Two separate events in Goa were joined by a very human thread that governments do not understand, the thread of common cause. A thread that binds communities and people together as they take on elected governments which have betrayed trust of people. On Sunday, the Gram Sabha of Sancoale passed a firm resolution to oppose the Chowgule backed Sancoale marina project. Without a panchayat approval, the project cannot start, even if a high powered Investment Promotion Board (IPB) has cleared the project “in principle”. On Monday, a moderate but strong willed people’s group, with many elements of the Aam Aadmi party, protested outside the assembly secretariat in Porvorim against the abject goondaism of the developers of the Golf Course and resort project at Tiracol. Both these actions are those of people in the villages of Goa, who are increasingly being bracketed as anti development.
The time has now come to seriously assess whether the growing diatribe against NGO’s and protestors by the so-called “development” lobby, with the State of Goa in the forefront, is a huge mask to push projects through. While the “No” movement in Goa admittedly reaches unrealistic proportions, that perception alone cannot be the reason to take people away from project consultations, or worse still take away land of those who have tilled it for generations, on the ground that it still does not belong to them but the original owners. From a time when there was a case for a serious debate on whether Goans were opposing everything for the sake of opposing, giving rise to a protest economy, it is now clear that, this has been milked to a point where it has become unreal. How can every protest be labelled as a part of a so called obsession of saying “no”?
The State cannot run away from the fact that extremely upset and cranky locals are not outside the system but are stakeholders of those local projects. Solutions therefore cannot come by attempts to bypass their will. The Investment Promotion Board, a body created to hear and clear investments projects through a fast track system, is welcome only if it does not turn into a body, whose objective is to circumvent locals or even government bodies like the Pollution Control Board or the State Bio Diversity Board. They may not say so in so many words, but an unofficial conversation with a member of the IPB, after Herald reported on the surprising permission given to the project without taking into cognizance the pollution control boards refusal to give its air and water consent, was an eye opener. “Now that the IPB has given its approval the project proponents can go to the pollution board and tell them to better give permission since the IPB has the CM as its chairman”.
While this was private conversation, revealing this is in absolute public interest because it shows the mindset of a body made to clear projects at a rapid pace to meet the very ambitious investment target of the government. On one hand the IPB states that the GSPCB is an autonomous body and should take independent decisions but in reality it would be the happiest if bodies like the Pollution Control Board listened to orders from the government and not engage in independent assessment which come in the way of clearing major investment projects.
Meanwhile at Tiracol, the confrontation between Leading Hotels, the project proponents of the Golf Course and Resort project and the locals is getting murkier. With very strong legal challenges before the National Green Tribunal and the Bombay High Court, which have raised very serious issues about the manner in which land was bought by Leading Hotels in the first place, and the environment and forest permissions given, Leading Hotels is on a desperate mission to bulldoze all legal challenges, with a helping hand of a complaint government. Best of luck to them. But their act of entering Tiracol village in the dead of night with fifty odd bouncers to fell trees and construct a road, taking shelter of a High Court order which on the face of it, gives them no right to do what they did, is a sign of not just desperation but confidence of being able to pull off blatant acts, which defy the purpose of protecting our land for locals and tillers. And this can never happen unless they have the confidence of state backing.
Therefore the target of people’s ire should not be Leading Hotels or Yacht Haven (the company doing the Sancoale marina project), but the manner in which the State has willingly allowed the subversion of their interests by big moneyed third parties, in the name of development. In almost every decision that this ruling BJP government is taking, people’s interest and their voice is being curtailed and suppressed. Is this the price the people of Goa have to pay for taking the decision to be liberated from the corrupt misrule of the Congress? In less than three years, the people of Goa have been pushed from the frying pan to the fire. Sancoale and Tiracol are only the latest flash points. Fires are being lit all over Goa and can only be extinguished by sustained people’s movements. We at Herald, are clearly on one side, that of the people. Convince them to convince us.
