Beyond the Grave Looking back at: Modern Development Experts At War With Our Ancestral Ecological Experts - Who Will We Choose?
For the week which passed (17/7/21-14) when I was alive on Planet Earth. Red Alert: What kind of amendments is Goa government seeking from the Central government? Why? And how will it affect the Regional Plan? Minister for Waste Management Michael Lobo recently spoke of the good old days when people used cloth and paper and stainless steel and clay - and plastic was never used in daily life. What happened? When did we start to go wrong? The modern experts taught us a half-truth: use of paper will destroy the trees while plastic can be used extensively, and is cheap. Save the trees and use plastic for everything. Modern expertise sometimes can go tragically wrong as we know from experience with plastic. With Panjim and other places flooding recently, (I guess it is still fresh in our memories or have we already forgotten?) besides the problem of plastics there was also a shortage of drinking water; it was a scenario in several places in Goa of water, water, everywhere and not a drop to drink. Our finest and best planned city is now up to its neck in trouble, and if so, what is going to happen to our not so well planned towns and expanding villages? The thought is terrifying! How did we get to where we are today? It has not happened overnight but has taken us 30 years of reckless drunken driving by our no-application-of-mind governments, no planning or shoddy planning on several levels, bringing us to where we are today - the terminus or is it terminal? The modern experts encouraged us to use and manufacture plastic. As usual, manufacturers were focused on making fast money and consumers on saving money - without a thought for the environment. Maybe the manufacturers don’t care as they have already made money but the consumers are now paying a high price for the fall in the quality of life! No, this is not new but a product of the modern, egotistic mind with an attitude of I-know-it-all and I-don’t- care-at-all. Then, (30 years ago) and as of today, the environment was more or less an abstract idea, something for idealists and dreamers, and activists. Are we paying the price today for a half-truth, the half-baked advice of modern experts? And, are we going to do the same in future once again? With the increase in illegal buildings and unplanned tourism, there was also an exponential increase in plastic and raw sewage, with sewage pits the prize possession of middle and upper middle class house owners. Again builders and politicians got together in a happy marriage which most people would envy, to mint money without a thought to the problems they were creating - sewage and garbage. Plastic was the future - and sewage for our rivers - out of sight out of mind. This mindset continues today as the sewage now in the rivers is going to be buried in the sea. Good way to solve our sewage problem, is’t it? Unplanned and illegal buildings over the years have grown faster than mushrooms during the monsoon season. After all, if there is money in it we convince ourselves - and try to convince everyone else - we are making progress and people who are objecting are - guess what - troublemakers aka social activists. With overbuilding, wells from which families got their daily supply of water gradually became guest houses for e-coli especially in the tourism constituency where the Queen of Goan beaches is located. Not easy to believe today but it was then crowned - The Queen - of beaches! Today it is simply the dirty Calungute beach - an accurate description, no doubt. Progress and development? Whole villages came to be dependent on chemically treated drinking water. A model for the future? And, as if it is not enough, the get rich overnight businessmen now want a marina. That there will be a change not for the better is something they do not care to think about nor the impact it will have on marine life, fishermen, and villagers. The marina project has been gestating for over nine years and might well be dead on arrival. Our late Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar was a highly educated technologist who always had the interest of India and Goa in his mind and heart. I do not believe the Goa government is reckless and stupid enough to give permission for this so-called green project. After all, their leader for whom they are going to build a memorial in his honour was against it.