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Welcome to yet another edition of Gerard’s Gazette, a weekly newsletter in which I attempt to break down the events of the week gone by and offer a bit of context, as well as a dose of news you may have missed and news behind the news. If this is your first time here, thank you for signing up, and I hope you stick around! And, as always, if you like what you are reading, make sure you pass it around. Thanks for reading GERARD’s Gazette! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. Law & Disorder Over the past week, you will have heard the oft repeated phrase: ‘Law and order has collapsed in Goa!’ But what does it actually mean? The family of Dr Mahendra Kamat Ghanekar, a popular and prominent gynaecologist working at the Asilo Hospital in Mapusa were quite literally rudely woken up from their slumber by a bunch of masked, armed robbers who asked them to hand over their cash and valuables, tied them up, gagged them ransacked the house and made off with Rs 35-lakh worth of stuff [ https://substack.com/redirect/caec3747-fdd9-4ed6-9dda-6868482d7778?j=eyJ1IjoiMTdkMzMzIn0.fgOj6myyAgvFoWmj-LgXwMrpDLUf7f7HnFNWVfgXm9c ], but not before they had tea that had been prepared by the doctor’s octogenarian mother [ https://substack.com/redirect/1c52cadc-48ec-48f0-a117-083dabbe2bdb?j=eyJ1IjoiMTdkMzMzIn0.fgOj6myyAgvFoWmj-LgXwMrpDLUf7f7HnFNWVfgXm9c ], who, we are told, used to wake up early and prepare tea. The family -- the doctor, his wife, daughter and mother -- were left physically unharmed, but are likely still reeling from the shock at what happened. The thieves, who entered via a side window by cutting the grills, used the family’s car as a getaway vehicle before hiring a taxi from Panjim to Belagavi after which they seemingly vanished. Three suspects have been arrested [ https://substack.com/redirect/4c9248e9-86eb-4e03-a5e2-aebcbe2af10c?j=eyJ1IjoiMTdkMzMzIn0.fgOj6myyAgvFoWmj-LgXwMrpDLUf7f7HnFNWVfgXm9c ], but as far as I understand, they are not the actual thieves, but rather people connected with those believed to be behind the robbery. It wasn’t the only high profile robbery that happened this week. BJP MLA Michael Lobo claimed that cash was stolen from the cash box at his restaurant [ https://substack.com/redirect/dd0792e2-6c28-409c-9b1b-1d8c0d9ab919?j=eyJ1IjoiMTdkMzMzIn0.fgOj6myyAgvFoWmj-LgXwMrpDLUf7f7HnFNWVfgXm9c ] -- and went on a tirade about who is to blame and why for the mishap [ https://substack.com/redirect/1fbb4ec4-f938-4cbe-ab4c-9ba15efa946a?j=eyJ1IjoiMTdkMzMzIn0.fgOj6myyAgvFoWmj-LgXwMrpDLUf7f7HnFNWVfgXm9c ]. The Mapusa robbery, officially labelled a dacoity since there were more than five people involved, sent shockwaves through the state and were legitimately left with the question as to what if at all, is law and order in Goa. This, as you may recall, is the second high profile robbery in the state, the first being that of the robbery at the home of Jaiprakash Dempo at Dona Paula [ https://substack.com/redirect/d945e7d2-295b-400a-be25-ff84a361c58e?j=eyJ1IjoiMTdkMzMzIn0.fgOj6myyAgvFoWmj-LgXwMrpDLUf7f7HnFNWVfgXm9c ], after tying up the senior businessman and his wife in April this year. Those robbers are yet to be found. It is possible that the same guys are involved in this, having gained confidence after having got away the first time. The question then is, what are the cops doing? The answer to that question was given by Aldona Congress MLA Adv Carlos Alvares Ferreira, [ https://substack.com/redirect/4dd3dffb-f308-45ab-967e-55dcc541c6c5?j=eyJ1IjoiMTdkMzMzIn0.fgOj6myyAgvFoWmj-LgXwMrpDLUf7f7HnFNWVfgXm9c ] who said the police are ”only bothered about tracking the opposition; who is saying what, doing what, who is meeting whom and they have no other work. They are bekar.” Well, not that we needed confirmation, but the police duly went about proving Adv Carlos’ point. This week, they detained a bunch of people who were peacefully and non-disruptively protesting in solidarity with the people of Gaza [ https://substack.com/redirect/fd28b2e2-b6d4-4a58-aea7-a5e4ced1b537?j=eyJ1IjoiMTdkMzMzIn0.fgOj6myyAgvFoWmj-LgXwMrpDLUf7f7HnFNWVfgXm9c ] at the Panjim church square and at Azad Maidan, the designated protest spot in the city. There was no need or cause for the police to act against the protestors. And yet they were present in full force, while where they are actually needed, they are missing -- quite perfectly proving the point that harmless protesters are treated like a threat, while actual criminals are being given a free run. It was quite the same thing when cops went chasing ‘influencers’ who were allegedly tarnishing the image of the state [ https://substack.com/redirect/6100f02e-55cc-4991-9f38-6559a2f70e3f?j=eyJ1IjoiMTdkMzMzIn0.fgOj6myyAgvFoWmj-LgXwMrpDLUf7f7HnFNWVfgXm9c ] only to end up on a wild goose chase, not once, on at least two occasions [ https://substack.com/redirect/5f443c55-177c-4a64-a778-4952eb982888?j=eyJ1IjoiMTdkMzMzIn0.fgOj6myyAgvFoWmj-LgXwMrpDLUf7f7HnFNWVfgXm9c ]that I can recall. In a large part, this is due to a ‘politicized’ police force. When police officers (bureaucrats in general but police officers in particular) are given postings based on which politician wants who and where, you end up with a force that lacks discipline -- simply because no matter what they do (or don’t do) they face little consequence. As an example, if you recall, the former police inspector of Calangute Dattaguru Sawant, who tourism minister Rohan Khaunte kept complaining about [ https://substack.com/redirect/4ecae50b-a81c-4e16-ac29-6ef0e8667150?j=eyJ1IjoiMTdkMzMzIn0.fgOj6myyAgvFoWmj-LgXwMrpDLUf7f7HnFNWVfgXm9c ], was soon transferred [ https://substack.com/redirect/4601df96-2887-4a33-89ab-cd7f8c6f41ca?j=eyJ1IjoiMTdkMzMzIn0.fgOj6myyAgvFoWmj-LgXwMrpDLUf7f7HnFNWVfgXm9c ]. Not to say that the current PI is bad, but when good officers are seemingly punished, the rest know that it is not merit that will get you promoted, but rather sucking up. And so lethargy sets, the law is begun to be applied partially, depending on whether the alleged offenders are for or against the government, based on ideology (as seen in the Palestine protest) or simply if you are a troublemaker who has the sanction of somebody within the government. Cops start taking bribes from other cops, there’s no recognizable functioning chain of command or rather there are multiple alternate power centres and what’s meant to be a disciplined professional force is reduced to a partisan force bothered about only protecting certain interests and rather than the interest of justice. When that happens, when injustice goes unpunished, a direct consequence is that people start taking law into their own hands which manifests itself in attacks on tourists [ https://substack.com/redirect/ed67a5eb-6968-402d-90dc-8e5a61c5ce3b?j=eyJ1IjoiMTdkMzMzIn0.fgOj6myyAgvFoWmj-LgXwMrpDLUf7f7HnFNWVfgXm9c ], (not that they are innocent), gang wars and gang attacks (because the offenders know they have political protection) and of course robberies, kidnappings and other crimes because the robbers know all too well that the cops are too busy targeting political opponents rather than actual criminals. And this is quite possible by design, or at least a direct consequence of the attitude of the present government, that I wish to discuss in the story that follows. The undoing of ‘Goa’ The prompts for this piece are a piece [ https://substack.com/redirect/e2bab6ed-c2bd-4ec5-865f-7a8a951b4a23?j=eyJ1IjoiMTdkMzMzIn0.fgOj6myyAgvFoWmj-LgXwMrpDLUf7f7HnFNWVfgXm9c ] I came across (let’s just say I happened to come across it) on the UCAN (Union of Catholic News) portal. UCAN is, of course, a Catholic news portal so to that extent you can call them biased. Titled “The ‘undoing’ of India’s former Portuguese colony” [ https://substack.com/redirect/e2bab6ed-c2bd-4ec5-865f-7a8a951b4a23?j=eyJ1IjoiMTdkMzMzIn0.fgOj6myyAgvFoWmj-LgXwMrpDLUf7f7HnFNWVfgXm9c ], the piece puts into perspective what has been a gradual, but definite change -- or shall I say deliberate attempt at reshaping the idea of Goa. This is something that you will all be very aware of, even if very few have come out to say so out aloud. This led me to two other papers: Goa: A Hardening of Hindutva [ https://substack.com/redirect/35ec62e9-bd98-45ec-9981-26cb031e62c8?j=eyJ1IjoiMTdkMzMzIn0.fgOj6myyAgvFoWmj-LgXwMrpDLUf7f7HnFNWVfgXm9c ] and ‘Wipe away the remaining signs’: Hindu nationalist assemblage politics and the Christian other in Goa’ [ https://substack.com/redirect/d0877ac8-7e4a-4dbc-9973-a78d6b00037c?j=eyJ1IjoiMTdkMzMzIn0.fgOj6myyAgvFoWmj-LgXwMrpDLUf7f7HnFNWVfgXm9c ] by the same author. None of this is new. [ https://substack.com/redirect/24e4d460-f228-4920-aa6b-961446739c19?j=eyJ1IjoiMTdkMzMzIn0.fgOj6myyAgvFoWmj-LgXwMrpDLUf7f7HnFNWVfgXm9c ] Goa has seen communalisation of politics before. For example the whole debate about the merger of Goa with Maharashtra that gripped the state in the 60s, while not strictly being fought on religious lines had religious contours -- with the Hindu Bahujan Samaj, largely landless, on one side and the Christian and Hindu upper castes on the other. It was the same faultline that came to the fore once again at the time of statehood with this time the debate being over whether Konkani or Marathi should be the official language. So while Goa has had this veneer of communal harmony, the differences have always been there. But the point is that up until this point, politicians across party lines have by and large not attempted to aggravate these differences -- in a large part because as the MGP’s political power waned, the subsequent governments were either Congress or Congress-led coalition governments who needed to keep both sides of the cultural divide happy in order to stay in power. But things are no longer the same. The present dispensation has made it quite clear that they don’t necessarily see Goa that way -- that Goa being a melting pot of cultures is not a positive thing but rather a yog-bhoomi that has been defiled by western Portuguese influence, whose signs now need to be wiped off. By extension, infidel The more you think about this, the more you realise that this has been the common thread that has been running through whatever this government has been doing for the past few years (besides a lot else of course like legalising illegal houses, converting agricultural land, orchard land, eco-sensitive land, etc.) In fact it was just this week that tourism minister Rohan Khaunte had to defend his government’s decision to promote Goa as a ‘spiritual’ tourism destination and ‘Dakshin ka Kashi’ (Kashi of the south) by insisting that such promotions will not come at the cost of the state’s multicultural character [ https://substack.com/redirect/f7562a40-056a-478a-916d-237d392f8edf?j=eyJ1IjoiMTdkMzMzIn0.fgOj6myyAgvFoWmj-LgXwMrpDLUf7f7HnFNWVfgXm9c ]. I can go on, but I think I’ve made my point and said what I’ve had to say. You, of course, don’t have to agree with me or even with the way I’ve presented this. You might even be of the opinion that the ‘transition’ that is underway in Goa is for the better. But what you can’t deny is that a transition is indeed well underway in Goa and not a mere transition but a conscious reshaping by the incumbent government. The thing is that this is only one of the many ‘transitions’ currently underway -- all of which are aided and abetted by silence -- silence of the political class (other than the few opposition MLAs who are left) and a lack of a push back from the population in general. Something to think about nonetheless. Rama’s revelations Social activist Rama Kankonkar was discharged from hospital on Saturday and in comments made to the media, he has said he suspects that Chief Minister Pramod Sawant and Tourism Minister Rohan Khaunte are possibly behind the murderous attack that could have cost him his life. Rama, who hadn’t named any politician in the statement that the police recorded, said it was the police duty to find out who the ‘mastermind’ behind the attack was given what he has told the police so far. But the fact is, Rama probably has a far better idea as to who is really behind the attack than he is letting us in on. He is of course well within his rights to only tell us he suspects rather than directly accuse, and as regards his decision not to name the accused-politician in his statement to be police, it could well be down to the fact that he doesn’t see any benefit in doing so. Does this revelation change anything? For one, word on who is actually behind the attack has already spread far and wide, so in that sense, what we have heard today is nothing new. The inclusion of the chief minister’s name doesn’t really change much, because there wasn’t a real good reason to suspect him in the first place. The question is, will the police do things differently now that politicians have been named? I think you already know the answer and don’t need me to elaborate further. That’s all I have for you this week. Make sure you comment or write in, should you have something, anything to say. I would also invite you to contribute via sending in your views, especially on a subject you know something about, and I will be happy to include it as part of the newsletter. You are also welcome to write in with leads and tip-offs or anything that you think might be interesting enough to include here. As always, please share and help spread the word. Until next week, then. Tchau! Thanks for reading GERARD’s Gazette! This post is public so feel free to share it. 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