Why are Goans angry? It seems that they are on the threshold of ‘a civilization’ as small people are not invited to the celebration of life. This feeling of being uninvited for the celebration of life has compounded over years.
It has made us become alienated humans of promise. We have dreams to live for. We have promises to keep. But the way we are being displaced from Goa every day, it seems the State is fast becoming a land of lost dreams for Goans.
Without landing into cynicism, it seems that Goans have chosen anger to vent their sense of alienation. It appears that it is development-toxicity that is afflicting Goans. They seem to be fast entering into what Indian thinker Pankaj Mishra names as ‘the age of anger’.
The rage of this anger is still to come. But anger of Goans is visible in the way they resist development. The kind of development that is forced on Goa is alienating Goa and exiling Goans from their own homeland.
It seems that all that we stand for as Goans, is falling apart. The Goan credo is crumbling down. Our politics, commerce and development model appear to be responsible for this apparent fall from grace.
Goans do not want to be the losers of history. We do not wish to be left behind by the so-called development. Development has become toxic and they are up in arms against it.
There are dangers of this anger trap, but when the very survival of Goa and Goanness is at stake, what other options do we have? It is the angst of the lost future that seems to be driving this state of anger.
Goans do not wish to provincialise Goa and do not want to let Goans be provincialised too. Such provincialisation attacks the honour and pride of Goa and Goans. It reduces the State into a proverbial “land of milk and honey”, that is then exploited to create wealth.
Our history is also provincialised and we forget the role Goa played in the East under colonisation. We forget those who invited the Portuguese. We forget that these people have to take responsibility for colonisation. It provincialised history and demonised the minorities.
Those who invited the Portuguese to Goa, that led our colonisation, should seek forgiveness. Goans cannot alienate themselves over the present condition of development.
Development has a Janus head. It is displacing Goans, while others seem to make hay while the sun shines. Therefore, the anger that we are witnessing is a fruit of political awareness. When Goans feel that their beloved land is on the verge of death and Goan society is sliding into inequality, they get terribly angry about it.
Anger is a mode of resistance to this sentiment that Goa is disappearing into a blackhole, which is unplanned development. The toxic development forced on Goa is brewing discontent and is a time bomb that might explode in the days to come.
Here, there is no attempt to do a genealogy of this discontent. Latest one can remember is the time of GBA agitation, which was quickly acknowledged by the powers that be at that time and a change was initiated to pacify people’s anger.
But as days went by, the land of Goa came to be seen as a powerful economic resource and several Goans and outsiders began to build commerce and tourism around it.
When this land-life symbiosis began to breakdown, when villages began to lose their village’s character, when we began to see road rage and rash accidents, when our Smart City began to look like being built by incompetent persons, the smearing anger began to show up. This anger is increasing with every passing day.
Goans are not against progress, but when progress harms the interests of people, what can they do? This is why Goans as chief stakeholders of what is imposed as development, feel left out and powerless.
Goans are tolerant and susegad (laid back) but to a point. It appears that the boiling point of Goan blood is fast coming. The angry Goan (of today) is pointing toward this horizon.
Some politicians have already embodied this anger. Angry Goan is standing for the State. He/she is deeply angry and discontent. We cannot wish away this anger. There are those who say that the ruling BJP has sensed it.
Hence, it is said that BJP has sprouted the Revolutionary Goans party to alienate the angry Goans from Congress. This means an effort is made that Congress or even Goa Forward do not win by capitalising on the anger of Goans.
Last assembly elections in Goa seem to manifest that the anger of Goan was craftily managed with the entry of RG and TMC entering the election foray. This management of anger produced a new cycle of anger.
Goans do not want to be on the losing side of history. They cannot and will not surrender to the desires of the others, who are out to sell Goa and its natural resources. When our government seems to be submitting to desires of vested interest that is anti-Goa and Goans, the people cannot but be angry. Goans do not want to be uprooted by humans. The development forced on Goans is uprooting the people from Goa and Goanness.
Goa and Goanness are seductive. Tourists and business men are seduced in the way Goa is presented to them. They see Goa as other India and flock to Goa to indulge into abundance that is transgressive and breakaway from their everyday life. In some way, Goa being another India for Indians becomes a seductive momentary space of being un-Indian.
This excessive and transgressive desire of going away from the daily life of an Indian is at the heart of our casino driven tourism industry.
We are not yet seeing the rage of anger of Goans. This rage is in the coming. Hence, we have a difficult road to travel. But as Goans, we have the challenge to stay calm and work consciously against the escalation of anger.
This does not mean that the anger of Goans is not grounded. It is certainly legitimate. Staying calm will enable the fight to save Goa and Goanness. Goans will not settle for anything less. Goans cannot be losers of history.
(Fr Victor Ferrao is an independent researcher attached to St Francis Xavier Church, Borim, Ponda)