Goa’s sons and daughters who fought for the land, in the face of the lurking shadow of retaliation by the dangerously powerful, were infinitely blessed. Here was a priest who made the soil of Goa, his place of worship, the village squares and tintos his pulpit and the bicycles and buses as his mode of transport. And as all of us who love the land and lament at its destruction, grieve bitterly at his passing away, we rise to tell the Goa government, police and the powerful they protect – we are jumping to at least one conclusion about his death. The cause of his death was due to drowning but there is absolutely no conclusion that the manner of his death was accidental.
Right from the fact that he had lodged a complaint at the Old Goa Police station of a death threat he had received on November 4, till the scratches on his body which have not reflected in the post-mortem report, there are initial suspicions. But while we reported on Saturday that there is nothing to link his disappearance as a fallout of his activism, we have far more questions to ask, and far too many lose ends that just don’t add up to a clean conclusion. Herald also condemns the pathetic posts in the social media and on websites taking refuge of the police version, that the activist priest was in the midst of drunken revelry and had dived into the river in a drunken stupor, never to return, caused by the river in spate. It’s so easy to believe this isn’t it? It makes everyone’s life easy, the police, the doctors and – if the worst fears and suspicions of many fellow activists are to be harnessed and proven to be true – those who did him in. But this cannot be easy. We will not let this be easy. Unless a people driven and people forced investigation by a neutral agency is conducted tooth combing most of what we will go and point out, no one who loves this land should rest easy. Otherwise the death of a fiery activist priest will be the first nail in the coffin of people-centric activism.
At around 9 pm last evening, Father Bismark left word at home that he was coming home for dinner. Therefore his disappearance into the forests and the bandh beyond it with a crate of beer was contrary to his plans.
That begs the question. Where did the crate or 13 bottles of beer come from? Father Bismark, hardly carried any money with him and at times even gave missed calls to friends, who called back because his mobile wasn’t topped up. It is very unlikely that he paid Rs 650 for that crate of beer. We learnt way past midnight as we were closing this edition that they were picked up in two lots, from Marcel and another place. But who picked them up?
Then comes the nature of his company. Two very young boys, one 17 and the other 18, apparently went with him through the forested route carrying the beer bottles. We know that the path is full of bushes and thorns and those who venture cut themselves deep. The question is: Why was Father Bismark with two young boys late at night? And why did he walk for more than two kilometres carrying beer bottles to sit on the bandh in this company?
Now we come to the boys themselves. According to them Father Bismark left his pair of shorts, his tee shirt and other belongings on the bank of the bandh. Now if Father Bismark had dived into the water and didn’t return, why did the boys, instead of raising an alarm simply pick his clothes up and return back to the village.
There can indeed be a counter narrative to this which could ultimately conclude that this was a case of drowning. But at no point of time can anyone dismiss those questioning the easiness of closing and concluding this case without all the doubts settled. Father Bismark was not an ordinary priest. He was a full-fledged man of the masses who was an activist who chose to contest elections. His failure to win was not his failure, but ours for not being brave enough to put persons like Father Bismark in the Assembly. Look at who the people of Cumbharjua chose as their MLA and not Father Bismark. Doesn’t this hold a mirror to the choices we make for our Goa.
The fear and the loathing and the suspicion that he may have been done to death comes from his class enemies. From members of his panchayat to the local police, to builders in his village, to those in Vanxim village and then the big sharks in Carmona and Tiracol, and those wanting to displace traditional fisher folk in Kharewado, Father Bismark was in the front lines. The battle lines were always drawn. Those protecting Goa on one side and those selling and buying Goa on the other.
In his death, Goa has lost one of its Davids in its fight against the Goliaths. But there are enough Davids to take on any number of Goliaths. And David, even in the biblical sense was not a meek underdog. He was a very tough competitor who was happy to let his enemies underestimate him. Father Bismark was a quintessential David.
Fellow Davids and warriors remember. The 6 feet 9 inches tall Philistine, Goliath had to call out to David in order to fight him: “Come to me that I might feed your flesh to the birds of the heavens and the beasts of the field”. All David did was use his slingshot effectively to slay hit between Goliaths eyes. Never fear, never cow down and keep your wits intact, was David’s lesson. Father Bismark goes handing down these lessons to us. We had hoped last night that he would be back with us at dawn. He instead left us to fight for better dawns, breaking over the skies of Goa.
