Economic development brings urbanization and with it comes migration. Goa cannot be an island in this world phenomenon. There is a gradual influx of migrants to this city state by those who find this state to be a land of opportunities. It is our lack of capacity to assimilate them by providing basic amenities, and in particular housing, that has led to the identity crisis amidst the large-scale emigration by the locals to European countries.
While the locals wish to migrate out of Goa finding this place not a land of opportunities, it may not create a social unrest over those who find this a land of opportunities. However there is tension over the dilution of the identity and the Goan way of life. The mushrooming of slum areas at Mapusa, Margao, Vasco and Chimbel and all the shanties in the outskirts of the cities are seen as eyesores on the Goan landscape. The problem has increased as the migrants choose the destination linked to employment and opportunities. Migration has always been a major growth factor for slums in urban areas.
The influx of so called outsiders (migrants) who are contemptuously referred to as ‘ghanttis’ are mostly the labour force from other parts of the country. These outsiders constitute the labour force – the poorly paid industrial workers, fruit sellers, vegetable vendors and other menial occupations. These are people who are otherwise poor and who are in Goa due to them finding this a place to make their ends meet. They earn more here than what they would in their own state. Their states are unable to take care of them.
The Konkan Railway has contributed its bit to the influx. The migrant workers are ready to work at lower salaries and that has marginalized the locals in the Goan employment market. The low risk taking capacity and our susegado lifestyle has also contributed to the problem.
But who says Goans do not want to work? From the 19th century Goans have been migrating to British Africa and other parts of India like Bombay, Karachi and Calcutta. A large number of Catholic Goans worked at sea as stewards and cooks. Now a large number of them are employed on luxury tourism related cruise liners. Goans have worked in skilled and unskilled jobs in other parts of the country and the world. The women folk have worked as domestic staff in other parts of the country. A section worked as nurses and the educated as secretaries. Over the past 50 years thousands of Goans have been working in Gulf countries. Wherever they have worked outside Goa, the demands of work have been tough as against the laidback life style in Goa.
There is an impression that Goans avoid manual work but if we look at the work culture of Goans outside Goa, that insinuation is not correct. The Catholic Gawda community is known to be extremely good at laying concrete slabs and road construction. It must be admitted that the dignity of labour is a serious issue in a caste-ridden society where occupations are also caste based and taking up certain occupations is seen as perpetrating the caste system. The next generation wants to avoid the caste-based occupations. The reality is that Goans, both educated and unskilled, do not wish to work here while the outsiders occupy the vacuum. That is the real paradox of immigration and emigration.
It must be understood that migrants are only serving this State and economy. It may not be possible to provide salaries commensurate with Gulf countries here in Goa given our economic setup to attract locals in the Goan job market. In such a scenario can the state do without the migrants (poor from the other states) however much we look down upon them? Our economy is kept in motion by the migrant labour force and society serviced by them.
There can be no debate that migration has been diluting the ethnic character of any region. In the 1960s, the Shiv Sena was founded in Bombay to protect Bombay for the Marathi ‘manus’. The cosmopolitan nature of Bombay has only increased. The information technology industry has reduced Kanadigas to around 35% of Bangalore’s seven million population. The Turks took over Germany as the Germans shirked manual work in their own country. Whichever way you look at it, migration opportunity has been taken by people in search of socio-economic improvement of their lives and particularly in light of new economic reforms the regional ideology seem to have run out of shelf life.
Under the new economic reforms the country and the state seek foreign and domestic investment for growth of industries and business. Flow of capital from other parts of the world and the country and investment by locals is now the driving force of the economy. In this perspective is it possible that we invite the capital and drive out the people who find that investment has created certain opportunities? The fear of getting overwhelmed has to be seen in the new world order where migration and urbanization are the direct result of the economic development unleashed by the new economic reforms.
(The writer is practicing advocate, senior faculty in law and political analyst)
