Goa's Nandigram (January 5, 2010)

It can happen only here in Goa!

For the state's administration, a quasi-judicial order of a lowly Deputy Collector is more sancrosant than that of the land's highest court -- The Supreme Court of India. So, demolition orders issued by the Apex Court can be trampled or overturned with introspection, retrospection and what have you, but those issued by a Deputy Collector cannot!

Some months ago, the controversial Deputy Collector of Bicholim, DH Kenaudekar, declared nine structures in Poriem -- five homes and four cowsheds -- illegal, in a quasi-judicial proceeding that could easily make it to the Guiness Book for being the fastest ever. Weeks after that, the local panchayat moved heaven and earth to demolish the structures, but due to stiff physical resistance by the community there, the draconian move got shelved. But not for long. On New Year's eve, a heartless administration bull-dozed the structures and with it reduced to rubble the life, the dreams and the world of five cattle and goat-rearing Dhangar families, some of who have occupied the land for three generations!

Switch over to Dona Paula. Laws of the land are trampled to build a swanky hotel. Three tiers of the mainstream judiciary -- lower judiciary, High Court and Supreme Court -- take almost two decades to adjudicate and finally conclude that illegalities were indeed involved. The judiciary rules that a major portion of it has to be demolished but there's no sign that the hotel is coming down. On the contrary, Goa's bunch of 40 elected representations who make up our legislature engage in a frenzied bout of introspection and retrospection, in one of the most brazen of confrontations with the judciary to bring to naught the Supreme Court's demolition orders.

Bottom line? In Poriem, the structures belonged to Dhangars, and so, they had to be demolished in quick time. As for Dona Paula, we all know to whom the hotel belongs. So, the Digambars, the Parrikars, the Ranes, the Alemaos, the D'Souzas and the Sequeiras, had no choice but to nakedly submit to the colour of money and save the hotel at all costs, even if it meant confronting the land's highest court.

Oh, how I wished Rahul Gandhi had decided to spend the night of December 31, 2009, at one of these five Dhangar homes in Poriem-Sattari!

All for GIM?!?

What on earth was the urgency for the state administration to raze the Dhangar homes without even affording the aggrieved a chance to exercise their fundemental right to a judicial appeal in the civil courts? Obviously, the crown prince of Sattari. Apparently, Baba, who reportedly has Papa's blessings, wants the land to relocate Goa Institute of Management (GIM) on a sprawling campus there. And who dare question him?

Not sure whether the patriach of GIM, Fr Romualdo de Souza, SJ, or for that matter Chico D'Lima, the current head-honcho at GIM would approve of a campus for the CEOs of tomorrow with the shattered dreams of the poorest of poor Dhangars burried underneath. But Baba has spoken and GIM it is that will be built there, come what may.

All the ingredients in this inhuman saga for a sequel to Nandigram, but there won't be one. Pray! There hasn't been even a squeal. Not from the otherwise pow-wohing Leader of Opposition, Manohar Parrikar, nor from any of the blue, white and brown-collared holier-than-thou activists who man the many abhiyans, leaving the poor Dhangars with only Goa's 'Big Goenkar' Rajendra Kerkar, left to raise a solitary voice on their behalf. And, Kerkar is no Mamata!

Less spoken of the media the better, which has been sleeping, perhaps sunburnt and still recovering from the Christmas-New Year hangover. Barring a couple of vernacular dailies, GT and the Goa avataar of the Old Lady of Boribunder in which Rajendra Kerkar himself wrote, not one account of the developments on 'Demolition Day' came out from Sattari. On the contrary, large sections of the media reported how the Prince's harems soothed the wounds of the Dhangars and built them alternate homes for which they should perhaps be nominated for the next Nobel.

Let me conclude thus: "The day we see the truth and cease to speak the truth, is the day we begin to die"-- Martin Luther King Jr.

Cricket v/s Football fiasco

Yet again that familiar game: Politics wins, sports loses!

Dayanand Narvekar dreams that the BCCI has allotted him an ODI. So, his GCA writes to the SAG for the Nehru stadium. So, Sports Minister Manohar Babu Azgaonkar, VM Prabhudesai and company at the SAG and all and sundry connected with the sports ministry fall head over heals to hand over the stadium, damn the Goa Football Association, the I-league or even sports.

So, now that Narvekar's dream has been shattered, the stadium is in tatters and there's neither cricket nor football, like we so often say in Konkani -- bappai nam, pudvein nam!

Somebody's head must roll.