Below is the reply to Arwin Mesquita's letter to Editor of GT. The reply has
been published in GT today 13/7/2010
Sir,
The Catholics in Goa have much to ponder upon as pointed out by Arwin
Mesquita, UAE in the letter to Editor titled 'Answer within' which was
published in GT (12/07/10). The Catholics of Goa have time and again been
dubbed anti-nationals, goons and immoral by some enlightened forces within
goan society. Now the catholic perspective by Mr. mesquita shows that they
pray, fast, teach their children right from wrong, and then in hypocrisy do
the very opposite.
Looking back to the time of liberation from Portuguese rule, it is perhaps
fair to question the political morality of the Catholic community in Goa
ever since. They were never in favour of the pro-merger political party, the
MGP which ruled Goa for over 20 years, and were terribly wrong in opposing
Goa's merger into Maharashtra in the 1968 Opinion Poll. Thereafter, it were
these Catholics who demanded that konkani be made the official language of
Goa at the cost of marathi. Soon thereafter, the Catholics demanded
Statehood which was an even bigger mistake. It was the catholic community
that took an anti-national stance in opposing the present Konkan Railway
alignment that brings in hordes of migrants and criminals every day and they
were unpatriotic by not purchasing bonds floated by the KRC and marketed by
BJP and MGP. As if this was not enough, the Catholics worked against
development of the State by opposing the setting up of the meta-strips plant
at Verna and the Nylon 66 plant at Keri. The latest blunder committed in
2007 was to oppose the Regional Plan 2011. These hypocritical Catholics
just disrupt the Gram Sabhas and oppose the mega projects which hampers
village development and progress and causes tremendous loss to builders and
contractors. The 20 or 30 percent of goan catholic voters have brought
nothing but political disaster to the State of Goa by sending 13 Catholic
MLAs ( merely 32% ) to the 40 member Legislative Assembly. Catholics have
time and again acted hyprocritical inspite of being in a minority and done
the very opposite of what other goan communities have wanted since
liberation, thus setting a bad example. Isn't it so, Mr. Mesquita?
Perhaps, as rightly pointed out by Mr. Mesquita, Catholics now need to
consider a new beginning, after all the mistakes of the past 50 years, and
stop / avoid being pro-active.
-Soter D'souza
