Years ago, Matanhy Saldanha and I were attending a meeting organized by our parish. The BJP had just come to power and Matanhy with a triumphant air exclaimed, “Now, the citizens of Goa can live in peace as “goondaraj” in Goa has been tamed. He was referring to the “thugs” that allegedly protected the turf of Churchill and Mummy dearest. When I politely interjected, “You may be right to some extent, Matanhy, but what about the new breed of “goondas” of the Sangh Parivar that allegedly even abet communal riots?” He became very very furious – so blind was his misplaced admiration of the BJP.
But today the old breed has been repackaged. Let’s hail the hoodlums – the hooligans have graduated. We dare no longer call them gangsters, hitmen or ruffians. They have even earned an aura of respect. Let’s meet the new perilous breed – the bouncers. And if Gerson Rebello of the Leading Hotels is to be believed, he does not brook them being named except “security guards”.
The word bouncers originally meant persons employed by a nightclub or similar establishment to prevent troublemakers and other unwanted people entering or to eject them from the premises. Such people have now spread their tentacles everywhere in Goa and, what is more, their ambit has expanded. Whether they bludgeon people to death, mug or asphyxiate “troublemakers”, one thing is true. They will always escape the long arm of the law thanks to the money and political clout of their bosses.
Recently they were there when “terror struck Tiracol in the middle of the night and continued till the wee hours of next day as men and machines of Leading Hotels, protected by more than fifty menacing bouncers tore into the village, slaughtered trees and made a clearing for a road leading up to the project site where a hotel and a Golf Course will be built”.
The “bouncer raj” is shamefully taking Goa by storm. But let’s not grudge them. Their bosses have enough political clout to set them free even if they “shoot down” innocent individuals and citizens that take part in genuine agitations against the plunder of Goa.
