What took place on August 28, 2018, in Goa, must be seen as a defining moment for Goa. On this day, the State donned the visible mantle of terrorist, when in the garb of the Pune police, it created havoc on the campus of a well recognised educational institution, and traumatised the security guards before barging into the residence of Anand Teltumbde, in his absence. Teltumbde is a professor teaching Big Data analytics at GIM, and the General Secretary of the Committee for Protection of Democratic Rights. These actions should be seen as terrorist activity because in violating all due process of law its actions tantamount to illegal attack
How shall we in Goa look at this? That Teltumbde is not a Goan and therefore why bother? That Teltumbde is a member of the elite, teaching at an elite educational institution and he should therefore take care of himself? That he writes about annihilation of caste, which is not something that some of us may be aspiring for? That Teltumbde is an “urban naxal” and therefore doesn’t deserve our attention? That the rule of law needs to be flouted, to clamp down on so-called urban naxals? That the State was being disciplinarian? These are the kinds of responses that can only come from the State and the State supporting mechanisms.
Why did the State decided to include Teltumbde in its terrorising plan? It was certainly not a random bureaucratic act, and that makes it all the more dangerous. The elections are coming. The Central Government doesn’t like what he says or writes about. Teltumbde’s incisive writing makes those in the line of power uncomfortable because it lays bare how their casteist and anti-working class approaches are inlaid in their social, economic and political practice. They thought Goa’s groups are busy fighting environmental rights and women’s rights issues, and civil liberties issues and the manner in which he raises concerns may not mean much to them. They thought Goans are besieged with an attitude of being against non-Goans.
What the State did not anticipate is that people in Goa will not simply accept what is being dished out. That even if Goa feels colonised by metropolitan Delhi for instance, it does not mean that we are against people as persons from Delhi. We may feel demographically overwhelmed by the presence from other parts of India, or by haughty approaches emanating from the colonial Indian state, that treats Goa as a pleasure periphery, but we haven’t lost our humanity and the sense of rights. We also know that our progressive movements are intrinsically connected, and we cannot have economic, social and cultural rights without civil and political rights, and vice-versa.
What the State did not also anticipate is that we have the ability to connect the dots. We know that the Reserve Bank of India’s annual report which indicated that demonetisation did not serve the objectives it was statedly out to meet, was released on August 29, 2018, a day after the multi city raids (in Goa, Ranchi, Mumbai, New Delhi, Faridabad, Hyderabad) were conducted, as part of which Teltumbde’s residence in Goa was raided.
Calling a person a Naxal is not new to us in Goa. Sebastian Rodrigues was targeted with this label, when he was in the thick of the battle against mining. People who write and speak clearly and sharply against the status quo of eco-terrorism, State corporate terror, against Hindutva fascist forces get targeted. People who work to assert the land rights, the socio-cultural, economic and political rights, and have a readership or a following, are another set who get targeted.
What are the tools the Indian Government is using for creating this terror? One important tool that can be seen from the spate of arrests earlier this year and now, is the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, 1967, as amended to date, which enables any political dissenter to be caught in its web, even current kinds of political dissenters, who fight for energy security. Or the newest weapon, dig up some old case. Maybe in the future, it will be fill in or add to an open FIR. It is heartening that retired Justices PB Sawant and Kolse Patil have come out openly to call the bluff by the State to justify its draconian acts.
Instead of addressing the burning issues staring people in the face such as devaluation of the rupee, the failure, in fact adverse impact, of demonetisation, the Government has sought to distract by bringing in other variables altogether. This is being done so that in the process of getting distracted, people will overlook all the negative news streaming in about how the present Government has played with people’s economy, to suit a select few corporate interests, whose economies have in fact been untouched by demonetisation.
Closer home in Goa, following is the scenario: decreasing employment opportunities that force Goans to migrate, the pejorative attitudes towards those forced to migrate, development policies that do not take into account the locally available skills and sustainability of local resources that can enable organic development, expressions of consumerist masculinities by the powerful, blind consent to ‘national’ policies that don’t benefit the local people, less and less availability of land for local people, a reinforcement of casteist attitudes, non-declaration of tribal areas as scheduled areas, a casino politics that encourages you to dream unrealisable dreams while it pulls out the rug from under your feet and further fuels corruption in politics.
What better way to mask this than to discredit those who effectively raise these concerns by labelling and projecting them as dreaded terrorists and creating an environment of terror?
(Albertina Almeida is a lawyer, human rights activist and an independent
researcher)
