---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Linken Fernandes <linkenfernan...@gmail.com> Date: Thu, 9 Dec 2021, 01:12 Subject: Can we discuss important issues in Chandor in a civilised manner, please? To: goanet <goanet@lists.goanet.org>
*ChandorCarers* *(For your information and active awareness)* *Can we discuss important issues in Chandor in a civilised manner, please?* There was a regular free-for-all at the VDC meeting called by the Chandor-Cavorim panchayat on Monday 29 November to discuss the site for the trash segregation unit (known officially as the Materials Retrieval Facility). Two women members confronted another woman for some remark she made as she opposed the facility proposed to be set up near her house. The women got out of their seats to get into the face of the opposer and kept pointing fingers right into her face as they berated her while the presiding officer hung around in front of the hall, having abandoned his chair, along with a fellow panch (male), and did nothing. He didn't think that he should call the meeting to order and restrain the two women, nor did he think of summoning the police over the fracas, as he had done at an earlier Village Development Committee meeting in August (confirming his complete innocence with regard to the rules and procedures to be followed at meetings). I tried to stop the oral assault, fearing it could turn into a physical one, but my voice couldn't carry above the din, and, with several attendees milling about in front of the dais, the meeting had gone out of control. Hardly had this fracas simmered down, the presiding officer, who is the sarpanch, resumed the chair and began chiding a member, a component of the Cavorim communidade, for having dared to make a proposal he deemed irrelevant to the issue being discussed. I spoke up to say the member had made a perfectly valid intervention in suggesting that the Igorjebhat panch was directly involved in the illegal sale of communidade land near the site proposed for the MRF. (He had implied that the village should consider this aspect of the situation when finalising the site for the trash segregation unit). Another member, who had also taken issue with the communidade guy, now recognised the merit in the proposal and repeatedly named the Igorjebhat panch, who was present, but the idea didn't catch, because the presiding officer moved the discussion to something inconsequential. All of a sudden, another member stood up and began making loud, incoherent sounds in my direction and pointing fingers at me. (A lot of finger-pointing right in people's faces at these meetings!). Fortunately, his babbling was ignored, and the meeting moved on, but I questioned him about it later and it turned out that he was peeved that I had interrupted him while he was saying something about why the two women were haranguing the woman who doesn't want the trash separation unit near her house. This member has the habit of frequently rising up during meetings in the village and explaining to the chair what some other member has just said. What he really should have done was restrain and pacify the two women (he was sitting right in front of them while they were at it) instead of making excuses for their conduct. In any case, I asked him, what was it with all the finger pointing and the shouting? He apologised to me later, but in private, far away from the public glare that he had used to rant in my direction. In other words, make baseless accusations in public and apologise in private! Where was the presiding officer while all this was happening, you may ask, right? As it turns out, the members expressing their annoyance with another member rather unconventionally in a committee meeting, were part of the group which, according to one dissident panch, is the "ruling" group, that is, the presiding officer's group. This was, therefore, just another day in the life of villagers' meetings organised by the Chandor panchayat: no rules, no moderation, anyone who shouts loudest wins! At the VDC meeting in August I and another member had questioned the presiding officer on his refusal to allow a discussion on my objection to his bogus market plan when the objection was part of the agenda of the meeting. The sarpanch had responded by summoning the police to quell our objections. The police, fortunately, had deemed it unnecessary to support this illegality and had declined to intervene. A complaint about the undemocratic style of functioning of the Chandor panchayat is presently with the Director of Panchayats and the BDO (Block Development Officer), who have both asked the panchayat to explain their conduct (or, should that be, more correctly, misconduct?). (The sarpanch has retaliated by delaying the handing over of a residence certificate I had applied for by over a week). To come back to the meeting, one of the two agitated women explained to me that the opposer had charged her and her friend with having taken a consideration to plant the trash-segregation unit in her waddo. This scandalous and false allegation had caused her and her friend considerable stress, she told me (the friend had actually broken down in tears). One sympathises with the two women, of course, considering how allegations loosely made tend to catch on, and, before you know it, you are considered corrupt! On her part, the opposer had the grace to get up and say that she had been out of order in saying what she did and apologised unreservedly. (In the interest of historical accuracy, let it be stated that it may have been felt that the woman was, perhaps, quite forgetting her place in the scheme of things to object to a possible source of stink pollution being planted right next to her house). The communidade member who was scolded told me that being shouted down was something he experienced regularly and that was why he had stopped attending VDC meetings and was considering quitting the committee altogether. It seems he had attended this one only because the presiding officer had especially invited him. For all the good it did him! This is a dangerous trend taking hold in the village, the so-called "ruling" group dropping all facade of democratic functioning to force their point of view on the rest of the village. Saner voices need to come together, keeping aside political affiliation, and get involved in ensuring that committee or gram sabha meetings are conducted in a civilised manner. It is perhaps time to have neutral presiding officers, people who can moderate public discussions fairly, instead of letting "ruling groups" hijack them to promote selfish, partisan interests. *(December 9, 2021)* *(Please share this post widely and consider this issue objectively. We cannot allow important matters to be resolved by undemocratic, and uncivilised, means any more).* *Linken Fernandes*