IN THE MIDST OF GOANS
By Vidyadhar Gadgil
vgadgil at gmail.com
Twenty years ago, when I first lived and worked in Goa, I
attended a workshop on threats to Goa's environment and
culture. It was there that I first heard the term 'bhaille'
(outsiders). It was one of the recurring motifs of the
workshop that the 'bhaille' were the biggest threats to Goa's
environment.
I was taken aback, as this was an event attended by liberals
and activists, where one would not have expected such
viewpoints.
Another term I heard was 'ghati'. There was clearly a
negative value attached to the term, which in Maharashtra is
used to describe rustics. Intrigued, I devoted a fair bit of
time to examining the issue.
It seemed contradictory that I -- 'bhaillo' and 'ghati' --
never felt any particular hostility directed towards myself;
in fact, I met with an easy acceptance. Was this because of
my class or caste background? Not entirely, I discovered.
Goans are truly among the most tolerant and easygoing of
people, not easily given to prejudice.
It was not only me, there was no overt hostility towards the
people from outside Goa who lived and worked in Goa. When
talking about 'outsiders', what people were protesting was a
phenomenon -- their perceived lack of control over the
development process -- rather than individuals. There was
also a genuine anger against the tourism industry's
despoilation of Goa and against the anti-people pattern of
development that people felt, with some justice, was being
imposed upon them from outside Goa.
Those were heady times -- there was a churning in Goa as the
masses began to assert their identity and demand their
rights. The Konkani agitation, the movement against tourism
spearheaded by the Jagrut Goenkaranchi Fauz (JGF), the
movement for statehood -- they all redefined the political
landscape of Goa. At a public meeting on May 30, 1987, the
day Goa attained statehood, the mood was one of jubiliation:
it was the dawn of hope.
Over the next ten years, my involvement with Goa continued,
albeit somewhat intermittently, so I was aware that these
hopes were being largely crushed.
Yet, in 1997, when my family and I shifted to Goa to settle
here permanently, it came as a bit of shock to see the change
in the public mood; it was as if the churning of the mid-80s
had never happened. The movement for genuine change had been
sidetracked, marginalized or co-opted by the political class
and corporate interests, and it was business as usual. A
cynicism and tiredness had set in amongst the
no-longer-so-young activists I knew in the mid-80s.
But around 2005 the churning process began once
again, as globalization and neo-liberalization
began to be revealed for the chimeras that they
were. People looked around them and discovered to
their horror that the development process had been
hijacked and turned against the people. The beaches
had become privatized concrete jungles, Goa's
forests were facing the axe as the construction
boom reached ridiculous proportions, and Goa's
politicans fattened themselves at the expense of
the masses. Once again, the common man was feeling
marginalized and threatened.
One response to this has been a questioning of the very
concept of development. The people's movement which
crystallised around the Goa Bachao Abhiyan has redefined the
way development is perceived. Development which enriches a
few at the expense of the masses and destroys Goa's
environment is not true development, this strand of thought
avers. It is not the mass of people -- of Goan descent or
otherwise -- who are the problem. It is those who heedlessly
plunder Goa's resources -- politicians, industrialists and
various kinds of middlemen -- and sell them to the highest
bidder that are the problem. To paraphrase the speech of Dr.
Oscar Rebello, the convenor of the GBA, at the massive public
rally in Panjim on December 19, 2006: "It is not non-Goans
who are the problem; it is the anti-Goans."
There is however, another response to Goa's current crisis.
This seeks to externalise the problem and, following a
xenophobic and reactionary line of thought, blames the
workers who come to Goa from other parts of India to earn
their living. Ignoring the fact that these workers make a
vital contribution to Goa's economy, they are despised and
condemned on the basis of the fact that they are poor and
come from different cultures and traditions. Rather than look
at their relationship with the community and the environment,
their ethnic, cultural and religious backgrounds are focused
upon.
The stigmatization of the 'ghatis' and 'bhaille' has now
reached frightening proportions. The worst example of this
was when the Sanvordem-Curchorem communal violence of March
2006 was sought to be justified on the grounds that its
targets were 'outsiders'. The growing communalization of the
Goan polity and society provides a fertile ground in which
such thought patterns acquire particular virulence, and find
expression in terms of active discrimination and even
violence against minorities, who can easily be cast in the
role of The Other.
But at a subtler level, this trend of thought is
beginning to pervade everyday social discourse in
Goa. Workers from Orissa, Karnataka and other
'backward' states are vilified for defecating in
the open and described as 'unclean' (that they are
in this position because their employers do not
provide them even basic facilities is conveniently
forgotten). Even in the urbane drawing rooms of
Goa's educated and well-off classes, such a
prejudice has begun to take hold, and all kinds of
derogatory comments about 'ghatis' are routine,
being allowed to pass without any criticism of the
social attitudes that underlie them.
Goa is at a crossroads today: it is obvious that we cannot
follow the existing pattern of development without social and
environmental disaster. But there are two options. Do we
question what 'development' means, and insist that, rather
than merely enriching a few and destroying natural resources,
it is framed and practiced in a manner that benefits all and
respects the environment? Or do we seek convenient scapegoats
for our problems, and further marginalize and victimize them,
thereby exacerbating social tensions and furthering communal
agendas? The choice is ours to make.
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The writer is a freelance editor and social activist who
lives at Carona, Aldona. This article first appeared in the
Gomantak Times, October 11, 2007.
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