The truth: Goans are never united
A.S.Prabhu, Moira
Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, the architect of Modern India had a great dream and wished well for his subjects. For Goans, he had a special corner at his heart. He made several categorical statements and reaffirmed several times at public meetings that he would want Goans to maintain their special identity and personality and would not interfere in their normal life. Had the Portuguese to negotiate to hand over power, the situation would have been averted.
Post-liberation in May 1963, Pandit Nehru paid his maiden visit to Goa and at a mammoth public meeting at Campal attended by over one lakh people, he made a solemn affirmation that he would wish to preserve and protect Goa’s distinct identity.
Just then, the two stalwarts’ — D B Bandodkar and Dr Jack Sequeira — were preparing ground to present their views and in that excitement, Dr Sequeira floated ‘Amcho Poksh’ or ‘Goenkarancho Poksh’ – an indigenous Goan party, which later was rechristened as ‘United Goans Party. He meant Goans would unite, but the unfortunate part is Goans are ‘never united’ even if they travel to the North Pole. It is the most ‘disunited creed’ and this is precisely the reason why outsiders have taken a strong foothold on this soil of ‘Parshurama’. The reality we see today with several factions and splits which has brought instability in our political scenario.
Dr Jack de Sequeira initially inducted some Goans settled in Bombay viz. J M De Souza, Melicio Fernandes, etc. Later on, he was joined by Yeshwant Sitaram Dessai, Jagdish Rao, Umakant Surlakar, Babu Naik and Vassudeo Sarmalkar, etc. Orlando Sequeira Lobo and others followed later. The team was strong and fought shoulder to shoulder during the historic Opinion Poll. Even I have shared a platform with Dr. Jack Sequeira to keep our separate identity. But as usual, the unity was broken after some ditched the party thus proving that Goans are never united.
This is the lesson for present Goan youth and posterity. They have to ponder over and in any situation, should assert themselves without succumbing to any temptations. The present mess we are in, is the result of lure for money and power.
Long live Goa and Goans! Que sera, sera.
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KTC advertisements
Adelmo Fernandes, Vasco
It is understood that the State-run Kadamba Transport Corporation will display advertisements on 388 buses out of the 392 buses, in an attempt to improve the finances of the Corporation. In the past, a lot of hue and cry has been raised with respect to the hoardings that one finds along the roads saying that these advertisement hoardings divert the attention of the driver. What then about advertisements displayed on moving buses? Will they not distract the attention of other drivers and thus lead to accidents? Bringing in a meager 3 lakh by way of advertisements does not make sense if it puts others in danger. KTC should find other ways to improve its financial health.
Of PETA and fish!
Stephen Dias, Dona Paula
The recent news from PETA asking Goans to leave fish off plates must be taken with a pinch of salt. First of all, Goans will never be able to do without their fish, curry and rice since this is part and parcel of Goans. Whether the fish is contaminated with mercury or any other mineral, Goans who have become immune, will never be able to leave this delicacy.
Instead of lecturing Goans on fish, why does PETA not attack hoteliers, restaurants who discharge their waste into the river which is the cause of contamination of fish? Why not give a helping hand to the Goa Pollution Board to get rid of the effluent discharge into the river/sea? Let them go and check out every beach in Goa, especially the one in news recently — Colva — where a huge trench was dug up to discharge waste.
Don’t suppress truth
Jose Maria Miranda, Margao
Arundhati Roy is not only an excellent and internationally acclaimed writer but also a great and intrepid fighter, extremely vocal, candid and fearless who has never hesitated to make her views known especially when it came to defending the underprivileged and downtrodden whose rights are being trampled upon by the rich and the powerful, with the active support of the elected representatives and the bureaucrats.
She has been at the receiving end due to her outspoken views about the naxalite movement, which she sees as a result of the suppression of the rights and displacement of tribals. Someone felt she should be charged with sedition for having said that India did not hesitate to use her might to annex land and suppress popular movements including in Goa, Jammu & Kashmir, etc. Truth must be said, however bitter it might be. That Goa was annexed by military force was ruled by the highest Court of this country, which called it a “conquest”. Did anyone dare charge the Supreme Court of sedition?
Patriotism cannot be confined to being concerned about the territorial limits of the country. It would be meaningless if the people of the country, particularly the poor and the defenceless, are suppressed and humiliated and not allowed to raise their heads by those who have the money and the power. The greatest anti-nationals are not people like Arundhati Roy but those who have taken this country to abysmal depths – the corrupt and greedy politicians and the servile and equally corrupt bureaucrats, who have not hesitated to even extort money from the people below the poverty line, deprive the poorest of the poor of their land and suppress legitimate demands and aspirations of the people. The Indian Government will not dare charge Arundhati Roy because of the international repercussions it will have. She should in fact lead a revolution in this country to do away with those who have taken this otherwise great country to the dogs.
Maoists attacks
J. M. de Almeida, Alto Porvorim,
Of late, the activities of the CPI-maoists has increased in Orissa, Chhattisgarh, Jarkhand, West Bengal etc. Initially they attacked selected targets, railway lines, police stations, markets etc, but now surprisingly they have changed their tactics and adopted effective methods like the Dantewada-style attack on police convoy killing over 76 innocent jawans who were given the task of anti-maoist offensive. The offensive of the security forces was a complete disaster and shows that the entire operation was ill-planned which led to the fatal ambush leaving the families of the slain 76 jawans in abject misery. The State and the Central government have to share the responsibility for the massacre and rehabilitate and compensate the families of the jawans killed and seriously wounded.
The Home Minister P C Chidambaram offered to resign in the wake of the deadly massacre while the State Govt did not follow suit. In such a catastrophic situation resignation is not the solution, and the home minister must conduct in-depth investigation as to what went wrong and accordingly take curative and preventive steps to avoid such massacres of Indians by Indians.
Secondly, the Government has to find out what has led to Maoism to take up armed struggle to redress their grievances. According to the CPI-Maoists the armed attacks are due to the exploitation of the tribal people by the rich and the powerful land mafia. If true, exploitation of humans by humans must stop and no operations against the Maoists will be successful until and unless their genuine grievances are met.
Herald e-paper
Sanjay Chodankar, by email
It is nice to see that Herald has recently introduced an e-paper. There are Goans living in different parts of world and they would definitely welcome this. It is with these facilities that they are able to still stay connected with their homeland news. Congratulations & thanks to Herald’s management and staff.
Share best practices
S Kamat, Alto Betim
There were some reports in the newspapers about an UN report highlighting that India has more mobile phones than toilets. One wonders why multilateral bodies like the UN come out with these incongruous factoids when it relates to the Third World only. This statistic must be true for the developed world also. You do not need much brains to ascertain the veracity of this since in a family unit of four there could at the most be four mobile phones while there could be only two toilets. So the question is why should India be any different. However, there are many who take such reports in our country as the ultimate truth and agonise on how backward we are or how uncivilised we are.
While in actual fact we may not be. Thus in rural India people defecate in the open, mostly in their own fields, which ensures a cleaner, simpler and cheaper way to not allow pollution to build up. However, when we come to the urban areas where slums proliferate the same practice is not healthy and that is where the public toilets are being implemented as we see in cities like Mumbai. Also our hygiene habits are probably the best in world since we wash up after we defecate and not use toilet paper which may not clean well. Similarly, after we blow our nose we do not put the offending mucous polluted tissue or handkerchief in our pockets as most of the Westerners do.
Thus in most things what we do and how we do is sometimes much better than what the West does. Therefore let us not look down upon ourselves or denigrate our people and their habits. We in India do most of our ingrained habits out of 5000 years of our culture and have rarely changed since the passage of time. The other thing is that the West and its institutions have this voyeuristic tendency while looking at the Third World cultures and civilisations and tend to pick on certain practices which are more of curious interest to their media and highlight the salacious aspect of that practice without going into the merits of the practice as such.
This creates a lopsided image of the Third World in the minds of the West. Honesty of interest, intent and purpose if exhibited by the West could help in understanding the Third World better and also pick some of the better practices by the West initiating a cultural exchange so that humankind can share best practices.
