On bar and outlet closure, take a call which is human and humane

Almost every time and without fail, the people of Goa show you the way. They are the ones who dictate the stories we should file or the campaigns we should take up. For the past week, and especially the last three days, your newspaper, with a combination of old fashioned reportage of digging around in government departments, and meeting people, has presented three packages, which have brought to you the stories of despair from across Goa’s towns, at the Apex Court dictated ban on liquor outlets, and yes, even bars and restaurants on Goa’s highways.

There are major take-aways from these stories and it is important that we analyse our own stories and experiences and tell you what we have learnt from them:

1) Many of the bars and restaurants and taverns have existed during the Portuguese era and came up at a time when Goa was linked by small roads. The highways, both national and state, came much later. Thus original habitants who were here before the roads on which they ran their businesses were called highways, are being thrown out.

2) While the cold hard assumption  that the cause of road accidents are due to  people who buy drinks on highways and drive, the logic defies most since unlike North India, Goans buy their liquor and go home to drink, or else they sit in age old tavernas and new age bars. Thus, a man who has had a drink in a bar which is not on a highway may still use the highway to go home.  And this will be the most common situation.

3) We are playing with livelihoods and futures here, pushing hundreds of families into penury, especially the small old quaint tavernas. We have heard stories of third generation shop or bar owners, in absolute shock, because their lives have been and will be disrupted in a manner no one imagined.

4) It is at times such as these that Goans genuinely feel that Goa’s uniqueness, its way of life and its simple pleasures are seldom understood by others and sadly not even the four pillars of society which live outside the state. Goa’s age old bars and tavernas, were only incidentally drinking places. They were public drawing rooms where the spirit that always flowed was not alcohol but bonhomie. They brought and continue to bring people together. They are melting points of friendship cutting across all lines. Many roads which are now called highways pass through them. They find mention in literature, poetry, novels and cartoons and sketches, practically every creative piece of work depicting Goa with fondness and mirth.

We can only appeal with utmost humility, that the law should be an enabler. And while the letter of law is supreme, law gets its majesty from the spirit in which it is implemented. At the same time, we hold elected governments responsible for not doing anything since 2004 when this issue has been brewing. It is up to the executive to find a solution even if this means de-notifying areas marked as highways which really aren’t highways in the true sense. Let all stakeholders hear the heartbreaking stories of those who lose their businesses along with their poor staff who will lose their earnings. And finally take a decision which is human. And humane.