum tsunami and migration.”
Wilders used to be considered an extremist, but vicious anti-migrant rhetoric has now become mainstream in many different countries. It is deployed by both Democrats and Republicans in the US - where even President Biden is still busily building the notorious wall – and continues to roil the UK even after the ill-conceived and disastrous Brexit. All this past week, Rishi Sunak’s government was under severe attack from the recently sacked home minister Suella (Fernandes) Braverman, who kept on hammering this point: “It’s now or never” to institute policies that “reflect public fury” about the “existential challenge” posed by “mass, uncontrolled” immigration.
All this has complex resonance in India’s smallest state, and amongst the broadly transnational Goans. On the one hand, exclusionary politics affect the diaspora adversely, but there’s no doubt identically xenophobic feeling is brewing back home, born out of legitimate anxieties about demographic displacement. Is there any solution to be found in and for places like Assagao, the once-sylvan “village of flowers” turned horrifying cautionary tale of what can happen when the locals lose control? What would Suella Braverman do and say about the ongoing social, cultural and environmental catastrophe in the ancestral village of her forefathers?
“I don’t find Suella Braverman extreme at all,” says Rajan Parrikar, the well-known Iceland-based engineer and photographer (and classical music connoisseur) whose strident warnings about the deleterious effects of migration on Goa have been widely read for many years. He says “the British see the villages and towns they grew up in are nothing like what they were just 20 years ago. Is there any group in the world that likes to be taken over, their environment and way of life altered so radically and so quickly? Braverman is voicing the concerns of her constituents, not those of the unelected bureaucrats from Brussels.”
Parrikar’s analysis is “highly uneven economic progress across India placed Goa in a vulnerable position, easily susceptible to uncontrolled in-migration from the less developed states and regions. When mobility became widespread, idyllic Goa became a honeypot. We got people from the entire spectrum, for different reasons. The moneyed moved in for the lifestyle. Those at the bottom end came for attractive wages and an escape from the dire conditions in their impoverished surrounds. The flood has now drowned out Goans numerically, and sowed the seeds of our cultural marginalisation. Slowly but surely the dominance of Niz Goenkars in the political arena is also bound to diminish. In practical terms today, the increase in population has stressed infrastructure, impacted quality of life, priced out Goans from their own real estate market, worsened the law and order situation, and engendered social tension in our neighbourhoods.”
What is more, says Parrikar, “this transformation of Goa had no democratic mandate. No Goan voted for this. And the change wasn’t organic. It happened overnight, so to speak [and] the one incoming group that sticks in the Goan craw is Dilliwallahs who are seen as loud and coarse moneybags, with little regard for local sensibilities. There is justification for this assessment. Dilliwallahs have also become bêtes noires in places far removed from Goa, such as Uttarakhand and Himachal.” Here is the similarity to what is happening in the west: “Both [influxes] have no democratic sanction. The host populations never voted for their state/countries to be so transformed. But there is a vital difference - Europe at least has a migration control mechanism (visa), Goa doesn't.”
I asked Parrikar whether this fate could have been avoided. He said “11 years ago, when Manohar Parrikar returned to power, I had, along with a few others, impressed upon him to address this issue by making it top priority. But he had not the will or the courage to take it head on. There was a slate of options available AT THAT TIME to arrest the inflow. Essentially, we should have formulated comprehensive policies that could have preserved Goan land while simultaneously discouraging in-migration. No mega-projects, no waves of outsiders. But we found out that Manohar and his lieutenants had no intention of ever preserving Goa. I don't think the clock can be turned back now. Pick your metaphor - the ship has sailed, the horse has bolted, the hour has passed.”
To get another perspective on this vexed issue, I turned to the distinguished advocate – and Padma Shri award winner – Norma Alvares, whose tireless efforts (along with her husband Claude Alvares) have done more to hold on to what is precious about Goa than any other public figure in the 21st century. “I am a daughter of Assagao,” she said, “and was always proud to be part of the prettiest village in the world. Thickly forested hillsides with neatly laid out cottages nestled in the valley and flower gardens everywhere is my best memory of this village. I remember my father telling me that the soil of Assagao is so rich that if you put a stick in the ground, it will soon flower. That’s why it was known as fulancho ganv. Today, huge buildings line both sides of the narrow village road dwarfing the homes of the few Goans who still reside in this once homely village.”
Alvares says two main factors came into play: “one, the lack of jobs in Goa led to depletion of the young population of the village. Secondly, the present government has no regard for Goa’s ecology, and believes that every bit of land that can bring them money is best sold. So it has been assuring the rich folk from Delhi and Haryana that they would be permitted to build luxurious second homes on the forested slopes that none of the villagers ever thought were areas for development. The domino effect - more and more land up for sale, and the identity of the village has changed for the worse. This is the future of Goan villages unfolding.”
There is no useful comparison between the refugees being targeted in the UK and the migrants wrecking Assagao, says Alvares: “those who come to Goa do so out of choice - wanting to have a second or third home as a luxury getaway that they can offer to their families and friends. Or because they want to invest in the speculative market associated with this fly-by-night industry. A few, only a few, will be concerned to ensure their investment does not destroy. The bulk would not give a damn.” This is very different from “those compelled to leave their homelands due to political or religious persecution, or lack of opportunity, and therefore seek refuge in Europe, traveling at great risk to their lives. This is why Braverman's rhetoric is indeed heartless, distasteful, anti-human and hypocritical because she herself is from a family that has a migration history.”
Alvares says there are “parasite-migrants” who destroy the greenery, suck up the water supply and power (already deficient) available to village communities, and offer precious little in exchange except extra traffic and extra noise. But migrant workers on the other hand provide goods and services. They ran the mining industry. They service the restaurants. If the migrant population from Bihar is banned, all waste collection in Goa’s villages would come to a horrible end, we are that indebted. Ultimately, we are all migrants, some moved in earlier, some trying to move in later. With the global social contract already in tatters, Braverman’s rhetoric worsens the problem. In that sense, she is not the kind of politician the world requires right now. But it is not her alone. This is a collective failure of those in power, all over the world.”
(Vivek Menezes is a writer and co-founder of the Goa Arts and Literature
Festival)