There was nobody to take up for the migrants. The only person who did – a senior citizen who said he depended on the migrants for income as he lets out rooms to them – had his reasoning demolished by the people who pointed out that his children who are abroad could meet his financial needs. This actually brings up another angle to the migrant issue. It is unarguable that every village has a fair number of migrants who have made it their home, but is it possible that they have been able to do so because of the migration of Goans to foreign shores, and are occupying the space created by this?
Before we get to answering that question, we need to get to the genesis of the current issue. It lies in the fact of a migrant seeking a permit to ply a taxi. The fear is that once he gets this permit, he will bring in others and take over the taxi operations in the village, which are currently run by the local population. It is a fact that the beach in the village that is highly popular with the tourists – Indian as well as foreign – has a number of hawkers who are migrants. The panic among the villages stems from the fact that all tourism-related jobs – occupations actually – will be taken over by the migrants once they are allowed into the system. Benaulim, though bordering the town of Margao, has a large stake in tourism that its resident population wants to keep among the villagers. It has seen how hotels, restaurants and curio shops catering to the tourists have been dominated by those from outside the village. The taxi business is the last bulwark that remains with them, and once this is taken, then there will be nothing left.
One of the complaints of the villagers is that the migrants, who includes a tribal component from outside the State, have been tarnishing the village’s reputation by harassing tourists on the beaches, which could lead to tourists seeking to stay away from Benaulim. The other is that, while a few come to Benaulim only during the tourism season to conduct their business, others have made the village their home and this is causing a demographic change in this coastal community. While no numbers were given to back this statement, there was a proposal that the panchayat carry on a study of the carrying capacity of the village to determine how many migrants can be housed. Should the panchayat conduct such a study, then perhaps it could also seek to find out how many of its own residents have migrated abroad, and have so created space in the village for others.
This would not be a phenomenon peculiar to Benaulim, but to a large number of villages whose residents have sought to make their future outside Goa. It is important at this moment, as there are a number of villages that have begun to resent the presence of migrants, that the government should step in to determine the carrying capacity of the State – by how much can the population grow before it becomes unyielding. This is not merely because a village is protesting the migrants taking over business, but because the State’s resources are scarce and it is already finding it difficult to gainfully employ its own residents. There has to be some control, within the parameters of the existing laws, on the migration problem in Goa. It happens both ways – out migration and in migration. Perhaps the influx of migrants is being felt more because of the number of Goans who are themselves proceeding abroad. A study could tell us this.
