While there will always be room for sympathy and even empathy towards those who have genuinely lost livelihoods to the stoppage of mining, such privileges cannot be extended to two categories of people a) Thousands of non-Goan mining workers, who have simply got up and moved out of the state, quickly withdrawing their children from schools, as has been reported by us and b) The so-called mining dependent “leaders’ who head various mining dependent organisations who have decided to be disruptive and offensive, throwing engagement to the winds.
On Monday, they decided to take their opposition to farcical levels by first announcing a protest march to the media and then having a laugh as they saw a police bandobast outside the Panjim police station, with forces having to be deployed on a day when children were returning back to school after Easter. This call had everything to with creating tension and uneasiness. Let us tell them very loudly and clearly that most of Goa does not accept these silly pranks. It’s a joke gone too far and we are not amused.
The reasons for this are easily identifiable. Barring the two points laid out at the beginning of this argument, the following needs to be underlined.
a) The cessation of mining has been a result of a long drawn out process of litigation where the state’s governance of mining has been highlighted in court and by the court
b) The mining dependents have for long been major beneficiaries monetarily, of mining, done at the cost of the state’s environment and health. There has to be an acceptance that during boom time, they continued their activities asking no questions, and oblivious to the debate and the protests of those highlighting the ill effects of illegal mining
c) From a purely industry sector point of view, it is a fact that the sector has collapsed, like any other sector which is facing a slump. Those who have taken the calculated risk of depending on this sector have to face the consequences of a slump. The same sector can hope for a revival only of those involved wait it out for the new cleansed landscape of mining.
Nowhere does violence, disruption, playing the fool with the government machinery by declaring a protest in the media and then saying it was a hoax, fit into the protest syllabus. The brunt has to be faced with the realization that if they had either unknowingly or tacitly, not backed the mining looters and turned a blind eye to the literal theft of ore, specially by mining traders with false challans, Goa would not have seen such pitiable days.
Meanwhile, politicians need to be responsible to and stop giving patronage to those who taunt and tease the state’s administrative machinery and use the media to lie and deceive. These people cannot be believed or trusted anymore.
And those who have instigated people, ruffled up and attacked innocent bystanders and blocked people carrying medicines to their loved ones, need to be punished. There can be no leniency or sympathy, when public life is affected in this manner.
