AN OPEN LETTER TO SMT. SONIA GANDHI

AN OPEN LETTER TO SMT. SONIA GANDHI

Madam,

Welcome to Goa, the once acclaimed 'Rome of the East' which has now been transformed into a 'Sin City for Feast' and a popular destination for dacoits, gamblers, boozers, women traffickers, drug peddlers, money launderers and of course real estate speculators. All this has been possible through the secretive and mindless Five Year Plans of the Government of India which have been used to arm twist this tiny State into submission and subjugation for those few crores of rupees vital for its survival. With every passing day, this once beautiful destination known for its sea, sands, hills, forests, culture and its hospitable people is fast degenerating into a haven of stinking sewers, slums, ugly high rises, bumpy roads, congested bye-lanes and all the unpleasant and unhealthy atmosphere that one could encounter in some of India's thriving metros. It is most unfortunate that Goa's planners cannot distinguish a creek from a nullah, a forest from an orchard, a hill from a plain and a river from a stream.

I recall your promise of providing something called a 'Special Status' to Goa during your last visit to Goa in 2009 to campaign for your party's candidate in the Lok Sabha polls. I hardly know what your concept of Special Status for Goa actually involves. Whether it is meant to protect the natural beauty, culture and communal harmony of Goa or, whether it is about a Special Economic package that many of your Congress politicians will be too eager to squander. If your Special Status is meant to protect and preserve Goa and the Goan interests, then it better be done on a war-footing as the script for Goa's annihilation by 2021 has just been finalised and notified by the Congress controlled State Government. It has been thrown open for further lethal alterations under that treacherous section 17 of the Goa Town and Country Planning Act, 1975.

So, while the Congress Government in Goa pays to capture those thousand smiles on the occasion of the Golden Jubilee of Goa's liberation, there are a million tears of Goans that are sought to be covered up with a lots of artificial make-up and distractions of song and dance. As the roads bleed with speeding mining trucks rushing to get a chunk of that global export pie, innocent and tender lungs get choked with dust. The stench of piling garbage fills the air in the villages. High rises block the view of that once beautiful horizon. The fascinating hills get torn down and the low lands get filled. The mosquitoes have a field day promoting their malaria and filaria programs. And we cannot forget the fascist fringe even within the Congress Party that contributes to Goa's problems by denying the people their fundamental rights to free expression. This all makes Goans to get depressed and angry after 50 years of empty words and promises.

To conclude I would like to draw your attention to those precious words of Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru during his first visit to Goa in May 1963 when he said: " We do not want to impose anything from the top, which would be unjust to you. I have repeatedly said that we wish to keep Goa separate. The reason for this is Goa's history, shaped over hundreds of years. It is not proper to change it suddenly. We have decided to keep Goa separate. If anything is to be changed, that shall be decided by Goans alone. We shall not do anything from the top. I hope this territory will remain separate. I trust that it will itself shape the type of life it wants to live."

Madam, have the Government's laws and policies, imposed on us Goans without our free and informed choice for the last 50 years, allowed that freedom and scope to shape our destinies as a separate and unique State after we returned to the embrace of our Mother Land, India?

Yours Sincerely,

Soter D'Souza
Socorro, Goa