------------------------------------------------------------------------
* G * O * A * N * E * T **** C * L * A * S * S * I * F * I * E * D * S *
------------------------------------------------------------------------
ANKA SERVICES
For all your Goa-based media needs - Newspapers and Electronic Media
Newspaper Adverts, Press Releases, Press Conferences
www.ankaservices.com
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
StyleSpeak – GOA TODAY
POLITICALLY INCORRECT AND ENDORSED
By Wendell Rodricks
It's now a national malaise. Politicians have their own mini mafias.
Goons sent to 'collect'. Ruffians dispatched to maim. Thugs paid to
itimidate and threaten. Friends allowed to break laws and even
influence government policy.
The Aires Rodrigues and Prajal Sakhardande case is merely a highlight.
A flashpoint. An example. The very next day our uneducated politicians
who are well versed with abusing and using the legal and security
system, were playing the blame game. With a media reporting each
disgusting move as though it was a circus. We even had to endure
photographs of the involved politicians, which made it to the national
press. From a distance the Opposition began to crow (as always) that
the Government was weak and corrupt. Blah. Blah. Blah……
So what's new, Mr. P? Many people made illegal hay when you were in
power too. Why 'then'? Even 'now', friends with a postgraduate
education are permitted to break the law. Our neighbour Kamat in
Altinho cut the hill on a gradient. Totally illegal. I personally
complained to everyone. The Police, the Town & Country Planning, the
Forest department. Even our MLA Mr. Parrikar, who said he was in
Bangalore and would attend to the same the next evening when he
returned. He did not. Chief Secretary J.P. Singh finally called the
Collector. By then the story was made public by the Times of India.
The sad fact is that the hill has already been cut. The only reason I
complained is because the Altinho hill is a fragile hill and all the
homes on that slope run the risk of a landslide. Each year our walls
crack and I have even sacrificed a panoramic view by encouraging the
green cover because the plants and trees are holding the hill together
quite literally.
The Betim hill is obviously not a reminder of what can happen to
Panjim as well. How can one greedy-for-space neighbour who is educated
(a Chartered Accountant to boot) break the law unless he has the
support of someone in power? Does he not realize that his own house
will crash to the bottom of the hill? I have nothing personal against
my neighbour. I am sure if we met at a public venue, I would share a
drink with him and be perfectly civil. What I am against is anyone who
knowingly breaks the law to destroy Goa's greenery. What is amazing is
that the work was going on way past 10.30 pm. When I began shouting to
stop the work, his son cheekily asked why I was shouting. Well
firstly, they had no manners to descend from their first floor perch.
So what do we do if not shout? Serenade a mando to drown out the din
of forty workers on the site.
Law breaking is becoming increasingly politically endorsed. How often
I have heard Goans complaining "My neighbour is building illegally. He
knows Narvekar. Or Parrikar. Or Digambar. Or Churchill. Or Babush". So
WHAT? If I know Manmohan Singh and half the cabinet in Delhi, does
that give me license to break the law? Indeed not.
It's a pity that people of stature do not put social conscience before
their own needs. That too greedy needs. How much land can we take to
our graves? Not more than a fistful of mud. That too, very often
tainted with the illegal corrupt blood of politicians and
administrators.
This goon politics must stop. The hypocrisy should stop. Calling a
bandh that is illegal. Paralyzing daily wage workers from earning
their livelihood? And this illegality came politically endorsed!
Shameful.
I hope the Aires/Prajal case will not be just another ten day headline
memory. Our politicos are masters at grabbing the headlines. The media
is made to look, repeatedly, like foolish pawns at the hands of
politicians. Reporting now comes completely without opinion in many
cases. Why? No one wants to suffer the Aires/Prajal fate.
Does this mean that evil has won the battle over good? By our silence,
we are endorsing it. There are many good, honest citizens in Goa.
Where is their voice?
The only solution now is to begin a new political party. We are quite
simply disgusted with the Congress, the BJP and all these "faltu"
political parties who do not have Goans nor Goa's interest at all. We
are sick of politicians who are controlled by Delhi and feed their own
personal greed. By politicians, who know that the best way to national
fame is to begin a scandal by illegal means. We need a political party
that can show the Goan people and the country that we can be a model
state. Towards that end, all the NGO's should join together and work
to getting a new party together.
Despite many successes, these morchas and demonstrations have now
become a monthly ritual. Our attitude of "I have no time for politics"
needs to change. It is time to make the time. To save Goa. We need to
work for a Goan political system that is upright, non-corrupt and
legal in every way.
Let the spadework begin!
--------
The column above appeared in the November 2008 issue of Goa Today magazine.
====
