Joseph Lewis D’Silva
Powerful people in governing organisation, just to promote their personal interest, brain wash innocent individuals and make them believe that whatever they do, is development; even potholed roads; water pipes leaking for months by roadside; street lights not function under moonlight but burning during the day under sunlight; even formalin found in fish; flattening of hills; turning paddy fields into concrete jungles is perhaps, thought as development for the benefit of countrymen.
Perhaps, they think, as a little bird says: “Potholes will bring tourists to play golf on our roads. And with the arrival of foreign tourists, more and more foreign exchange will swell with our government. Secondly, regarding development of flattening of hills, will give more space for concrete jungle; which will bring more houses there and more house tax will make government money-bag stronger.
Thirdly, leaking pipes by road sides are ground water springs which will bring holidaymakers to bathe in roadside water source. Fourthly, when sometimes, street lights do not function under moonlight its purpose is to save energy. Lastly, formalin found in fish is to keep it fresh as it is done to dead corpses.
Protests on road of activists march; NGO march, is to clean corruption; so that nothing is kept hidden --- about mega projects at various locations or not even making Goa a coal hub. Hidings, may be, behind closed doors or in hushed whispers; just to keep citizens silent; to avoid protests of ‘zindabad’ and ‘murdabad’ or broom march. Their stooges accept silence as their forced silence has made them deaf and blind.
But, ‘silence speaks silently’ --- the silent noise of damage, the insincerity or hypocrisy becomes visible. When we see the wrong and not correct, we commit the sin of insensitiveness to the different situations towards people in difficulties; and regarding destruction of ecosystem.
The culture of silence, born out of domestic and public politics, leads us to our own self-destruction, turning us into a ‘silent crowd’ uttering --- “mhaka kiteak podlam”; that is an attitude of seeing we do not see; hearing we do not hear but live in silence towards domestic violence or live in non-participative democracy.
Thank God! Few see themselves as policemen with a duty to expose and reveal; they are rarest of individuals; ‘whistle-blowers’ who do not believe in 'mhaka kiteak podlam’.
The widespread stony silence of “mhaka kiteak podlam” is a painful crime itself. It has done more damage to our sorrowing and sinking State. Napoleon is reported to have said: the world suffers a lot, not because of the violence of bad people, but because of the silence of good people. He did not encounter another type of individuals --- those gossip groups who plan evil for others; and jealous Joneses, star liars, destroyers of family lives who spread suffering, deliberately or perhaps, by way of ignorance and negligence or both.
The culture of silence goes through our society. It is irritating time bomb waiting to destroy our state and our democracy. It is time for us to break free from the chains of indifference and speak out against the injustices that surround us. We must see the power of our voices and use them to demand responsibility and accountability from our readers to protect our environment. Only then can we hope to build a better future for ourselves and for generations to come.