When State interests and Goans’ interests do not match, it is the State interest which has to change

Sujay Gupta

Last weekend, the steady rainfall on the verdant fields of Majorda, brought in its wake a piquant shower of unease of a government unable to deal with the consistency of the people’s opposition to what they felt were anti-people projects.

The protests seem to be against an administration which is allowing the centre to impose its will to push through projects like the railway double tracking, national highway expansion and the power transmission lines, by invoking national interest and jurisdiction.

Last weekend, an awareness meeting was called at a venue in Majorda by Goencho Ekvott an umbrella network of about 25 non-government organizations and people’s groups. About an hour before the meeting, the organisers learnt that the owner of the venue received a call from the local police not to allow the meeting to happen. Specific reasons were not mentioned but the last minute diktat left the organisers wondering if this was not a desperate move to block any gathering where a discussion is held against government decisions which are adversely impacting their lives and the life of Goa.

Undeterred people informally met, keeping distancing norms and wearing masks, many having travelled for over two hours, in the blinding rain. Many were soaked and yet the voices of people could not be drowned. Importantly MLAs including BJP MLAs are realising, with two years to go for the Assembly elections,  that local sentiments backed with reason have to be accepted. Typically the barometer of a people’s issue hitting bull’s eye is when politicians notice it and pledge their support. The police contingent sent to keep a watch over this people’s meeting moved back when it saw the Nuvem MLA Wilfred D'Sa standing under an umbrella hearing others speak. A little later, the man for all seasons and jurisdictions Aleixo Reginaldo Lourenco, Congress MLA from Curtorim appeared. A large umbrella and mask notwithstanding, he couldn’t be missed. Both MLAs, earlier party colleagues, said they were with the people, with Lourenco promising to raise any question or point in the Assembly, favouring the people.

Reginaldo’s involvement, in this case, has however been consistent and so has Alina Saldanha’s. As Lourenco mentioned, “Alina is from the BJP but I’m with her and I must say she has strongly been with the people on this issue”.

The coming together of even three MLAs, with more on the anvil, on a people’s issue with the blurring of party lines is a people’s victory. And Goa must be one of the rare states where this phenomenon can regularly play out.

It’s another matter though whether the state as a whole will join hands with its people. The evidence of the state, represented by the government, leaning towards people interests and not against so-called “developmental” interests is solely lacking. Protestors are labelled as anti-development. But they really are  anti crony capitalism and pro their beloved Goa.  

And in the case of the Major Ports Bill, quietly passed in Parliament, giving overriding powers to Ports, over fundamental state government institutions like local bodies and panchayats, with not a murmur from Goan MPs, new jurisdictions are being created to bypass federal checks and balances envisaged in our Constitution by our founding fathers. With the Congress boycotting parliamentary proceedings, there was no question of the South Goa MP Francisco Sardinha objecting to the bill being passed. And in the Rajya Sabha, the State BJP President Vinay Tendulkar surely won’t oppose a bill moved by his party’s government. Union Minister and North Goa MP Shripad Naik is, of course, recuperating after recovering from Coronavirus.

The result is a bill giving sweeping powers to a “Ports Authority’ on issues of lands, construction and ‘development’ and seeking to undermine state bodies, will finally pass through both Houses with no Goan voice speaking on it. The significance of this cannot be undermined.

The bill by the virtue of the sweeping nature of its powers which have been elucidated in these columns give it control over its coal operations, its coal berths and give it unchecked sanction to allow private parties to construct and develop marinas and jetties on the waterfront, completely and blanking out the  fundamental right  of the people of Goa to object and raise points of opposition.

The bill will do so much damage to the fundamental powers vested in local bodies, especially the panchayats and local bodies. There was no discussion on its impact in the Legislative Assembly. Nor was there any attempt to explain this bill to local bodies. There is no denying that withholding information keeps protests under control, but should governance be all about saying “yes sir” to the Centre when your own people are saying “No sir”?

In fact, Goa has gone even further. The Forest Department and the State Wildlife Board, which are normally tools to provide checks and balances have finally cleared projects which will destroy forests and wildlife especially at the Mollem National Park and the Bhagwan Mahavir Wildlife sanctuary.

Karnataka has done much better. At the very, least its forests and wildlife teams have not succumbed to state power. Their Principal Chief Conservator of Forests has never said, as ours has, that “just because there is a wildlife sanctuary, it doesn’t mean other activities cannot be allowed”.

On the contrary Forest officials of Karnataka have stood firm to protect their turf. Here’s just one of many examples and documents available on record. In a site inspection report of 12/02/2020 of the  proposed forest area earmarked for the diversion of forest land at the Kali Tiger Reserve Dandeli for the Goa-Tamnar 400 KV transmission line (to pass through Karnataka and Goa), D Yatish Kumar IFS, Chief Conservator of Forests Kanara Circle, Sirsi writes, “If permission is given to this project, there will be more damage to the entire biodiversity of this area. It affects the total ecosystem and Western ghats. It bifurcates the entire landscape.”

The report mentions that the Conservator of Forests and Field Directors  of the Dandeli-Anashi Tiger Reserve  have also opined that laying power transmission lines by felling trees lead to a destruction of the tiger habitat.

The report concluded by recommending that the project be “rejected” and the project authority be “informed accordingly”.

These officers too come from the same service as those in Goa. They are entrusted with the same tasks of protecting biodiversity and it is the same project contiguous to Karnataka and Goa territories but see the difference in approach by both states. Is it the air, is it the water, or is it just the difference between strong and weak spines?

Goa needs to show that it is an independent state and speak for its people. The Revenue Minister has made a strong pitch and insisted that the land reclaimed from the Zuari by the MPT belongs to Goa without any ambiguity, a land that the MPT claims as its own, Now armed with the Major Ports Bill, MPT might lay claim to its jurisdiction and ownership afresh, which the state must not allow.

At the end of the day, when the next generation asks questions, it will spare no one - not the neta, not the babu. Let every word of protest be like an albatross around the pillar of insensitivity that the state is showing towards its people, without realising that its inactions are chipping away at the very edifice of the land they are elected to protect.