SUNDAY, JUNE 16, 2024
“We have not inherited this earth from our forefathers; we have borrowed it from our children”- Lester Brown, Global Environmentalist and Conservation guru
Have you ever seriously given a thought to this? The ecological atom bombs in Goa are exploding while others keep ticking away, and eroding Goa's slopes, hillsides, forests and fields. But who is controlling the bombs which are destroying our past, present and future? Who is pulling the pin that is exploding these bombs? Who is playing with the future of our children?
The big boys want their toys and build wealth on the foundation of the suffering of the common man
Fingers have to point to the political, especially the elected political class, at all points of time over the years. Over time they have become the biggest enemies of the environment. They look at ecology as a stumbling block of their greed filed development. This greed has led to a massive accumulation of wealth some of which purportedly finds its way to offshore accounts and assets and in Swiss banks. This is a national trend.
We ask, do they sleep well? Do they see their children’s faces and think of the earth they are leaving for them?
More importantly as per the latest data released by the Swiss National Bank (funds parked by Indians with Swiss banks rose 50 per cent to CHF 1.01 billion (about Rs 7,000 crore) in 2017. A lot of institutional wealth is built up on infrastructure projects at the cost of land fields and forests. They make the money but they leave the land on which they build and its people poor.
But Goa is protected by our real soldiers, those who do not wear the uniform but are wrapped by people’s trust
Meanwhile, there are the real soldiers of Goa who may not wear an army uniform and fight at the borders but are the ones who are fighting on the streets and in the courts as protectors of our forests, our rivers our wildlife, our hill slopes and fields. The questions we ask are why are environmentalists becoming targets, their motives questioned, even as they and their efforts have won the praise of the courts and the people?
Our soldiers fight against those elected to protect, but select to destroy.
If they were not there, then the fears we have about what Goa might become would have already come true. While the fear is there, there is also hope that our soldiers will win the war. These soldiers are our environmentalists, activists, lawyers, writers, students, foot soldiers. They are standing between the greed of those who are elected to protect but select to destroy. And while one group or set of individuals have taken the lead in some projects and others have followed, it is only a people’s movement that has helped every cause.
Why are these people special?
They are, because they don’t ask what is in it for me, or our stomach (amchem pot) and simply do good for Goa.
These are only some of the major recent movements where the people have fought the good fight to keep Goa alive
ILLEGAL MINING: If there were not there illegal mining would have eradicated Goa, with nothing left our hills forests water bodies and the very air we breathe.
ANTI-DOUBLE TRACKING AGITATION: Goa saw a massive people’s movement with people from all age groups walking through the length and breadth of Goa on one day, followed by a series of protects movements across Goan villages and then the historic candlelit vigil on the rail tracks of Chandor on November1/2 2020. Because of this movement and its offshoot, the double tracking through the Molem forests, the seat of the Tamnar Power project is on hold because of this movement and its offshoot.
MHADEI DIVERSION: It clearly seems that the Goa establishment has literally surrendered to Karnataka and has been submissive and allowed Karnataka to manage to get the narrative in its favour to go ahead with damming the river to divert water from Goa to Karnataka. But it is the people’s challenge on the streets and the legal challenge question of how water can be diverted from a wildlife sanctuary that has given Goa some hope. Here the people that are elected are not in the picture. It is the people who elect who stand as sentinels refusing to surrender Goa, they refuse to give in. They refuse to give up. As sons and daughters, they stand to protect their mother.
There are faces to this agitation. The steadfast resolve of Claude Alvares who gets out of his comfort zone each day so that we remain in ours. He goes anywhere to raise his voice, in rain and in the hot sun, using whatever means of transport including a scooter even at his age, or an Abhijit Prabhudesai of Federation of Rainbow Warriors, for his gallant fight against double tracking the expansion of coal berths and other causes, or Orville Dourado Rodrigues who returned to Goa from Dubai and plunged headlong into protecting Goa instead of leading a retired life. The Goencho Ekvott Movement is the foremost umbrella movement of people’s organisations he spearheads.
Olencio Simoes fights for the rights of coastal communities and fishermen among all of the other causes mentioned earlier.
The veteran Rajendra Kerkar, who says he used to go to sleep only after hearing the roar of the tiger at night in Mhadei, has been a crusader, spending his life in the Mhadei forests and educating both governments and people on the protection of wildlife, the need for a tiger reserve and on protecting mother Mhadei. Kerkar is the Sundarlal Bahuguna of Goa, Bahuguna being the veteran of the famous chipko movement of Uttarakhand and defender of rivers who championed the anti-Tehri dam protests, repeatedly going on hunger strikes at the banks of Bhagirathi river.
There are so many others, anti-mining soldiers Ramesh Gauns of Bicholim and Ravindra Velip of Cavrem. Then you have Judith Almeida battling against the pollution of Colva Creek. Further, you have people fighting for the protection of fields of Benaulim from being destroyed by the Western bypass.
But above all, the biggest hero is the unsung hero.
They may not be written about in responsible papers and may not be heads of forums and movements but they are those who fight local battles in their backyards, on their streets in their village lanes for justice and rights, who stand with farmers when they fight for compensation for their broken bunds and flooded fields or remove garbage from the roads.
Each of them is soldier because they fight for better governance against the government using their time, hard hard-earned money and sacrificing their time with families and comforts. Why do they do it, they do it for their soil, their land for the future of their children.
Surely, statues should be built of them and each day remembered as the unsung hero day.
