Goans have embraced the Constitution for its visionary forward outlook, but have also repeatedly reminded the powers that be, that they deserve a social pact with the Indian State through which their voices and specific concerns find consideration in the Constitution of India.
Not long back, in the resistance to the Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019, Goans took to the streets resisting the Amendment, as being in violation of the Constitution and were found reading the Preamble in largely attended 25K public meetings in North and South Goa. There are two mischievous provisions in the Act – the one setting standards for acquiring Indian citizenship on the basis of religion, which is different from persecution, and the other providing for arbitrary standards for cancellation of OCIs.
This comes from the fact that the Indian State gathers its support from the Indian diaspora, but does not want the ‘inconvenient’ diaspora who raise uncomfortable questions about the development trajectory, chosen by the India State.
Circa 1961. Goa was stated to be validly annexed by India as per the Supreme Court Judgement. In 1974, Portugal recognized the Indian sovereignty over Goa by a treaty with retroactive effect. Since India was engaged in intensive perusal of settlement proposals advanced by China, to resolve the Sino-Indian border dispute, there was no room for appropriate discussion in Parliament on Goa until March 1962, when the Constitution (Twelfth Amendment), 1962, was enacted. It incorporated Goa, Daman and Diu as the eighth Union territory of India, by amending the First Schedule to the Constitution.
The Statement of Objects and Reasons of the 12th Amendment set out that India acquired control of the territories of Goa, Daman and Diu, from Portugal with effect from 20th December, 1961, which are thenceforth comprised within the territory of India and are being administered as a Union territory by the President through an Administrator. It further set out that it was desirable that Goa, Daman and Diu should be specifically included as a Union territory in the First Schedule to the Constitution and that for its peace, progress and good governance, there was need to empower the President to make regulations, as was the case in Dadra and Nagar Haveli.
After this, Goa’s first polls were held in 1963, which returned the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party, which stood for merger of Goa into Maharashtra, to power. This same party was in power in 1967, when a referendum, popularly called the Opinion Poll, was conducted. The terms of reference of the Opinion Poll were limited to whether Goa opted to be separate or to be merged with Maharashtra. The referendum did not include the terms on which Goa was willing to be part of India and how. The Opinion Poll was conducted after intense to and fro of administrative notings, as evidenced from the archival records as to the provisions for a referendum, and Goa opted for being separate. Thus it was that Goa continued to be an Union Territory.
Under the Constitution (56th Amendment) Act, 1987, Goa was included in the Schedule I of the Constitution of India, as the 25th State of India. The demand for a separate state was not based on mother-tongue nor was it aligned with the pre-annexation 7th Constitutional Amendment, whereby states were reorganized linguistically. If it were to be reorganized linguistically, then Goa would have been part of Vishal Gomantak. This idea clearly did not find traction with Goa’s population, which cherished its distinct identity, that was the result of different historical, social, geographical and legal trajectories.
The demand for statehood for Goa emerged from the need to be able to take decisions at the State level, which the Union Territory status did not provide. Goa thus had a historico-spatial identity, based on geographical contiguity and also a different trajectory of governance for about 450 years in the Old Conquests, and about 200 years in the New Conquests. This included a land registration system that meticulously maintained the record of transmission or acquisition of rights in land. It is nevertheless true that due to Portugal’s ties with the feudal class in later years (irrespective of religion) and its own backwaters of feudalism, the land registration system did not adequately manifest rights or interests of the marginalized sections of society. But the Land Revenue Code (the survey records) did not take care of these concerns either.
It was an eye-opener to see that those fighting the establishment of IIT in Sattari on lands that they have been in possession of for centuries, had, after five decades of integration of Goa into India, only their organizing power and unity to resist the IITs despite the ocular presence of their houses and their livelihoods in the area.
As a matter of fact, land is becoming increasingly up for grabs to the highest bidders, because of the netherspace of land usage and occupation where people’s rights are not adequately documented, or the succession is not appropriately documented in living time, despite technological advances.
The highest bidders come from the global corporates and advantaged sections of Indian society, and this may include a miniscule advantaged section of Goan society and the political class that they work in collusion with, of which the electoral bond scam is a vivid illustration. There has been no protection under Article 371 of the part XXI of the Indian Constitution for the local stakeholders in the land. Any resistance from the local stakeholders, or Goans who have migrated in the face of unemployment or in the face of threats to the resources on which they depended for their livelihoods, is read as xenophobia. Whereas, in other states that became part of the Indian Union post the Indian Constitution, there have been special provisions in this regard.
There is an Article 371-I of the Indian Constitution deals with the special provisions with respect to the state of Goa. It provides that the Goa Legislative Assembly is to consist of not less than 30 members. This article was added by the 56th Amendment Act of 1987. As a result, Goa has forty members in its legislative Assembly. But that is about all. Portugal assented to recognizing Goans born before 1961 and their children and grandchildren, as Portuguese Citizens, not requiring them to surrender their Indian citizenship. This could have tremendous reparative power for Goans who could affirm their Portuguese citizenship, and in view of its being a part of the European Union, explore job opportunities in the EU. However India has not been able to meet the offer of Portugal with a corresponding recognition of dual citizenship, and requires that those who opt for Portuguese citizenship surrender their Indian citizenship.
This non recognition of specificities and special status also has resulted in the inability of Goa’s disproportionately large network of rivers and coastline to be harnessed by those who engage with the rivers and have stakes in their sustainability, and double engine Governments ceding Goa’s rivers and their banks to planning by executive non elected bodies, that have no care for the local stakeholders, as manifested in the National Waterways Act, 2016. That Goa’s BJP Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar, provided the permission is history. We cannot have a situation where local toiling people’s (including indigenous communities’) stakes are written off in this manner to their detriment.
In summary, it is time we bring to power those who are willing to maintain the secular democratic fabric mandated by the Constitution of India, and introduce special status for Goa, in light of what is stated above.
(Albertina Almeida is a lawyer and human rights activist)