The Accidental Activist - The Other Accidental Activists By Venita Coelho
The editor of a reputed paper wrote a column the other day disparaging the 'protest industry' and claiming that activists earned money off it and simply protested for the sake of protesting. I'd like to introduce you to some of the other accidental activists that I have got to know and respect. And I'd like you to judge if they are honourable citizens with Goa's interests at heart or canny mercenaries as the attempt to label them claims. When I wandered into the GBA offices indignant over the Regional Plan 2012 and offering my help to fight it, the first person I bumped into was Dean D'Cruz. Dean is a well known architect. He was well aware that opposing the regional plan would bring him up against the builders lobby - from who he earned his living. In the months after GBA was launched, Dean lost client after client. He chose to smile and make awful puns about the situation. For a year we camped at Deans office, drank his tea, used his computers and printers, and made his staff run around on activist work. We're still there. Dean himself put in endless time, turning down work, bringing his profession to a virtual standstill while he helped us understand the maps and the issues at stake. Ritu Prasad is a colleague of Dean's and an architect. She is one of the most passionate activists that I know. She put all her work on hold for more than a year, managing god knows how, while she hit the streets to explain the RP2012. Her daughter has grown up on the fight, Ritu explaining things at child's eye view to her. When it was finally revoked, she asked 'Mama have we won against the bad guys?' Unfortunately all we naive idiots were to learn that the fight is never over. It goes on and on and on. You end up putting your time, your money and your life into it. Reboni Saha is an industrial designer. To her we owe the booklet that explained the RP2021 to villages and showed them how to respond. As secretary to the GBA Reboni struggled with varied viewpoints, and tried her best to manage assorted egos. A completely thankless task. There was no way that you could keep everyone happy. And yet she kept going even when she was made the target of a vicious personal attck in the papers. I have seen her stay at her desk working till ten and eleven every night endlessly. Sabina Martins is a teacher. She runs harassed between teaching, Bailancho Saad and the GBA. When each of us burnt out in turn and quit for a bit, it was Sabina who just kept going on. She single handedly got down a team of experts from Kerala to teach us socio economic planning. She herself headed down to Kerala to learn more. An average week for her includes burning effigies outside the Casinos, attending GBA meetings, organizing workshops and correcting exam papers. Patricia Pinto is soft spoken and gentle. And yet when she stood in front of a rain tree to protect it, she sparked the movement that was to end in the formation of the GBA. She and Ritu sat in the library going through all the Gazettes, painstakingly tracing land conversions and pinning down questionable ones. I mean ALL. They covered every single government gazette since the time Goa was declared a state. A Herculean task that went unacknowledged like most activist work does. Closer home in Moira, Vizilia D'Sa is another single mother with two sons. I have seen her write reams of applications to the BDO and the Mamlatdar, while juggling tutoring children, and managing her house. And yet she finds time to help any villager who goes to her for advice. These are just a very few of the many many colleagues on whose effort the activist movement in Goa has kept going. Miguel is a horticulturist. Annand is a businessman. Aaron is a college student. Oscar is a doctor. Just ordinary people driven to protest the destruction of what they hold dear. We would all of us love to know exactly where the money that runs this so called 'protest industry' lies. We could all do with reimbursement for all that we have paid out of pocket. Not least for the time that everyone has put in unstintingly. As for protesting just for the sake of protesting - next no doubt we can expect a column praising the wonderful things mining is doing for Goa. Or will it be a PR piece for the building lobby extolling the wonderful job they are doing converting the countryside to concrete? Hmm - one suspects that there is indeed money in the protest industry, but not on the activist side of it. (ENDS) =========================================================================== The above article appeared in the September 8, 2009 edition of the Herald, Goa