SATURDAY, APRIL 20, 2024
Sujay Gupta
There is a back story or a narrative which seems to be gaining ground in official or government circles, who are really caught in a cleft stick over the rising and widespread people’s movements against projects geared to facilitate the movement of coal.
The narrative goes like this: People who do not know Mollem (the National park which has gotten in the way of “Development” and therefore stands to be chopped) are raising their voices. When empirical evidence that the protests against Mollem was not orchestrated by some foreign hand was evident when members of local foundations and groups teamed up with Goencho Ekvott to march 74 kilometres from Mollem to Vasco on Gandhi Jayanti the “foreign hand” disappeared.
The people’s movement has got a fresh wind beneath its wings with the advent of the Goyant Kollso Naka which has been undertaking an almost daily round of rallies, and street corner meetings stretching from the interiors of Curchorem to the coasts of Majorda and Utorda, Arrosim, Pale and Velsao. More voices have been added to the cauldron. They are all Konkani voices, of the young, the middle-aged and old, each a proud holder. Therefore the non-Goan or non-local tag, the government attempted to give at one stage to these protests, just doesn’t fit.
A desperate government then decided to dig deeper. Are the people of Mollem protesting?, they asked. The villagers of Sangod seemed to give the government and proponents of these projects a dollop of hope when 70 (yes just 70) people from Sangod village which has just three of the seven wards of Mollem panchayat, came out in support of the 400 kv power transmission line, after a meeting with the PWD Minister. Apparently, the Tamnar Power Transmission Company has assured 12 permanent and 80 contractual jobs. Without getting into the efficacy of the promise and whether the just 12 jobs are enough to buy support for the power line passing through Mollem, let us ask whether the support of 70 people in three wards indicates that there is people’s support for the power transmission project.
The very next day, (Thursday) other locals of Mollem vowed that they would continue to fight against the project and travelled all the way to Panjim to submit a memorandum to the Chief Minister at his residence. They complained bitterly that not only was their memorandum not accepted, but they along with some Panjim-based activists were detained.
It is obvious that the Sawant government doesn’t have or is not relying on a smart set of advisors who should tell the government that the strategy of first dismissing the projects as emanating from a cave in space or virtually to that effect, to then believing that some sections of people far removed from Mollem were the nerve centre of these protests, has backfired.
And this was literally brought to Chief Minister Sawant's’ doorstep when villagers from Mollem stood at his Altinho residence, travelling all the way from Mollem to give him a memorandum. And the act of not showing statesmanship by asking even a member of the Chief Minister’s staff to accept the memorandum will backfire because what this has done is turned the ire against the Centre, or “Adani’ to the Goa government, which is now being seen as completely insensitive to the people of Goa.
Often battles, like causes and issues, are won or lost on perceptions. And Dr Pramod Sawant is losing the perception battle here. He has turned a direct face-off between the people of Goa and two ministries of Shipping and Ports and Environment and Forests (and Climate Change) into a standoff with his Goa government and ministers. Protest groups like Goencho Ekvott and Goyant Kollso Naka are criss-crossing villages and holding meetings and rallies and Sawant’s cabinet ministers are on the streets either pacifying or confronting them.
Suddenly Sawant’s ministers are on the defence as the shrill voices against “Adani” and the Modi government have moved towards Goa’s ministers.
In another piquant situation ruling party MLAs like Wilfred D Sa (Nuvem) have lent support to the people’s movements. And of course Alina Saldanha, the Cortalim MLA and former Minister is actually one of the leaders of the people’s movement in that area is leading yet another delegation to the Chief Minister on this issue on Saturday (today).
The loss of this perception battle will have other fallout beyond the issue of laying power transmission lines or railway double tracking or highway expansion. Vast swathes of people across Goa are getting a sense of helplessness that the state isn’t quite fighting for them as is apparent in the case of Mhadei.
Moreover, the Chief Minister went to Delhi for a rare meeting with the Prime Minister and in the shortest time available reportedly talked about restarting mining and didn’t have time to discuss Goa’s prime interest in not letting Karnataka divert Mhadei waters. That didn’t go unnoticed by the people.
So what does the Goan feel? That mining interests are of greater priority than Mhadei. For sure a contempt petition has been filed by Goa against Karnataka, but this is too little too late in the face of Karnataka thinking two steps ahead of Goa at every stage on this issue of late, and actually managing to start illegal constructions towards the aim of diverting the Mhadei waters to Karnataka. A contempt petition, many feel, is like ‘securing’ the stables after the horses have bolted.
We are nearing the end of 2020 with just about 18 months left for the next Assembly elections. Time flies. And while the political ebb and flow continues and peaks even a week before elections, a feeling of despondency against the government for not holding the hand of the people is on the rise. And since this is going to become deep-set, the ruling party government cannot wriggle out of it with sops and promises.
This government has constantly pushed the line that it knows best and its ministers are equipped to take decisions. Even if, for argument’s sake, that it is true, a mature government doesn’t quite say so because the art of people management in a democracy is to be seen to be empathetic to people’s interests to cushion the impact of public disappointment at the final decisions taken.
The contrary is happening in Goa. In an interview to a local channel this week, the Chief Minister, speaking on the issue of protests against the forthcoming IIT project at Shell-Melauli in Sattari said, “Villagers cannot decide”. Here it’s the dismissive and condescending tone of voice which will have a greater impact than the substance of what he said, which could well be a hard reality.
Which is why, the handling of these protests to put it mildly has been juvenile; and to put it bluntly, been self-destructive. How on earth could a government divert anger against central projects into a widespread condemnation against its governance?
In football parlance, it’s a same side goal and the government doesn’t even realise it.
