And as Goa waits for his touchdown, curiosity around him has soared. From his life, to his political machoism, to his security apparatus handled by the no nonsense Presidential Security Service with a licence to do anything to keep the President out of harm’s way, are all being googled, to get a sense of a man very few will get a glimpse of, if at all, in Goa. For sure there’s the Chinese premier and friendly premiers from Brazil and South Africa, but Putin is the real deal in Goa. It is with China, India needs to sort out very many things, but with Putin, it will be business both in the literal and diplomatic sense.
We will see how that plays out. Meanwhile for Goa, the visit of the Russian President means many things to many people. Putin perhaps knows (because he knows everything) that Goa is now the second home (perhaps the first to many) of his countrymen. Goa’s tourism economy sinks or swims in direct proportion to the Rouble. Travel companies, charter operators and almost everyone from a bar manager to a shack operator and a tourist taxi businessman, have their own tourism calender. It starts when the Russians arrive. Well, the biggest Russian of them all is going to be here in 24 hours. But that’s the good news and not all the news.
There is also a local irony in the priorities laid out by Mr Putin for BRICS nations on the eve of the Goa summit – drugs and corruption. Both are in abundance on the shores of Goa. Both will be cordoned from the Premiers line of vision and of consciousness and no-where near his Presidential villa in his sea side luxury hotel. President Putin should know that over a period of time, many of the ills that have rained in on Goa, drugs, prostitution and land grab, have Russian overtones. While the Russian establishment and organisations have denied this, ground realities point towards this. Moreover the role played by many, in businesses ranging from real estate to night clubs to hotels keeping Goans/ Indian’s as puppet directors hasn’t really been under scrutiny. But the involvement of either Russians or those who belonged to the hitherto unified Russian states, in these activities has been talked about and investigated. And this is where corruption has played a part.
The local police and the state have allowed many of these trades to prosper, under the pretext of encouraging tourism. While none of these issues will engage even one second of President Putin’s time, this is the best time to raise it just in case, this narrative is mentioned even in passing. Goa has always welcomed the Russians. Goa also needs them, with tourist footfalls from other countries not really surging. But quite frankly no Goan government has sent a clear strong message to Russian tourists that either they behave responsibly, according to the laws of the land or the state will come down on them. While newspapers have been a watchdog, highlighting the extent of the problem, this extract from Wikipedia “Russians in India” is explicit “The Russian Mafia in Goa is mostly involved in real estate deals, drug trade and sex trade and Goa is currently the most favoured destination by the Mafia due to its poor policing and lax administration. The mafia is buying huge tracts of land in Goa, Delhi, Maharashtra through benami companies to set up bases for running its arms and drugs trade and millions of dollars of slush funds are being routed into the country through hawala channels to fund mafia operations. Young Russian, Yugoslavian and Romanian girls, sometimes minors, are being trafficked into Goa for commercial sexual exploitation by the mafia”.
This may be meaningless in the backdrop of President Putin attending the BRICS summit, but just as Tibetan monks arrived in Goa to make themselves heard (and got arrested in a manner inhumane), the least that the Voice of Goa can do, is to raise the havoc believed to be caused by Putin’s countrymen in this beautiful land of ours, which the President will enjoy this weekend.
