This is with reference to the letter by Satyajit Prabhudessai titled ‘Follow the Constitution’ on Herald dt July 24. Satyajit writes ‘how can you say these people are Goans when they are holding Portuguese passport by their own wish’. I would like to enlighten Satyajit that these are the people who were born and brought up in Goa, some before 1961 and some later on, thus they are Goans who have now obtained Portuguese passports. Simply because they have obtained Portuguese passport does not disqualify them from being called Goans. (Refer Herald dated 20.07.2016 saying ‘27000 Goans holding Portuguese passports and Indian passports to be struck off poll rolls).
Secondly (this has been highlighted time and again by noted columnists and writers on Herald) Goans opt for Portuguese passports not out of love or wish but are compelled to do so much against their wishes because of the utter failure of successive governments to provide decent and gainful employment in Goa. Jobs in government and semi-government departments including state undertakings are sold by the government at a premium. This is an open secret ever since liberation right from the time of MGP to Congress to the present dispensation.
Fair minded Goans are averse to this kind of unethical practices which propel them to look for other ethical and fair alternatives through the instrumentality of Portuguese passports and earn a decent living for them and their family. Goans opt for Portuguese passport as of right which has been conferred by the erstwhile rulers of Goa and tacitly accepted by the government. The case of Goans holding Portuguese passports cannot be equated with citizens from other states of India because Goa is different from the rest of India.
I reiterate that the government indeed has been cruel to our brethren, first by denying them jobs in their homeland and indirectly forcing them to move out. Second, by deleting their names from the electoral roles. What hurts and pains me is that the government has been cruel by not doing anything to protect this class of Goans. If the government had the determination and conviction, it could easily confer the benefit of dual citizenship for Goans through an amendment to the constitution or by special notification, but sadly, this has not been done. If the corrupt Congress government can pass an Ordinance to circumvent the Supreme Court judgement which ordered the demolition of the illegal portion of Hotel Cidade de Goa, and now by the BJP government to regularize the illegal constructions by migrants, why cannot the issue of dual citizens which is in the larger interest of the Goan citizenry be taken up to the appropriate authority? Is this not cruelty towards Goans?
In Europe and elsewhere and also in the United States unlike India, Human Resource as a factor of production is respected and remunerated according to the quantum of work they have put in irrespective of the nature of work one does. It is not because these countries are rich but that they respect the dignity of labour which perhaps is sadly missing in India and Goa.
