When Judicial Magistrate First Class Vijaylaxmi R Shivolkar, late last week said, “This is the classic example which shows how blindly the order of the political leaders and of higher officers of the department are blindly followed by the subordinate officers so as to cause hardship to the common man who are at the mercy to the so-called officers and political leaders”, law shone and democracy smiled in a State where politics and opportunism has been the gold standard in governance. But the ecstasy was short lived as Goa went back to its old ways. The Portuguese rulers of yore may have been replaced by the Goan and Indian masters but the rotten backbone that remains running us are the caged parrots and pet poodles.
Former Chicago Mayor Richard Daley had said: “The police are not here to create disorder, they’re here to preserve disorder”. Our governance is an extension of that reality. Not just our police but even our bureaucrats have been striving hard not to resolve a problem but to preserve it. This newspaper in the course of its investigations found that the same crimes of pimping and prostitution happen in the same waddos of Calangute constituency that successive local MLAs and panch members of local panchayats may have witnessed. Yes, “may have witnessed” because Goa’s assembly constituencies are small and village waddos/municipal wards are known to people as the back of their palms. So why do we, our cops fail to catch something amiss? Why can’t we stem the rot for good?
Just imagine. Goa has 394 people living in every square kilometre. So even if we meet a new person every 10 minutes, we would know everybody in the neighbourhood a dozen times over. So why do we have criminals living amongst us and we don’t come to know of it. We blame the Goa Police, the State Administration for failing to investigate a crime, a wrongdoing but fail to take cognisance of a million crimes in our neighbourhood. From terrorists living next doors to garbage being dumped on our roadsides, from illegal structures being constructed on a weekend to forest/hill cutting in remote areas, we as humans are trained to notice the aberrations. Why don’t we then speak up? Why don’t we, report? Whatever happened to the active citizenry? Trust Deficit.
Former UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon said, “Humankind has always been, and will always be in need of trust. Trust in each other. And trust in our leaders and the institutions of State – to do right by the public they serve. But trust is not easy. It implies commitment. It rests on relationships.” The problem in Goa is the lack of an absolute commitment of the government towards its people and a resultant frail relationship. A heavy dose of politicisation of every institution has rendered our faith, our trust in the state-run institutions weak to the extent that we look at every government exercise as a profiteering or gerrymandering exercise. And the reason – our public servants turning into caged parrots.
The manner in which truth activist Kashinath Shetye has been hounded over the years, the amount of coercion that Maclon the fruit seller had to bear to sell his produce – all because they don’t fit a political narrative that our elected representative want us to believe in. From the local beat police that keeps an eye on you to the local talathi who ensures that you are always at the mercy of your local Panch or MLA. All caged parrots of a system that polices you but claims to be your servant. It’s probably the cosiest form of mutual admiration and comfort. Policemen accosting and arresting political or social opponents, policemen diverting traffic for patraos, bureaucrats implementing mindless projects for their MLAs and Ministers, bureaucrats fudging data indulging in wasteful expenditures – all for their political patrons. Democracy in Goa is a circle of vice where every low-level politician climbs up the ladder to tame the highest caged parrot (bureaucrats and police included) to the lowest lows. What Ms Shivolkar did was bring these unholy relations on record. Something that Goa should celebrate and thank her for, as it takes courage and commitment in Goa to remain afloat and untouched in Goa’s governance muck.
