Another educational institution has been announced, again very prestigious. As always, it needs huge amounts of land, and, as always, the government of the tiny State of Goa has more than enough to offer – and on long lease no less, which means practically free. The project is a new India International University of Legal Education and Research, to be run completely by the Bar Council of India (BCI). This proposed university requires 200,000 sq mts of land, which Goa’s government says it has already identified in Dharbandora taluka. A State bill has also been passed, formalising the setting up of this university, one of whose objects – according to the bill – is to reserve 20% of the university’s seats for ‘permanent residents of Goa’.
Nor is this the only ‘advantage’ to Goa courtesy the project. In a meeting held in November 2020, between a delegation from the National Law School University in Bangalore (the first law university of the BCI) and Goa’s Chief Minister, the former explained how the project would contribute to Goa’s aim to be a knowledge hub, and would attract international law firms into Goa, improving the service sector of the State. Plus, it aims to provide law/policy research and consultancy to the State and also stimulate State tourism, catering to international students, lawyers and adjudicators.
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And our CM was apparently so impressed with this, that the barely-functioning State assembly, which has not spent even one single minute in the whole past year to discuss the huge problems being faced by students in the primary, secondary and higher secondary levels of education, found time during the monsoon session to pass the bill launching this new institution.
Let us look at the advantages in detail. The most prominent and highlighted one is of course 20% of the students’ seats for ‘permanent residents of Goa’. But what is a ‘permanent resident of Goa’? The bill does not bother to explain, but the usual meaning is of residence for a minimum length of time (sometimes less than 10 years). So the wards of native Goans working outside Goa cannot avail of this ‘benefit’, while those of non-Goans living in Goa can. And we are not talking about migrant labour here, but of the many rich non-Goans with a base in Goa and the bank balance to afford a posh international-standard university education.
What is interesting is that, while this 20% reservation is highlighted as nothing less than one of the objectives of the new University, there is no mention of caste-based reservations anywhere in the bill. Is this mere oversight? It is useful to note that Bangalore’s NLSIU itself implements only SC and ST reservations, not OBC; and even this is not seriously implemented at the faculty level. If the Goa govt was really serious about creating a great opportunity for Goans, shouldn’t it have ensured 50% reservations for SC, ST, and OBC communities of Goa? But who can forget that this govt has itself a miserable record in implementing caste-based reservations in its own institutions, with a large chunk of reserved seats in professional colleges going unfilled.
So what kind of ‘knowledge hub’ does the Goa government envisage? Does the failure to provide 100% Internet coverage to school students, more than one year after online classes were launched, sound like a knowledge hub? The quality of mass education at the primary and secondary level has completely collapsed in Goa, as a result of going online without ensuring the basic minimum infrastructure. This has affected students from poor and vulnerable sections the most, despite efforts from the more committed schools and teachers, as well as non-governmental organisations and volunteers. Who among these children are going to dream of high-flying professional courses?
But who cares? Because it’s clearly not a knowledge hub that our government is planning, and certainly not knowledge for all. It’s a knowledge club. Yes, Goa as the site of a select knowledge club for Indian and Goan elites, with IITs, International Law Schools, and other elite tertiary education centres.
And this knowledge club will bring in all the other so-called benefits. Like increased tourism, thanks to a new and wealthy student community, and visitors from the legal world, happy to enjoy all the pleasures of this ‘tourist paradise’. What does it matter that booming tourism only means badly-paid jobs for locals, besides all kinds of tourism-linked vices? When Goans themselves needed an arbitration centre – the Green Tribunal – to fight for their environment, the Pune-based tribunal was shifted, not to Goa, but to distant Delhi, courtesy our own State government!
As for the promise of law firms setting up here, will they bring jobs? Not a hope. Just an increased demand for office or residential spaces, thus a boost to the real estate market. Making its products even more unaffordable to the average Goan – but then they were never meant for her in the first place.
With such benefits, you don’t really need losses. Even so, giving away land means hammering the local communities. It means hammering wildlife too, and increasing man-animal conflict, with wild boar already destroying crops and monkeys taking over Goan villages. The govt solution is to declare these homeless creatures as ‘vermin’.
As for the bigger picture – who’s bothered?
There is just too much money to be made, so call them natural disasters and blithely carry on. So, all hail the new knowledge club, even as it clubs us on our heads.
(Amita Kanekar is an architectural historian and novelist.)
