https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/goa/open-season-tourism-versus-goa/articleshow/65834894.cms
>From monsoon to sunshine, it’s the change of seasons in Goa. Here are clear blue skies and calm ocean waters, but alongside now-familiar piercing anxieties. What foul atrocities will befall India’s smallest state this year, as the onslaught of tourists descends in unmanageable hordes? When will the first grotesque crimes against women occur? Where will traffic snarl most intractably? Just over three decades after Goa first emerged on the global travel agenda, it is readily evident its environment, culture and society has paid an extraordinarily destructive price. Each passing “season” only seems to make things worse. How did things get so bad so fast? It required a perfect storm of government incompetence, private sector irresponsibility, and public apathy, a vivid real-life example of killing the goose which lays golden eggs. For decades now, criminal lawlessness has pervaded all aspects of Goa’s political economy. In the case of the the tourism industry, this “anything goes” atmosphere has played out with devastating effect across the coastline, and now extends toxic tentacles up the rivers right into the hinterland. No accountability. No enforcement. Drugs, prostitution, gambling, garbage, illegal construction: do what you want, and no one is going to stop you. Examine the government data, which amply illustrates a destination heading straight downhill. Just two decades ago, Goa was among the subcontinent’s few premium global brands. Today it isn’t even in the top ten most desired destinations for Indians. Instead, we have a lowest-common-denominator travel marketplace for the kind of visitors no destination wants, who drive out every other category. Profits shrink, while the sheer numbers skyrocket. In 2000, there were 1.2 million arrivals (still manageable in a state with roughly 2 million inhabitants). In 2013, that number topped 3 million, and all hell broke loose with leaps of over a million each year. In 2017, an unimaginable 7.7 million. The damage has been almost incalculable. Instead of acknowledging the obvious emergency, Goa’s government displays its characteristic schizophrenia. Members of the cabinet like Tourism Minister Manohar (Babu) Ajgaonkar declare “we want only good tourists” and “we will not allow those who do not respect Goenkarponn.” Yet, he and his colleagues are directly complicit in allowing casinos to fester and metastasize, with immense toxic effect on society, culture, and the rest of the marketplace. They also remain hell-bent on ramming through the absurd “second airport” project at Mopa, about which Manohar Parrikar promised “Goa can accommodate anywhere up to 15 million tourists, if we spread them out into the villages.” It’s painfully obvious those kinds of numbers will abruptly end to everything recognizable and unique about Goa, that fragile sliver of the Konkan coastline which navigated such complex history for thousands of years, to evolve such an exquisite composite culture with so much yet to share with the world. But even if the politician’s promise goes awry (which would not be the first time) there can be no doubt slow-motion suicide by tourism is taking place anyway. We can see it occurring elsewhere identically, except only at slightly different speeds. For example, Mussoorie is a bit further along the trajectory of irredeemable loss, while Meghalaya is only just starting along the same slope. Take a trip to Calangute, microcosm of all that has gone wrong with tourism. Always heart-stoppingly beautiful as immortalized in Lorna’s greatest song, the “Queen of Sands” is now barely recognizable. The approach is filthy and crowded, a gauntlet of aggressive touts. A garish melee of stalls sprawls everywhere. When you reach the sands, they are befouled by garbage, a minefield of cow-dung left behind by wandering strays. Even here, so close to the waves, do not expect the whispering comfort of the ocean breezes, because there’s an assault of crass EDM heedlessly blared from all directions. This is Goa in 2018, besieged by tourism without limits.