The commemoration of the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, the Apostle of non-violence and Village Self-Rule, passed off on October 2 as yet another formality or a mere political spectacle. The Special Gram-Sabhas across Goa’s villages were systematically diverted away from what Gandhiji’s Gram Swaraj was all about by the State Government to a discussion on the Gram Panchayat Development Plan (GPDP), which is about nothing beyond a desperation to corner the finances under the Union Government’s Fourteenth Finance Commission guidelines.
For some it became an occasion for showcasing their beloved Prime Minister, Ministers and MLAs. Goans on social media remained disconnected from the relevance of this day with the usual slander and abuse against politicians and the forensic department’s authorities over the novel issue of a disappearing corpse of a young lad from GMC’s mortuary. For con-tivists, Gandhiji’s statue became an umbrella for self-promotion, unmindful of the basics of ‘Satyagraha’ (holding on to Truth) in its non-violent options of civil disobedience and non-cooperation movements. And not surprisingly, the triumph of justice in the release of journalist and social activist Gautam Navlakha, who was one among the five intellectuals arrested by the State on allegations of inciting the Bhima Koregaon violence, by the Delhi HC on the eve of Gandhi Jayanti did not seem to fascinate the revolutionaries.
Given this confused state of Goan society, it is probably stupid for us to expect any rationality, vision and honesty in civil society responses on any politically relevant issue. In a crisis stricken society, abnormal politics has induced a condition of submissiveness to political abuse and a bloated ego in the Goan masses. Given the toxic political climate prevalent across the country, destructive political behaviour is also getting perceived as revolutionary and progressive in Goa. This is why the Goykars remain fixated with hounding politicians and migrants and resist any self-introspection about their own role in this pathetic state of affairs. The Goykars seem to forget that their political representatives in government have not fallen from heaven or sprung out from the earth. A government gets elected through a democratic process every five years. And so, the political mind-sets and behaviors of Goa’s elected representatives, whether at the State or village level, can be said to represent the mind-set of the majority of voters. In a way, the present deviant politics could also be a manifestation of the depraved state of Goan society from which such politicians emerge. The very fact that politicians with dubious backgrounds and known to have contempt for the people’s mandate by switching sides for selfish motives continue to be popular among voters only confirms the moral bankruptcy within the society.
In this climate of deviant Goykarponn, there exists almost no scope for a rational discourse on the political reality. It’s all about a delirious rhetoric of bhailo-bhitorlo and goykar-ghanti, perceptions driven by a politician-bureaucrat-corporate-activist nexus. Issues regarding controversial laws and governance policies which ought to have been tackled collectively are deviously contained in localised initiatives. Rationality, moderation and gratitude no longer exist in Goykarponn. It’s about exploitative relationships like the famous Konkani proverb says, “kam zalem voiz melo” the equivalent of ‘use and throw’. Gandhiji had said, “nothing is so easy as to train mobs, for the simple reason that they have no mind, no meditation.” Digital technology has doubled this ease of ‘ul’loo banoing’ of the masses. This is probably the reason why Goa, unlike other southern States, despite its 84 percent literacy rate has failed to produce ideologues, luminaries and intellectuals who have the ability to rally a sizeable public opinion across all sections of society for any collective political action whenever the situation warrants. This is how an exclusive club of the politician-activist merchants, which employs the right-wing tactic of multiplication of fronts to obfuscate, divide, derail and prevent realistic outcomes, can ensure that sanity in political discourse does not emerge within civil society and upset the status quo. Even the Gram Sabhas have not been spared from such games to blackmail and extort. For many Goykars, it has become a challenge to maintain their own sanity amidst the undignified and lunatic outbursts under the guise of preserving Goykarponn.
Goa is bleeding from a social and political delinquency and dysfunctionality. The Goan people’s cry for clean and honest candidates in politics when juxtaposed with voter thinking and behaviour patterns appears paradoxical. Amidst such political dysfunctionality, those who fore-warn against the dubiousness in slogans like ‘parivartan’, anti-corruption, special status and Goykarponn can only expect to face rejection as being anti-Goan, and enemies of change. To expect persons with dignity and integrity to contest elections in such a deviant political environment, wherein winnability wrests in a culture of splashing money by sponsoring events, flashy advertisements, masquerading as social activist, protecting illegalities, making populistic promises to gain acceptance and voters behaving as if they are doing a personal favour by voting, is preposterous.
Goa’s struggle for survival will have to see Goans treating political issues as outcomes of a depraved mental state in society which then manifests in destructive actions, but gets perceived as being constructive. The deviant political climate cannot be corrected by populist, unethical and judicial activism and an unruly cyber mob screaming hoarse on social media. Political perceptions floating around are not necessarily factual. The focus needs to be on cultivating a morally and rationally sound thinking and behaviour among citizens in relation to political governance. It is here that Gandhiji’s spiritual path of ‘satyagraha’, which for him “was a process of educating public opinion, such that it covers all the elements of the society and in the end makes itself irresistible”, becomes relevant for any initiative to save Goa.
(The author is a social worker)
https://www.heraldgoa.in/Edit/Opinions/Not-the-Goan-we-used-to-know/137909.html
http://epaper.heraldgoa.in/viewpage.php?edition=oHeraldo&date=2018-10-25&edid=OHERALDO_GOA&pn=6#Page/6/Article/OHERALDO_GOA_20181025_6_2/272px/1F11BDC
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