------------------------------------------------------------------------ Remembering Aquino Braganca (b. 6 April 1924), who fought for freedom of the former Portuguese colonies in Africa. An online tribute http://aquinobraganca.wordpress.com/ (includes many historical references, some photographs and documents)
------------------------------------------------------------------------ GULF-GOANS e-NEWSLETTER (since 1994) THE PRODIGAL SON, THE FATTED CALF AND THE HOLY BULL Apr 4th, 2009 | BY RAJAN NARAYAN The choice in the Lok Sabha elections in the south is between the Holy Bull - Narendra Sawaikar of the BJP, the fatted calf Francisco Sardinha and the prodigal son Matanhy Saldanha. The prodigal son, if he is truly penitent, appears to be the best choice. THE COUNTDOWN for the elections to the two Lok Sabha seats in Goa has begun with the main contenders filing their nominations. The choice before the electorate in South Goa appears to be between the Holy Bull, the Fatted Calf and the Prodigal Son. The situation in North Goa is even more farcical with the main rival to the three-time incumbent BJP Member of Parliament, Shripad Naik being the main facilitator of the Mopa airport, Jitendra Deshprabhu - one of the few so far loyal Congressmen who has joined the NCP to contest the North Goa parliamentary seat as the joint candidate of the Congress-NCP alliance. The losers in the bargain are the people of Goa who have been deprived of the choice of an honest, earnest and conscientious politician like Nirmala Sawant, who was apparently the favoured choice of the NCP High Command for the North Goa parliamentary seat. HOLY BULL THE BJP has always been symbolised by the Holy Bull, not because of the reverence it has professed for the cow as Gomata, but also because of its hypocritically sanctimonious claims to be the upholder of Hindutva. The BJP Holy Bull has a long history of seeking to polarise voters along communal lines with its bullshit of being upholders of the interests of the majority Hindu community, starting with the demolition of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya to the genocide engaged in by Narendra Modi's mindless goons in Gujarat, in the wake of the Godhra tragedy to the latest inflammatory speeches by its newest hate symbol, Varun Gandhi, son of the notorious Sanjay Gandhi of emergency nasbandi infamy. It will be recalled that Sanjay Gandhi, when he was de facto prime minister of the country during the emergency, launched a forcible family planning campaign, which came to be referred to as nasbandi. If one needed any reminder of the genocide against the Muslim minority community launched by Narendra Modi and company, it came with the arrest of the Women and Child Welfare minister in his cabinet, Maya Kodnani, who has belatedly been charged with leading a mob which was allegedly responsible for the death of over a hundred Muslims. Closer home we have seen the lunatic, fanatic face of Hindutva in the molestation of young women in a lounge bar in Mangalore by the Ram Sene, which is headed by Pramod Muthalik, a veteran of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad - one of the key frontal organisations of the BJP. FATTED CALF ONE wishes one could recommend the Congress candidates for the two Lok Sabha seats in Goa, which will be going to the polls on May 23, 2009. Unfortunately, the Congress candidate for South Goa, Francisco Sardinha, has not done anything noteworthy during his tenure as Member of Parliament. He did not even live up to his promise of moving an amendment to the bill relating to cruelty to animals to exempt Goa's traditional bull fights from the purview of the bill. Never mind that the Members of Parliament from Tamil Nadu managed to persuade not only the central government, but even the Supreme Court that the equally dangerous and cruel sport involving bulls in Tamil Nadu, which is part of the Pongal festival, should be partly exempted from the ban on cruelty to animals. Francisco Sardinha, during his brief inglorious tenure as chief minister of Goa, not only sold Goa for the proverbial forty pieces of silver but allegedly favoured devious industrialists and those wanting to set up offshore casinos, allegedly by pandering to his lust. There are no two questions about the fact that the Gambling Act was amended during the tenure of Francisco Sardinha as chief minister to issue a licence to Sunder Advani of Ramada to start an offshore casino where live gaming would be permitted, unlike in the then onshore casinos which were allowed to only put up slot machines. This does not exclude the possibility that Sardinha acted under pressure from the BJP in the state and the Centre because the saffron brigade headed by Manohar Parrikar was his alliance partner in the government. SARDINHA SIN INDEED Sardinha's greatest sin was to give legitimacy to the fundamentalist forces represented by the BJP. It will be recalled that the BJP, headed by Manohar Parrikar, made a backdoor entry to power by aligning with Francisco Sardinha to topple the then Congress government headed by Luizinho Faleiro. It is another matter that, having got his foot into the government, Manohar Parrikar in collusion with another group in the Congress, which included the present Home Minister Ravi Naik and the present Chairman of the Law Commission, Ramakant Khalap, toppled the Sardinha government and captured power in its own right. So much so, Francisco Sardinha is not only guilty of the sin of permitting offshore casinos in Goa but the much greater sin of facilitating the coming to power in Goa of the divisive and communal BJP. Which leaves us with the credentials of the third serious candidate in the fray for the South Goa parliamentary seat, namely the former member of the Legislative Assembly and briefly the tourism minister, Matanhy Saldanha. There was a greater sin of shock and disbelief when Matanhy Saldanha aligned with the saffron brigade and obstinately and adamantly propped up the tottering government headed by Manohar Parrikar. There was a greater sense of shock about Matanhy aligning with the BJP then other Congressmen like Ravi Naik and Ramakant Khalap and a host of others including the current power minister, Aleixo Sequeira, who was one of the contenders for the South Goa Lok Sabha seat aligning with the BJP. MANOHAR PARRIKAR IN fact, the first government headed by Manohar Parrikar comprised largely of Congressmen who had opportunistically defected to the BJP. But there was a greater sense of shock and disbelief about Matanhy joining hands with the BJP because his historical image has always been that of a principled left liberal. In facth the first time I met Matanhy Saldanha was in the late seventies when he was leading an agitation against mechanised trawlers who were seriously affecting the livelihood of the traditional ramponkars. Life has come full circle for Matanhy Saldanha, who is now engaged in the new battle to save the houses and businesses of the traditional fishing communities in Goa, which are threatened by the inflexible attitude of the Minister of Environment and Forests and the courts in the land to the strict implementation of the Coastal Regulation Zone rules. PARABLE ONE of the most widely quoted parables in the Bible is the one about how the fatted calf was killed for the prodigal son. The loyal son was furious as no such honour had been done to him though he had been a good Christian and lived a very pious and honourable life. Unlike the prodigal son, who had presumably broken every one of the Ten Commandments. The logic of killing the fatted calf for the prodigal son comes from Christian theology which argues that one genuinely penitent is superior to several saints. By that logic, if Matanhy Saldanha is genuinely repentant about his stupid support to the communal BJP, he deserves the forgiveness of the predominantly Catholic-dominated South Goa parliamentary constituency. But to deserve the vote of hundreds of his ardent fans, who worked very hard to get him elected to the Legislative Assembly, he should totally and irrevocably distance himself both from the communal BJP and the corrupt Congress. The BJP does not deserve your vote because whatever masks it may wear, every time elections come around the bitter ground reality is that its agenda is to polarise the country along communal lines and demonise and target the minority communities. Don't be deceived by Manohar Parrikar's opportunistic and hypocritical statement calling the Ram Sene a bunch of criminals. Manohar Parrikar is well-known for his deviousness and the fact remains that the seeds of the first ever communal riot that Goa witnessed were sown when the BJP, or more specifically Manohar Parrikar, was in power. It should not be forgotten that it was BJP leaders like Ramrao Desai, Vinay Tendulkar and Manohar Parrikar himself who allegedly instigated a mob, not just against members of the minority community but even against the police. Indeed the report of the district magistrate, Nikhil Kumar, clearly indicts Manohar Parrikar and the saffron brigade in fomenting the first ever communal riot in history of Goa. LOFTY PROMISES REGRETTABLY, the Congress in the state has failed to live up to its Chief Minister's claims that it was committed to the empowerment of the aam aadmi. It is true that Digamber Kamat, under pressure from the Goa Bachao Abhiyan, announced that the Regional Plan 2011 was scrapped, during Pratapsingh Rane's reign as chief minister. It is true that, under pressure from various NGOs including the SEZ Virodh Manch, Digamber Kamat wrote to the Centre to cancel the licenses given to the SEZs and directed the Goa Industrial Development Corporation to cancel the illegal allotment of land to the SEZs, which has again been exposed by the latest report of the Comptroller and Auditor General. But the ground reality is that the Regional Plan 2021 has not yet been finalised. The ground reality is that the demand for the inclusion of the Planning and Development Authorities and the Village Panchayat of Taliegao within the purview of Regional Plan 2021 has not been accepted. The ground reality is that the SEZs continue to be in possession of the land allotted to them and the Union Ministry of Commerce has not yet cancelled the permissions given to the four SEZs, which were approved both by the state and the Centre. The bitter ground reality is that the so called aam aadmi Chief Minister subverted the Supreme Court judgement for the benefit of one khaas aadmi. The aam aadmi Chief Minister has compounded this by retrospectively exempting quarries from having conversion certificates which, in effect, means that the hills of Goa will continue to be decimated at an even faster pace than in the past. So it is difficult for us to recommend that the voter should support Congress candidates in the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections. NORTH GOA THE position is reasonably clear in South Goa. If the prodigal son Matanhy Saldanha is genuinely repentant for aligning himself with the BJP and gives a public assurance that he regrets his mistake and misjudgement and will never again align with any communal forces, may be the voter should consider forgiving him his past transgressions and offer him the fatted calf even if it means rejecting Francisco Sardinha, who is eminently 'rejectable' in any case. The North Goa scene is a little more complicated. Why has the NCP fielded a candidate who has been part of the Congress party all his life and has never defected to any other party? First we need to understand why it is so important for the NCP to contest the elections in Goa. The requirement for being recognised as a national party is that it should have a presence at least in three states and should poll a certain minimum percentage of the votes cast in each state. The NCP insisted on being allotted the North Goa Parliamentary seat because, besides Nagaland and Maharashtra, the only state in which the NCP has some presence or clout is Goa. The fact remains that, though the NCP State President Dr. Wilfred D'Souza could not retain his seat, the NCP won three seats in the last assembly elections in Goa and has two representatives, namely Tourism Minister Mickky Pacheco and Revenue Minister Jose Phillip D'Souza in the cabinet. It was, in fact, Mickky and Jose Philip D'Souza who lobbied with the NCP High command to give the NCP ticket for the North Goa parliamentary seat to Nirmala Sawant. But powerful, vested interests within the Congress, which includes Cumbarjua MLA Pandurang Madkaikar, who is part of the Babush gang in the Legislative Assembly, were against the ticket going to Nirmala Sawant. The NCP was in a dilemma. It was formally allotted the ticket for the North Goa Parliamentary seat in the seat sharing arrangement between the Congress and the NCP. But its candidate, Nirmala Sawant, was not acceptable to its alliance partner, the Congress. The compromise solution that was allegedly engineered by the Civil Aviation Minister, Praful Patel, was to offer the NCP ticket for the North Goa Parliamentary seat to Jitendra Deshprahu, provided he resigned from the Congress and joined the NCP. The Congress had nothing to lose because Deshprabhu is not a member of the Assembly and cannot affect the delicate balance of power in the Assembly. It is alleged that the NCP, or more specifically the Civil Aviation minister Praful Patel, decided that Deshprabhu should be the candidate for North Goa in return for his contribution in facilitating the Mopa Airport, in which both the NCP chief Sharad Pawar and the Civil Aviation Minister, Praful Patel, have allegedly vested interests. It is a case of Hobson's choice in the case of the North Goa Parliamentary seat. We are not in favour of voters supporting Shripad Naik, though he is a humble and simple man, because he is, at the end of the day, part of the saffron brigade. Nor are we in favour of Deshprabhu, who has not made any significant contribution to Goa in all these years in public life. The best bet in North Goa may be comrade Christopher Fonseca, who is the only one who has been fighting the causes of the working class in the state. TO READ THE GOAN OBSERVER ONLINE AND TO SUBSCRIBE VISIT http://goanobserver.com/ or write to: GOAN OBSERVER Panchal, Lane No. 6, La Campala Colony, Miramar-Panaji, Goa - 403001. Ph. 0832- 2465615 or 2465882 Email: goanobser...@yahoo.co.uk or goanobser...@hotmail.com