FRIDAY, APRIL 26, 2024
Alexandre Moniz Barbosa
When the mother of a one-month-old baby can be tricked by a stranger to hand over her little bundle of joy to the unknown person and then that person can disappear with the baby, it raises a lot of questions of where is Goa heading. This definitely is not the Goa that many who are today greying at the temples grew up in. Something, or rather a lot of some such things, have changed and not all of it is for the better of the State. What is occurring in the State and that what was the idea of Goa the past generations had are very different concepts. What we are living in today is not the Goa that was dreamt of, nor is it the Goa that should be our future. In short, this is not the Goa that was the ideal of those who fought for retaining the identity of the land.
Friday evening news spread of the kidnapping of the baby boy. Saturday morning it was the news of the murder at Nagoa where a brother killed a sister and soon another murder in Colva where a labourer killed another in a fit of anger. A few days earlier a man from Kudaim was arrested for killing his brother. Two cases of fratricide, one other murder and one kidnapping of a baby in the space of four days is not the Goa that people who have lived a lifetime in this land know or love. For most of them that Goa is only a memory of the past.
There was a time when a mother could entrust her baby with her neighbour without any cause for worry, and perhaps even with a stranger for a few minutes and find the person and the baby waiting on her return. There was a time when siblings lived under the same roof without thoughts of killing each other and when altercations among acquaintances didn’t end with one of the persons dead. All that is changing in Goa and all of it is changing fast, with little being done to reverse the revolution that is occurring in society.
Six months ago, when the State inaugurated the year-long celebration of the 60th year of Goa’s Liberation, Chief Minister Dr Pramod Sawant had called upon the people to eschew differences if any and work unitedly to make Goa an ideal and progressive State in all respects. What we are seeing happening to the State is not ideal, crime of such kind – fratricide and kidnapping of babies – is not progressive. On Liberation Day 2020, comparison was also made of Goa’s infrastructure as existed in 1961 and that what the State can boast of in the current period. Comparison was also made of industry and development in the past 59 years, of per capita income rise in the past six decades. This is how progress was measured. But the value system that existed in the past, the honesty that Goans were known for, the integrity of the Goan people that preceded them across their travels over the world is quickly being swept aside in the waves of development that keep coming.
Should we attempt to quantify that – values, honesty and integrity – on a graph like is done with income and development, will the curve show an upward growth or will it take a sharp dive? That’s what Goa and Goans today should be asking of themselves – where is Goa heading?
We know that there are parallel Goa’s out there – one of the loud music, of nightlife that goes on till dawn, of something resembling a xacuti served as the real thing and of the brash tourist demanding a spot on the sand under the tropical sun, and then there is the other Goa of the serene village, friendly neighbours, where music is a soft beat on the ghumot, where xacuti is actually prepared the way it should be and where the Goan wants to live in the peace that he once knew. It may not be possible to have the latter, but if there is no effort made to put the brakes on the former, the Goa that even today’s younger generations have known will soon cease to exist.
Goa has chosen its battles wisely. It desires to retain its old world charm by maintaining its environment and landscape. That is important and there are varied movements battling for the forests, the beaches, the sand dunes, the rivers, the mountains. They have been successful many a time, fighting against odds that are formidably stacked against them. The need to conserve the natural environment that we live in has percolated to the people, but few pay attention to the changes that are occurring in society. Now, it has to select a different kind of battle to keep the Goan life and identity from getting entirely eroded. Time is what it doesn’t have in hand, it is slipping by quickly as development plays a key role.
Development brings with it other issues, primarily that of migration. In 2013, an all-party delegation from Goa had met then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh with a plea for special status. Migration had been one of the issues touched upon in the letter presented to the Prime Minister, where it was stated, “The apprehension is that by 2021 the migrant population will outnumber the local Goans.” It’s 2021 already and almost half the year has gone by. So, are Goans a minority? We don’t know yet for certain, but it is beginning to look that way.
Swayampurna Goa is the aim this 60th Year of Liberation. Yes, Goa needs to be self sufficient, but it is also necessary to retain for posterity much of all that makes it unique, what else is there otherwise for the Goan to live for? Have we reached a situation where a woman who desires a male child is willing to kidnap one to fulfill this wish? This should make us think, for if even now the boy child is given preference over the girl child, then Goa as a society has failed.
