Deliver us from our Politician, Lead us not into Elections

Frederick Noronha

Soft-spoken chief election commissioner M. S. Gill needed all the charm at his command last month to convince Goans. They were finding it tough to understand why polls in this State would probably be held as early as May-end. Couldn't it just be put off till November-end, he was continually asked.

Goans--cutting across community and class lines--have got badly disenchanted with their politicians. "Te sogle chor, re" (They're all thieves) is a common refrain in this scenic state.

President's Rule in Goa would end by early August, Gill argued. So what, responded citizens. After all, the mood was vitiated by the current spate of defections, floor-crossings and corruption. Gill contended that extending President's Rule was a decision to be taken by the Parliament. But if the conditions were not right for a poll, Parliament simply couldn't force elections on Goa at any cost, was the citizens counterpoint. Anyway, said Gill, it was the BJP and Congress which held a majority in Congress. But, asked the delay-polls lobby, should the parties be allowed to steamroll their way through over public sentiment?

In obvious frustration, Gill came down to the basics: weren't politicial parties supposed to represent what their voters wanted? In theory yes. But there is a wide gap between the politicians and voters here. This time, things are different. Strangely, Goans seem in a mood to delay the holding of elections in the state. This demand arose suddenly, got the support of some newspapers, and suddenly it seemed not a bad idea to many of the voters in this small state of 1.3 million.

But it's not simply middle-class apathy that's to blame. Rather, it is a complex set of factors: political parties ceasing to represent voter interest, unprecedented corruption, takeover of parties by vested interests and local mafia elements, controversial decisions by ruling politicians, and their dubious record.

'Mama' (Uncle) Deu Mandrekar (76) is an apt symbol of all that is ailing in Goan politics. He won on a ticket of the Opposition MG Party. In four years, he indulged in party-hopping four times. It was his (and others) crucial support that helped the Congress(I) rule since 1995 a State they didn't win a mandate to rule.

Mama Mandrekar was ailing and in recent months needed support to walk. So was the tottering Luizinho Faleiro Congress(I) government, which had a majority of just one in the 40-seat assembly. Poetically, the Faleiro government had to be propped up by this ailing politician's presence in the Assembly. He could barely speak audibly to take his oath, but he was made a minister nonetheless. Earlier, Mama Mandrekar got rewarded with the deputy speakership, and his lack of formal education made it markedly difficult for officers to even guide him in the chair.

Goa today, India tomorrow? The malaise that afflicts politics here could well spread to the rest of the nation. Admittedly, this state has its own special problems due to its small size. It's easy to topple governments here, by getting a couple of politicians to defect. But, in other ways, the cancer afflicting local politics is part of a wider nationwide trend.

Politics has fallen prey to the lure of lucre, here as in the rest of India. Ideology--even if it means just bigotted beliefs in communal divides--is getting to be as dead as a dodo. There's a limit to which communal vote-banks can be cultivated, after which quaint other options are carried out.

Besides, politicians have got increasingly alienated from the concerns of the commonman. Business houses and influential lobbies have themselves funded the breaking and making of governments when they smelt private gain. Now, ironically, it's the same houses which rue the havoc wrecked by dishonest politicians and instability.

Meanwhile, Goa and the average citizen have paid the price. Take some of the recent events here. "Every bout of political instability means the environment of this state takes a beating," says eco-campaigner Dr Claude Alvares of the Goa Foundation. His charge is borne out from the way in which huge amounts of green land is 'converted' to concrete building zones, by politicians losing office and trying to make a fast buck. Recently, ex-CM Dr Wilfred de Souza made public charges against ex-deputy CM Dayanand Narvekar on this score.

India's prestigious business house with an eco-friendly image, the Tatas, began setting up a housing project on a lush green hillock at Betim, across Panajim. Then chief minister Pratapsing Rane expressed his shock and ire. Later, he simply pleaded helplessness, and oversaw the green area being torn into, and blamed his predecessor. It was the Goa High Court Bench which stayed the project.

But it isn't just Goa's scenic nature that is taking a beating. Public facilities--like state-run healthcare and public transport--have deteriorated sharply over the years of instability. Infrastructure has collapsed too as seen in the deteriorating power situation and potholed roads.

Mismanagement of a small and nature-bestowed State is evident. Goa, a region that gets 100 inches of rainfall each year, now has many parched localities. Inflation is higher than in many big cities.

Politicians' antics have also meant their individual selfish interests have prevailed over state-level concerns. Lobbies of all sorts have been pandered to.

Some stretches of the beach-belt have been turned into concrete jungles, and mining pollution remains uncontrolled. Some 7727 bars dot this small state, and the social price of alcoholism is all but evident. Government jobs have become a saleable commodity. With the police politicised and corrupted, investigations into crime have been affected. Goa's bloated bureaucracy is seen as insensitive to public needs, business and other lobbies have come out on top, and ad hoc decision-making has contributed to the financial bankruptcy of the State.

Politicians are quick to wash their hands once out of office. One of Goa's many ex-CMs, Dr Luis Proto Barbosa, headed a government which made a mess of Goa's Konkan Railway route. "Just see the notings on the file. You'll know the full story then," was all Barbosa was willing to laconically tell this correspondent, years back, when citizens were on the streets protesting this issue.

Left with no means to get even, citizens hit back in their own style. In recent weeks, a vicious rumour doing the rounds was that one political key player was suffering from AIDS!

On the other hand, celebrants of the local Carnival festival spared no chance to parody politicians in February. "Where are the horse-traders?" asked one placard at the festival of fun. One float labelled 'Poly-tickle Carnival' depicted a man with a big bag marked with a dollar sign. He was supposed to be collecting money to "purchase horses". Another float was less subtle. Its playcard read: "Ministers, MLAs on hire; to the best buyer; while Goa is on fire." That's the message, loud and clear.

Defections have also given various lobbies in the State a vice- like grip over politicians. Of the business-related lobbies, the real estate, hotel, industrial and mining lobbies have often made news. In Cuncolim industrial estate, power-guzzling and polluting metalurgical units were allowed to come up with political blessings. This? In a State which has a no-polluting-units policy and which suffers power problems already?

Because the stakes have grown so high, politicians are willing to use any means to get into office. Goa's ruling Congress(I) has repeatedly poached legislators for a price from other parties. It has lured them over with ministerial posts and, according to the political grapevine, paid pricetags of Rs 25 lakhs to one crore. For its part, the BJP has shown itself unprincipled enough to help Congress(I) defectors rise to power, to shrewdly and vertically splinter the Congress(I).

Regional parties have only acted as feeder-lines to the Congress(I). Says Canada-based political scientist Dr Arthur G Rubinoff, who has studied Goa extensively, "If you vote against the party, and the person you voted for changes to the party you voted against, what does it all mean? I think the public is very, very frustrated."

In recent years, Goans have had to take up protests through the courts or on the streets, on issues like the Thapar-DuPont Nylon 6,6 project, 'food festivals' that left beaches badly littered, noise pollution, and land grabs by politicians and others, and many more.

>From diverse corners of this small state, a range of issues have been coming up. From the cutting of hills to the damaging of protective riverside 'bunds'. Bunds are the protective riverside walls that avert seawater ingress into low-lying areas.

Also causing disquite among citizens have been violations in the coastal zone, proposals for golf-courses, offshore gambling, displacement of locals by tourism, and the lease of public lands to private luxury tourism groups.

Politicians meanwhile have repeatedly got their names linked to scams, over the past decade. But for a variety of reasons, few have been brought to book or held accountable. In a shocking step, the CBI office was indirectly shunted out of the State. A commission was set up to check corruption among "public men". But those unable to prove the charges face punitive fines, so few citizens have been motivated to complain.

Goa's media has shied away exposing politicians, even as corruption levels grew here. Efforts to bring in a useful Right to Information Act were suddenly stymied by a discouraging Rs 100 minimum fee on every single application made. So, not surprisingly, charges against politicians failed to stick.

Citizens here have a big dilemma though. A Goa under President's Rule means having to live under the arrogance of bureaucrats, which can be a cure as bad as the other disease. Likewise, there are few options. The BJP, hopeful of ousting the Congress, is seen as an upper caste outfit. It is also hardpressed to get a majority on a votebank which excludes the minorities who form at least one-third of the population.

In such a situation, some old faces which dominated politics of Goa since the seventies (if not the sixties) are still frontrunners. Including Pratapsing Rane, Wilfred de Souza, Ramakant Khalap, Dayanand Narvekar, Shashikala Kakodkar... Other politicians from the 'eighties can be as controversial too.

Goa Rajiv Congress, a party made up defecting Congressmen, has already announced that all its incumbent legislators would be given tickets. Winability will be the main criteria in granting tickets, it said. With such a blatant approach, citizens can't but help being cynical. Newspapers here are fanning the cynicism, though ironically some industrialists who are media barons were themselves behind encouraging instability earlier.

Goa's is an acute example of the case that communalism is a dead ideology. Since colonial rule ended here in the 'sixties, with the then dominant MGP and the UGP, religious and caste differences have become main basis for politicians to get votes.

In recent years, opportunism and politicial corruption has seen the most unlikely of odd alliances being struck. The Hindu-backed MGP bestowed on the State what it termed "Goa's first Catholic chief minister" Churchill Alemao. Dr Wilfred de Souza, who had assidously cultivated a Catholic vote-bank, ganged up with the BJP-MGP to oust from power the Congress, a party he had been associated with for nearly two decades.

On the other hand, the BJP and the saffron-flagged MGP are both showing signs of slugging it out over the Hindu votebank. All this has given the voter the feeling that religious labels, which they've been polarised on for decades, don't really matter in the world of realpolitik.As politicians hop across parties, voters are beginning to feel that there's hardly any difference between the parties too.

Frederick Noronha: Freelance journalist, fred@vsnl.com Near lourdes convent, saligao 403511 goa india ph 271490 or 278683 # News from Goa http://www.goacom.com/news/ # Photos from Goa http://www.goa-world.net/fotofolio/ # GoaResearchNet http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/1503

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