Goa without Goans? (Herald)

[Editorial In Herald dtd. 09/06/2014]

A good number of Goans will be left confused with Environment Minister Alina Saldanha’s statement that 20 years from now she sees ‘Goa without Goans.’ Many would not know what to make of this statement,  whether it is an off the cuff regret of the existential reality, or a prognostication of an inevitable future. Goans would alternatively wonder whether this is a private apology, which Goans may express among themselves, or a public acceptance of the inability as a minister in government that nothing can be done to avoid Goa hurtling down this disastrous course of self destruct. 

Even Matanhy Saldanha, the spirited minister of public causes, during his latter days admitted in private that things are really bad and Goans have been marginalized in the march of the kind of development that we have adopted in our motherland. It is one thing to admit such things in private and quite another to lose the battle in the mind, es pecially statements are made in public, when one is in a position of power and has the critical leverage to substantially alter the course of events to avoid this possibility.

The statement of the environment minister reignites the debate of special status within the now agreed position that ‘it should mean enacting of such restrictive land laws that would constrain the purchase of land in Goa by non Goans, especially agricultural and farm lands and enacting of laws to protect the cultural, ethnic and linguistic heritage of Goa.’ The statement also reignites the debate on whether Goa when taken over/claimed by India in 1961 was bullied into accepting Indian dominion without any concessions such as those procured by Jammu and Kashmir and Puducherry. It reignites the debate how the first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru only recognized the unique identity of Goa and the need to preserve it in his utterances but did not enact legislation to protect Goan identity. Nehru’s two historic statements on Goan soil on 22nd May 1963, that “Goa has a distinct personality and we have recognized it…No agitation against it will be of any purpose” and “I do not understand the agitation for Marathi being recognized as the principal language of Goa or Goa to be integrated with Maharashtra. There can be no doubt that Marathi was and is largely in use in Goa. It will continue to be so and would no doubt be encouraged in every way. Konkani is, I believe very widely spoken in Goa…” stated the position of the Central government very succinctly just after Goa’s integration into the Indian Union, but Nehru did not effect any legislative instruments to protect the either the identity or the language of Goa. This is of course not discounting the fact that this great leader was under serious international and debilitating domestic pressures. But the major reason for the ‘gross historical blunder’ of not according special status to Goa could have been his untimely death, soon after integration of Goa. 

Fast forward to 2012 election, political parties were bending over to work for special status for Goa, but two years later, no drums are beating for special status. The incumbent state government and Prime Minister Narendra Modi have to now redeem the pledge made here, during the Goa leg of the 2014 Lok Sabha campaign, that special status would be accorded to Goa. Now that the BJP government is in place with a resounding mandate and both seats were given to the BJP by the electorate, it is time that Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar revisit the debate on the substance and form of special status and urge Modi to do so, not only to protect the material interests of Goans, but ensure their very survival.

Rather than paint a fearful scenario, the environment minister on her part should take the lead, as Matanhy Saldanha would have, and urge the chief minister and her cabinet colleagues to enact legislation within the state government’s power and tailor laws and augment development, to protect the interests of Goans and simultaneously ensure that Goa is granted special status by the Centre at the earliest.

http://www.oheraldo.in/newscategory/Edit/15