Lead Article published in oHeraldo on July 25, 2022
The last one decade has witnessed rapid political decay and devastating infrastructure development in Goa. The results are rampant corruption, massive damage to the age-old ecosystems and threat to the security and future of Goans. The in-migration resulting from new economic policies and haphazard development has not brought in any value addition to the quality of Goan life. Instead, it has imported the social evils and developmental disasters prevalent in other States. There is something seriously wrong if, even after the widespread floods and landslides due to incessant rains coupled with the mounting garbage dumps, congested roads, collapsing infrastructure and rising crimes, Goans have still not got the message of what awaits them in future and the need for protecting their rightful space as natives. A tiny and highly ecologically fragile State admeasuring 3,702 sq kms cannot afford to remain the playground for power drunks and corporate hounds. With such disruptive model of governance being allowed to prosper, Goans will soon be marginalised in their own State.
The illusion of corruption-free governance sold to the people since 2012 is demonstrated in Goa’s fatal road conditions, which was never before witnessed even during the peak of alleged Congress corruption. The palliative-like response with disaster management plans and relief is definitely no justice for the havoc inflicted from the mindless rampage by govt projects. What is required is crisis minimisation and prevention models of development. Ministers and MLAs visiting the disaster-stricken villages as a formality will not remedy the situation. Disaster management offers more scope for corruption. The irony is that the victims get compensated with money pinched from their own pockets through taxes and the plunder of their common property resources to benefit the 1% rich class, under the pretext of generating employment and improving the standard of living.
The government is busy entertaining the nation with freedom from open defecation, when actually democracy’s need of the hour is for freedom from the daylight political defections and corruption. The stench from political defections and corruption is far unhealthier and degrading for society than open defecation. For every tragedy scripted by this government there is a compromised intellectual elite hired along with the lapdog media to justify, project and rationalise these blunders as being progressive, and showing the critical and protesting public to be liars and traitors. As the American actor and comedian Robin Williams had said of politicians, “You will have bad times, but they will always wake you up to the stuff you weren’t paying attention to.”
With the bluff about a 2G and coal scam getting exposed, the government now has nothing else but to exaggerate the horrors of the emergency, when actually the current undeclared emergency and attack on freedom of expression, the hounding of the Opposition and the capture of democratic institutions is far worse. Never has the religious divide been so brazenly justified by governments in the past. Unfortunately, political parties desperate to snatch the political space from the Congress party have been feeding on this rot. The scourge of defections afflicting the Congress could happen to any major Opposition party under a tyrannical regime which employs every dirty trick in the book. The very pan-India presence of Congress and its choking with leadership accumulated down the years naturally makes the crisis appear huge. The actual threat to the Opposition comes more from the distracted and vulnerable electorate which considers social media rumours and tailored propaganda as truth and its refusal to learn from history, only to keep repeating the mistakes from the past with the belief that this is political change.
The Goan society is fragmented and disorientation has set in whereby Truth and the Voice of Reason are no more appreciated. Goans are seen taking solace in the nostalgia of the past to deny their crumbling present. This societal crisis may be better understood in the backdrop of the ‘Karpman’s Triangle’ which broadly puts dysfunctional roles into 3 categories - Persecutor, Victim and Rescuer. Each role is egoistic and indulges in scapegoating to obtain its share of egoic payoff. Toxic activism brings no significant change on ground. The insanity is such that the people elect shady politicians to public office, and expect them to provide pro-people and environment-friendly governance. The decay is more pronounced when on one hand the Opposition is expected to floor the government for the excesses, but the same civil society fails to stand up to defend its elected Opposition which faces an assault from a tyrannical regime.
Goa’s problem is not about clean or dirty politics, nor about loyalty or defections. It’s probably that the electorate is now as sick as the politicians they elect. The recent media report about a minister claiming that “politicians, who are not mentally stable, defect” may actually be a call to look at the socio-political crisis as not just a consequence of a system failure and deficient laws, but also from a possible mental health crisis. Polish psychologist Andrzej Lobaczewski studying the relationship between power and personality disorders coined the term ‘Pathocracy’ to describe the phenomenon, ‘wherein a small pathological minority takes control of a society of normal people.’ As long as money, caste, religion and muscle win elections, and not character, the replacement of political faces will neither reduce corruption nor prevent defections. The games played by disordered politicians and a co-dependent electorate have to stop. The reversal has to begin by rejecting the pathocracy we endorse through our political choices and the politician worship which follows thereafter. The panchayat election offers a good opportunity to bring back sanity in politics.
(The author is a social activist who has been a member of the panchayat and has worked in creating awareness on the issue of local self-governance)
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