07 Dec 2019  |   05:43am IST

In the tinto of titans, where are Goa's real leaders?

Sujay Gupta

Twelve days from now, the collective conscience of Goans may perhaps, just perhaps, look back at a tectonic event that happened 12 years ago, with a potential to shape Goa’s history in a redeeming direction. Alas, the bus was missed.

Circa December 18, 2007: As the sun rose on the rivulets that meander into the Zuari, from over mangroves on the Mandovi, as its glare pierced the beautifully flung fishing net of a Chapora fisherman, people left town and country, their legs   both supple and firm and weak and infirm, cemented by a spirit, to reclaim Goa. There was no government to topple, no defections to be achieved, no politician to be sworn in. But there was a sense of victory, because each was a leader.

The sea of humanity moved to the Azad Maidan with one clarion call “Goa Bachao”, spearheaded by the Goa Bachao Abhiyan, an organisation which pulsated with the strength of the community. It did have leaders but what we witnessed was leadership. It did have planning, but was witnessed was execution, it did have the all important seal to stop a draconian Regional Land Plan, which was dotted with greed and desire of the builder lobby, but what was witnessed was the resilience of people to reply to each brick planned, with a brickbat that it deserved. And above all, what it did NOT have was political machinations. The historic December 18 rally at the Azad Maidan was the most powerful apolitical gathering, but lead by the polity of people.

There was one defining image which has become the leitmotif of December 18, 2007, modern Goa’s opinion poll day. The clenched fists of activist Doctor Oscar Rebello with the green band of the GBA around his arm as a symbol of resistance and collective will. And yet it was not about him. He was just a carrier of the people’s will and an articulator of people’s sentiments, with a whole pantheon of pillars   from Dean D Cruz, to Sabina Martins to Reboni Saha, to Vasco Da Gama and Jose Philip Pereira and so many others behind him. If the United Goans party had a chance of resurrection, then they should have happily handed over their name to this collective conglomeration of brave hearts, all united Goans.

The story of why that spark did not continue to be the fire of hope and resilience is best left for another day, because that is another story of lament. December 18 should be remembered as a day of hope and not of lost chances. It should be remembered as what was possible rather than what was not. If anything (and everything) it should still have enough straws for us to clutch on to even if the constituency of the dejected feel that Goa’s ship of resilience and leadership has sailed.

But straws are all we have. The inability or the refusal of Goans to unitedly fight for causes so dear to us, and watch the slippage of our land into a nadir of hopelessness is a painful narrative. When the bulk of Congress MLAs, all titans in their own tintos and nothing beyond, from minority dominated constituencies decided to join the BJP, to bring “development: to their constituencies, there was not a pipsqueak from the people who voted for them.”

It is this lack of leadership at all levels that has resulted in absolute inertia on the part of elected representatives to take on issues of critical importance. And their job of maintaining silence has been made even easier by a polity which no longer seeks answers. We are a land which does not seek answers and we have slipped to this situation from a land which always sought accountability. The clenched fists have become folded hands and all the succour we want is our private needs to be fulfilled.

The GIDC wants Rs 200 crores to pay for the recently allotted coal block and there is a belief that lands returned by SEZ promoters, allotted to them in a “manner not known to law” (words of the High Court) is now sought to be auctioned, to pay back interest on loans taken to get the land back from the promoters. Yes, the very land which was illegally allotted to them. Has land which belongs to the people, become a private asset of those in power? But do you hear the collective roar of the polity? You don’t.

There was time when the Village Groups of Goa fought the good fight and got a decision from the High Court which termed the allotments of land by the GIDC, manipulated by politicians in charge, as fraudulent. It was a people’s movement which resulted in this order. Where is the VGG now and where are some of the shining stars of that movement? Hopefully, not breaking bread with or taking bread from the same promoters they opposed, for the sake of Goa.

We cry when gruesome rapes happen throughout the country. Was a single tear shed or a voice raised either by our public representatives or the public when a rape accused in Goa was slapped with false cases and beaten, by the police who then circulated her photos, according to what Sabina Martins of Bailancho Saad said. In another incident a chapter case has been filed against a rape survivor in Goa. Any voices? Not even muffled ones.

In Chinchinim, a farming paradise, farming is on its last legs; farmers do not have pesticides and a community of providers are reduced to seekers. Have you heard any collective noise around this? No, because migrants farm on lands left behind by Goans.

We then have a minister lashing out at Goans living abroad for daring to question what is happening in Goa. They were advised to bother more about London and Portugal. But this argument can cut both ways and the reverse cut can be just as sharp. Then stop the remittances and salaries coming back home from abroad, by Goans working overseas. The government of the day will not get a single vote from half of Goa’s constituencies including the constituency of the minister. By the way this government does have an NRI Commissioner and his office whose mandate is to look after the problems and issues of overseas Goans. Does their departure from Goa for economic reasons justify their lands getting usurped, their homes getting occupied by force? Are the MLAs of their constituencies, whose constituents depend on their wages earned by those abroad, participants in this debate? Do they have an answer, a response or even an argument with regard to Minister Michael Lobo’s public admonishment of overseas Goans?

The MLAs do not open their mouths, the locals remaining have lost the will, the migrants who are here do not have the emotional connect on the most sensitive of issues and now genuine Goans who are abroad are muffled. That is effectively the end of any people’s participation.

Political parties do not have a succession plan of leadership. And the people do not have plans to throw up leaders from society who would then lead as they did in the past. Irrespective of how their careers are panned out, there was a time in Goa when the people asked good people in their areas to lead them. That is how Tomazinho Cardozo, a teacher was asked to lead in Calangute, or Dr Wilfred D Souza, a doctor came into the political pool. Even Francisco Sardinha a teacher was handpicked because of the respect he commanded in his profession. Check out the profile of recent Goa cabinets and see the changing social profile of those getting elected. Most of them have interests in land and real estate. These are the choices that people are making and speaks volumes of not our politics, but our polity.

If leadership emerges from people, you will have great leadership whose mission is bigger than them. This leadership’s life-span will be far greater than their own life spans. All this, means, is that succession, in a leadership game is a central issue, not a side one. We have had no succession of leadership for years, barring the pathetic family raj of nepotism. What we have witnessed is “leaders” trying to make themselves indispensable as a mechanism of self-protection.

As Psalm 49 says "Man and all his pomp will not endure."

Goa needs to go beyond false pomp and have a people’s rule. The current generation needs to send living messages to a time they will not see. Messages of how moments in history like December 18, 2007 almost left a permanent mark of inspiration for Goans. Perhaps just perhaps, the straws of hope from that effort will be sought to light a candle and amplify voices that need to be heard, voices that say “Enough of tinto titans, we will have real leadership”

IDhar UDHAR

Idhar Udhar