Lead article published in oHeraldo on Dec. 25, 2023
Noisy nights, Unholy nights, All is rowdy, All is lawless…
The winter chill of Goa’s yesteryears is terribly missing this Christmas season, a warning that even nature cannot withstand the greed and violence under the garb of development and progress. For all official purposes, December 25 is now ‘Good Governance Day’ for this government and Christmas is just another of those tourism events to harvest profits for the industry and peanuts for the bankrupt State coffers. For the larger community disoriented by chronic consumerism and materialism, Christmas is nothing beyond a competitive display of Christmas trees, lights, cribs, sweets, Santa Claus riding a reindeer sleigh loaded with gifts and revelry.
Goa’s once calm and serene atmosphere is disrupted by boorish tourists who care a damn for the feelings and sentiments of the local people. The silent night is now shattered by high decibel sound blasts from music events, fireworks and screaming, giving sleepless nights to residents around. After dark the roads are no more safe for locals to hop out of their homes to meet relatives and friends as rented cars and bikes run amuck. The law-abiding culture and God fearing Goykarponn has been overrun by an unholy ‘raj’ which respects no law. Governance has failed to the extent that the High Court is compelled to step in and restore the rule of law. By no standards can Goa’s Christmas atmosphere be considered joyful and peaceful for the common Goan.
No room for Goans to live peacefully
Goans are pushed into a self-imposed house arrest during every festival season with life and limb threatening mayhem on the streets. Instead of regulating the tourist footfalls during the festive season, the Chief Minister is shameless enough to tell Goans not to keep their vehicles off the roads during the Christmas season to avoid traffic jams. The government does not see the need to crack the whip on noise pollution, drug and alcohol menace, sex trade and dirty driving on roads. Instead, the Tourism minister is more concerned with protecting the brand image of Goa’s tourism from social media influencers who expose the vulgarity and lawlessness. Securing the lives and ensuring peace for local residents does not seem to be a priority for the minister.
The traditional community spaces where Goans would congregate to socialise and recreate are now colonized by the tourism department. Community spaces used for recreation and relaxation are hired out to private players. Every inch of community open space is concretised by the government to build sports complexes, convention centres, parking lots, theme parks and the rest. Citizens are left choking for want of clean air, thirsting for water, blinded from frequent power failures and crippled due to the absence of a decent and affordable public transport and safe footpaths. Government policies keep getting smarter with Goans increasingly finding themselves alienated in their own land.
The bluff of generating employment for locals can be seen from the hordes of cheap migrant workforce, vulnerable to all sorts of labour exploitation, being hired by the industry. Leaving aside meagre salaries and the escalating costs of living in Goa, what goes unnoticed is the growing housing crisis with no affordable land for housing available for low and lower middle income Goans. Huge parcels of land are snatched from communities and auctioned or gifted by the government to the fatted vultures from Bharat under the garb of investment and infra promotion. Goans are being driven into opting for foreign citizenship to afford a dignified and decent living.
Herodism and Caesarism in politics
Christmas is about God’s liberating intervention against the evils of the Herods and Caesars who abuse political power to enslave citizens. The political bondage and slavery has become far more sophisticated and pronounced when compared to those times. Technological advances enable a corrupt and despotic government to dodge accountability and terrorise citizens into submission citing national security concerns. Citizens who resist the evil governments are jailed by framing false charges of conspiracy and terrorism and curtailing of fundamental rights. Women and children are not safe from political lunatics who are blind to reason, with increasing instances of abuse, rapes and even burning victims to destroy evidence.
Fake news and fudged economic data is force fed to the masses to create an atmosphere of ‘All is well’ and about a ‘GDP zooming’ towards a five trillion economy. Universities are increasingly being controlled to drive political agendas and education appears to be reduced to breeding a ‘praja’ which looks up to the politicians as ‘mahapurush’ and ‘vishwaneta’. History is being rewritten to weaponise the nostalgia of a glorious past, with a ‘the nation is great again’ illusion weaved into minds that are disabled to think critically by ideological echo chambers in every sphere. This in short is what the overall social and political situation looks like this Christmas.
A Holy Christmas evades Goa
The celebration of Christmas in Goa has to move out from a closeted manger of denial about the horrific reality which beats around the Christmas tree, and is lost in stargazing, carolling and riding with Santa Claus. The search for the messiah has to be amidst the cruelty and chaos of this twenty-first century. Perhaps what Christmas is about in 2023 has been wonderfully depicted by a Church in Jerusalem with the nativity scene of Mary and Joseph searching for the baby Jesus amidst debris and rubble in a war ravaged Gaza. A Christmas celebration which refuses to call out the social injustices around is hypocrisy. A Christmas lost in merry making has to move towards a Holy Christmas which attempts to decipher the role for each individual in God’s salvific mission for these turbulent times.
(The Writer was a Counsellor at a Drug Prevention and De-addiction Centre in Goa)
https://www.heraldgoa.in/Edit/Opinions/A-%E2%80%98Messy%E2%80%99-Christmas-in-Goa/215662
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