In India, Goa is undisputedly one of the
top beach-tourism destinations in the country, given its status, courtesy most
Bollywood productions, that ‘anything goes’, and also thanks to an excise
regime that has more flexibility than the lead ballerina in the Moscow Ballet,
offering cheap alcohol to all and sundry. This has seen the state attract
approximately four million tourists every year, if not more.
Let’s not make any mistakes. Nobody is
saying that there should be moral policing, but rather, the raising of
awareness and civic sense. The need of the hour is to possibly have guidelines
that need to be followed, at the very least, on an individual level. Goa has
had picnic-goers for years, especially when it comes to the families that live
along on the coastal belt, and there have not been issues with garbage. However,
in the recent past, Goa has also had plenty of cases of drowning, and littering
on the coast as well. One can claim evolution and ‘a change in the times’.
There is also overzealous activism that often aims to curb the Goan way of life
while using such cases as scapegoats, which isn’t factually correct. However,
while there are many parts of the world that have coastal attractions (read
Barcelona, Ibiza, Lisbon), and drinking on those strips, guidelines and decorum
are still witnessed. It all comes down to perspective.
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Only this Sunday past, this writer
witnessed along the Varca coastline, a group of boisterous men on a day off,
along the coast, chest deep into the water, drinking beer out of cans, before
proceeding to chuck the empty cans into the water. In the meanwhile, lifeguards
observed from the coastline, proceeding to do nothing about the situation –
neither admonishing the behaviour, nor attempting to intervene, nor calling their
fellow government servants, the police, to take cognisance of the matter. Of
course, the casualties of such a fallout are always borne by Goa’s profile as
opposed to the offenders in question.
An entertainer (who asks to remain
anonymous given the sensitivity of the issue) who works primarily with coastal
establishments points out, “One main issue that arises here is the litter left
behind. Some establishments clean up after their patrons, while many others
don’t. There is precious little that is done about waste management. One good
thing that is being employed is that plastic cups are being offered to those
leaving establishments, reducing the risk of getting cut.”
Only recently, following a series of
complaints of broken glass being strewn on Goa’s beaches, the North Goa
district police ordered a crackdown on drinking in public places, especially on
beaches. At a recent public interaction, Superintendent of Police, Karthik
Kashyap told reporters: “We received a lot of complaints, both from tourists as
well as locals, about people cutting themselves on broken liquor bottles while
walking on the beaches as well as swimming in the sea. Therefore we have given
instructions to the police to crack down severely on drinking of alcohol on
beaches.” He went on to add that anyone found drinking in open will be booked
under Section 34 of the Indian Police Act. However, the problem lies beyond the
drinking. It lies greatly with what happens after.
Atish Antonio Fernandes of First Class
Holidays believes that limitations and education is the need of the hour.
“Taking beers into the water has to be stopped and strict action has to be
taken. Beers within the limits of shacks should be permitted. The incidents of
beachgoers and swimmers getting slashed has to stop. There should also be
adequate signage of the damage that broken glass can do. But sadly, we have an
all or nothing ideology: either let it go unchecked, or ban it completely,” he
shares.
Some of the popular beaches in North Goa
where this is a trend, include the likes of Calangute, Baga, Candolim, Anjuna,
Morjim, Arambol and so on, coincidentally places of touristic interest. The
ball is in Goa’s court as to how to restore its paradisiacal form. Drinking has
been around in the state for decades, so clearly the root of the issue doesn’t
arise there. Let’s not make that the problem. The garbage that hasn’t been
around for decades, making our beaches treacherous, that is the issue. Let’s
focus on the problem instead, at least this once.
