In politics, there are always two sides. But when both sides are aimed at playing politics on the foundation of creating a divide, they must be called out. The people of Calangute are wise and see through the real motives in the stage-managed political drama and the flare-up over the installation of a Shivaji statue on the Saligao-Calangute road.
The BJP-ruled government is allowing statues to sprout everywhere. What is the purpose? What is the motive? And a question needs to be asked about the disproportionate spurt of Shivaji’s statues in the ratio of statues of Goan icons.
This is being done to divert attention from real, crucial and burning issues like no water, crippling power cuts, pathetic accident-prone roads, farmers not getting subsidies and criminal cases faced by protestors. Goa has these big fish to fry. It cannot afford any communal flare-up issues of statues.
Mapusa and Calangute look like Sakina and Andheri East in Mumbai with a total collapse of civic infrastructure.
Instead of wiping tears, fixing lives and fixing cities and farms, politics of disharmony and discord are being played. Our forests are being destroyed, farmers don’t have subsidies to buy seeds and our cities are caving in. Does anyone have the time and energy to spend a day throwing stones or taking refuge inside a panchayat over installing a statue? Notwithstanding any sentiments of any faith, it is the law that has to prevail and anything against the rules will not. There is no law against installing a statue but there is certainly a law which doesn’t allow you to do so without permission.
The tension, the threat of violence, and the Sarpanch withdrawing the resolution to ask for the Shivaji statue on the Saligao-Calangute road, built in violation of the Supreme Court order was full of drama played according to a political script of divide and rule.
The time has come for people to kick out this brand of politics
Both the Calangute MLA Michael Lobo and the Calangute Sarpanch Joseph Sequeira have to be made accountable for letting their politics get the better of the need to keep Calangute free of any tension leave alone a communal one.
Calangute panchayat’s mischievous silence when the statue got erected; and then the resolution asking for its removal, and then an apology and withdrawal of the resolution, smacks of complicity
On May 8, an organisation of Shivaji followers applied for permission to install a Shivaji statue right in the heart of the road connecting Saligao to Calangute. From then to the beginning of June, Sarpanch Joseph Sequeira sat on the application. While he technically didn’t give permission he didn’t outrightly reject it either. Why is this crucial point being avoided? Now after the statue was erected on June 3 without any permission across two days, the Panchayat and the police kept quiet. A statue is not a dustbin or a tiffin box that can be kept without anyone noticing. Thus, this silence is mischievous with the panchayat sailing in two boats- not acting on the application to keep one section pleased and then looking the other way while the statue is being installed, without permission. People see through this.
Then about five days after the statue was installed, the panchayat passed a resolution to ask the Shivaji supporters to demolish the statue within ten days mainly on the ground that there is a Supreme Court ruling which forbids installing it in the middle of roads and junctions.
Did the panchayat forget the Supreme Court ruling when permission was sought?
If the Sarpanch could get a legal opinion and discover that there was a Supreme Court ruling based on which it could reject the application on May 2 itself, why was the issue allowed to linger and become a potential source of communal tension? Joseph Sequeira wrote to the Chief Minister seeking security apprehending communal tension, but he contributed to the tension by his absolute inaction in rejecting the application for the statue right away. This is why the whole act looks stage-managed.
On the other hand, how can a group erect a statue without any permission without political backing?
The Calangute MLA, Michael Lobo cannot claim to be a silent spectator to the defiant act of installing a statue bound to cause conflict. While the Sarpanch and the Panchayat sat on the application, the Shivaji supporters went ahead and installed the statue with absolutely no hindrance from the panchayat or the police.
Moreover, how did this group attack the panchayat office and throw stones? While sentiments of a religious kind are understood and respected, taking the law into their hands after committing an act that wasn’t permissible is certainly not one. And these acts aren’t easy without political backing. And the MLA must respond to this because the law-and-order situation was very tense and could have gone totally out of control.
There are no winners here and no apologies are genuine. The entire episode is shocking and a diversion from what Goans need. No faith allows anyone to violate laws and vitiate the atmosphere. Furthermore, politicians must stop misusing people’s sentiments to bake their political cookies.
