This is a cry for help, for cooperation and human understanding and is addressed to all our elected government representatives and people in authority: the law enforcement agencies, the Judiciary, the bureaucracy, civic administrators, and lawmakers chosen by the people and citizens of Goa.
The communication platforms: the print, social and television media are relentlessly abuzz with your voices, with your assiduous hollow propaganda with promises of prosperity, but mostly with stories of mis-governance and blatant abuse of “power”, and frequent, but thinly disguised accusations of corruption. It’s time for you to hear the voice of the people, and if you listen carefully, you will hear the sound of suffering echoing cries for truth and justice.
Corruption is one single factor that provides the motivation for almost every candidate seeking to be elected and attain the status of membership in the “Ruling” Party. The business of the government is to govern, but in reality, to “govern” has become The Business! Big Business, Big Money. Question is whose money? We all know where that comes from, taxes. Taxes, if not paid, and not paid on time, bring about the dreaded promise of unjustified penal action. The honest and hardworking, and many of the poorest members of society are the ones who provide that pot of gold that so many of our politicians spend their entire lives and intellectual capabilities, chasing that proverbial, yet illusory rainbow, a rainbow of hope which they have so cleverly devised for their adoring and respectful constituents.
At what point does the money grabbing agenda end once you have stashed away more than you can handle? Your family rolling in it shamelessly and flouting it, your children spirited away to universities where the humongous fees deny this level of education to the citizenry of your constituents, your own status now well established as the wealthiest man in the village with the largest chunk of property that even the long since departed Portuguese sahibs would envy, money buried in overseas banks where the taxman can’t see it, and even if he does he won’t touch you for fear of being caught himself; how much further do you need to go?
What’s much worse than all of this is that the people here are aware that this agenda of plunder and destruction of Goa is being orchestrated by well-known forces that pull the strings from afar, rendering our own “elected rulers” as mere puppets.
Our heart-felt plea therefore is for you to come back home, to your own people, your own Goa. Adorn the avatar of a true Leader, one who devotes his entire life to others, one who leads by understanding and “following” the desires and needs of his constituents, one who channels all his God-given talents to guide Goa towards the real paradise it has been set up to be, to provide wealth and wisdom and well-being to every resident. How much better can your life aspire to become, what greater achievement could a person attain in this life than living his life for others? That would surely make you the happiest and wealthiest person that the people of Goa have the honour and privilege to call their own.
So please listen to the voice of that vendor in the marketplace who struggles each day, year in, year out, to bring home those few pennies so that the family survives another day, so that the kids are not afraid to go to school because their uniforms are too shabby and worn, so that their lights are not switched off because the bill is overdue, so that he has the “hafta” ready on demand and which is what he needs to hold on to his meagre trade to keep the municipal goon and the petty cop at bay.
Listen to the collective voice of the everyday citizen, especially our seniors of whom Goa reportedly has a higher national ratio because of its climate, who quietly groan and moan about the travails and tribulations one must endure because of the erratic state of the country’s infrastructure: the roads, electricity and water supply, hazardous sanitation services that could mean a threat of a looming health disaster for the population, a highly inadequate public transportation system which is the domain of the elderly and young commuters… we could exhaust our quota of the permitted number of words just listing all that needs to be done.
Listen to the cries of despair of the victims whose properties are being stolen, a phenomenon that has exposed the corruption in our bureaucratic system with the connivance of the powers that be. This is the most serious threat from outsiders with truckloads of illicit money, money being weaponised to bring down the entire edifice we know as Goa.
Can you as true Goenkars allow this to happen? You who are in control are the only bulwark left that can turn the tide of the disaster that says “doomsday” for all of us.
Citizens are aware that the rainbow painted for the voters at the start of each election campaign is not magical, or a miracle that will deliver the Utopia we all strive for. Our culture prompts us to go beyond that pot of gold.
“If pretty little bluebirds fly beyond the rainbow, why oh! why can’t I?”
(Judy Garland, “The Wizard of Oz”, 1947).
If we have been a bit abrasive in complaining about the state of affairs in Goa, we offer our pranams and humbly ask to be forgiven; and with all due respect we ask once more: please hear us; all we really want is to go beyond that rainbow.
(The author is now a permanent resident of Goa after many years of
living in Mumbai, New York and London)
