Protest is no fun sport
DEVIL'S ADVOCATE / By Frederick Noronha
It's time someone called the bluff of Goan industry. GCCI
chief Nitin Kuncolienkar, otherwise an amiable person in his
own right, is stretching things a bit to far by blaming a
disgusted citizenry for the many protests that have come up
in a much-hyped but poorly-administered State.
Kuncolienkar, speaking at the Goa Chambers of Commerce and
Industry's centenary closing, made it seem as if protesting
is fun. Almost some kind of activity people take on when they
lack better entertainment in life.
After playing the role of cheer-leader to
government after corrupt (and even communal)
government, the GCCI needs to do some introspection
itself. It needs to ask bluntly why governance has
turned so un-accountable in a State which otherwise
has everything in its favour.
Yes, part of the protests are politically engineered. We have
politicians -- from the Opposition and ruling benches too! --
who are quick to see opportunity in the woes of the people.
But even this wouldn't be possible if the people weren't angry.
We need to start by asking why a State with all the human
talent has to so continually get down in protest. Isn't it
because our politicians have long ceased to represent the
people's in whose name they speak? Or have got deeply caught
up in the politics of lobbies, including the interests of
industry and commerce -- leaving very little difference
between the significant parties? Or, isn't it because
everyone who has some clout, industry too, simply looks after
their own short-term interest, leaving the rest to the devil?
Industry, like other lobbies past and present, is a
virtual permanent government in Goa too. It has
authority without responsibility, something it
accuses the protestors of too.
Every government in Goa, from the early 1960s, has been
extremely business-friendly. This is part of the problem.
Lobbies' interests get precedence over the common-man's.
Always. Industry can go about ghost-writing policy, and then
blaming the politicians when things go wrong.
It is also time someone questioned the industry-equals-jobs,
and jobs-equal-prosperity logic that both industry and our
politicians repeatedly sprout. In Goa's case, this is simply
not true, specially as the industries promoted is in serious
mismatch with available skills. Or willingness to take on the
jobs on offer at salaries on offer.
Development, in Goa, has been defined as providing
roads, electricity and water supply. Dig deeper,
and you find that the government is actually
primarily promoting industrial growth, in the name
of development. No wonder bodies like the GCCI are
thrilled about this.
Side by side, rural livelihoods are getting decimated. Take
the case of agriculture, traditional salt-pans,
non-mechanised fishing, and the entire till-recently
sustainable rural economy. Even if these are old-fashion
jobs, what are people to do till they acquire skills to join
the smoke-stack economy we are unquestioningly rushing into?
Konkani poet Shashikant Punaji underlines the point strongly.
His writing reminds us that the plight of rural Goa is not
just a middle-class Catholic obsession, as sometimes made out
to be. In one of his poem, 'Mhozo Ganv', he says (in
translation):
In my village
Ticks a time-bomb
When it might burst
I just don't know
The time is near
But nobody cares.
My village
Has got dissolved
In a tin of
artificial,
powdered milk
Its shepherds search
For a stud bull
to impregnate the cows
They await in hope,
wearing tattered rags,
And hoping for signs of hope.
Yet in the cow-shed,
there is no yoke,
There is no cow-dung
to slap on the floor,
And when there's cow-dung,
not even a worm
dances in it....
My village somehow
got lost,
as I searched for my job.
But that's not all.
Those left behind,
are starving too....
>From my childhood,
I ate its nourishment.
But today, I try instead
factory-made vitamins
to get my vitality back.
My village
has got
powered and diluted
in the grinding stone
of 'development'....
* * *
UNLIKE INDUSTRY ELSEWHERE, in Goa we find a lobby largely
un-shackled by any social conscience. We are yet to find
home-grown Azim Premjis and Narayan Murthys, who realise a
country or a state can't get ahead when such a large section
is deprived. Where do concepts like a 'social contract' fit
in, as far as Goa's industry goes?
As if that is not enough, Kuncolienkar blames protest for
halting new industry from coming to Goa. Yet, the local
captains of industry will not raise their voice against other
probably more crucial factors -- corruption and a
bureaucratic state -- that paralyses and penalises any
legitimate industry wanting to set up base honestly here.
When development gets reduced to building
industrial infrastructure, naturally the many
losers in the game -- the common people -- are
going to protest. Ditto when local resources,
specially land, get siphoned off to the powerful.
So why bluff ourselves that the protest we're
seeing today is mere drama?
Most of the time, Goa is sidelining the projects that could
take its people ahead. (We have a university which chief
ministers have criticised; yet nobody listened when its
setting-up was being questioned by 'protesters'. Hot-mix
roads repeatedly re-done may be great for contractors, but
isn't there better ways to waste money? Bridges, new coastal
roads, flyovers, bypasses, subways -- these have become ways
to splurge money or gift valuable land to building speculators.)
At times, when Goa does get a potentially-useful project,
does it need to be turned into a land-scam, a mega-project or
just another tool to siphon away millions? (Take the Konkan
Railway, which is a long, long way from the number of trains
and passengers it promised to run or carry. Sports
'playgrounds' in villages could turn into rackets to build
shopping complexes in fields.)
Unless the GCCI is willing to tackle such issues
head on, it would live in deception. Ironically,
when Rane was chief minister in the 1980s, he used
to be dismissive about how few citizens were
raising protests over the over-promotion of
tourism. Today, the boot is on the other foot, and
snowballing protest is a cause for concern.
People won't oppose the social infrastructure they need. Yes,
a politician or two might successfully manipulate issues for
awhile -- but not all times. Let's consider, for a moment,
the possibility that Goa (and its 'permanent' government) is
failing to work in the genuine interest of the citizen. If
you have an open mind on this premise, is there any surprise
over why we have so many protests spurt from all sides?
--
FN is a columnist and writer based in Goa. This column was
published in the Herald.
