Whenever I meet Goans whose kids have just completed either high school or graduation, and ask about what they hoped to do now, the response is pretty standard: a government job would be best, but who can afford it? We don’t have the money to pay for a government job. (more…)
I had commented on the poor state of primary education in Goa at the start of this academic year, following the statement by Education Minister (also Chief Minister) Pramod Sawant that the number of students in government schools was dropping. Sawant put the blame on parents, for shifting their children to private or aided schools. What he chose to ignore, however, was the reason for this: the poor quality of government schools, including dilapidated buildings, leaking roofs, lack of playgrounds, shortage of teachers, and lack of instruction in the language of the parents’ choice. (more…)
The Chief Minister of Goa is suddenly determined to provide affordable housing to Goans, and also, believe it or not, to protect Goan land. From whom, one is tempted to ask – himself? Yes, even as the entire state is being converted into the luxury holiday home of rich Indians under his supervision, CM Pramod Sawant would have us believe that his government is busy creating a scheme of low-cost housing in every taluka for Goans, with about 50-100 flats to be built and offered to native Goans at about 10-15 lakh rupees each. Soon after this announcement came another, that the CM planned to “protect” Goa’s land by approving a 130% hike in land prices in Pernem and Bardez, which, according to him, will ‘curb massive development’ in these areas. (more…)
Last week Goa’s government approved a hike in the allowances and pension of the members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs), via a bill, the ‘Goa Salary, Allowances and Pension of Members of The Legislative Assembly Bill, 2023’, which was immediately passed by the Legislative Assembly despite Opposition protests. The government’s response to the protests was that the Opposition MLAs are free to not take the increased allowances and perks. Incidentally, it was the BJP’s Digambar Kamat who first demanded the hike during the general discussion on the State budget – it hardly took any time for a bill to be made on the issue and passed as well. (more…)
57% of the 694 government primary schools in Goa have less than five students, while 42 of them have zero. This was revealed by Goa’s Education Minister, Pramod Sawant, who is also the Chief Minister, in the ongoing Assembly session. You would think that having the Chief Minister in charge of education would mean that education gets importance and extra attention. And you would be right – education is apparently getting special attention, so special that government-run mass education has managed to hit rock bottom, with more and more government schools closing every year, while elite educational opportunities are flourishing in Goa like never before. Such is the Brahmanical success story of Goa’s education ministry.
Poor enrollment in government schools is always blamed on parents, and this time too, that was the education minister’s explanation – that parents are pulling their children out of government primary schools and sending them elsewhere. Only 4044 students are enrolled in the free government primary schools, while there are 10,096 enrolled in government-aided privately-managed schools, and a further 3622 in completely private and very expensive schools.
What the education minister did not mention is the lack of basic facilities at government schools, for example that a whopping 111 of them lack the basic facility of a playground. Many government schools all across Goa suffer every monsoon from leaking roofs, quite a few also have dilapidated buildings, stinking toilets, and a shortage of teachers – some even have just one teacher for the whole school. The government’s response to less teachers and less student enrollment is to ‘amalgamate schools’, i.e. join schools together, which essentially means that some primary school students will lose their local school and will have to travel greater distances to the amalgamated one.
On top of this, government schools in Goa do not offer English as the medium of instruction – which, as everyone knows, is something that makes a big difference to the future of the child. Nor do they offer Romi Konkani (Konkani in the Roman script) as the medium of instruction, even though this script has been in use in Goa for centuries and is widely used by Catholic Goans. In this very assembly session, facing a demand from MLAs for the recognition of Romi Konkani as an official language of Goa, Sawant said that there is no plan to amend the Official Language Act. The justification for schools is that the medium of instruction (MOI) has to be the so-called mother tongue, which, according to our government, is only Konkani in the Devnagari script, or Marathi, even though they know that not all Goans are comfortable in these languages, and also that almost all Goan parents would like their children to study in English for the opportunities that this provides in their future. The hypocrisy, vindictive exclusion, and blatant casteism that lie behind this choice of MOI become clear when you realise that this ban on English as MOI is not for all students studying in Goa. Private schools, i.e expensive and posh schools, are free to use English as their MOI. What this means is that rich students, who are mostly of the dominant castes, are allowed to study in English, while the poor, who are usually from vulnerable and discriminated-against communities, are not.
Doesn’t all of this reek of a policy to destroy mass education in the state? You allow the physical infrastructure to crumble, you do not provide for basic education facilities like enough teachers, clean toilets, and playgrounds, and you prevent children from learning in the language that would provide them the best opportunities. Who would want to remain in such schools?
And before anybody says that this condition is because these schools are government-run, let us remember that the government also runs the posh Kendriya Vidyalayas (KV), which we have in Goa too, which cater to the children of elite government employees, and which can never be imagined with the problems mentioned above. In fact, education activists in the country have demanded that the KVs be the standard for government education across the country. But how can the government give the same facilities it gives children of its officer class to children of the poor, when this would completely overturn the rules of Brahmanism?
The irony is that this same Education Minister is always boasting about how his government is turning Goa into a ‘knowledge hub’. Here is what it means – every kind of elite education opportunity in Goa, while government-run primary education lies in the doldrums. The most elite schools in the country which have set up branches in Goa under Sawant’s watch – to cater primarily to the rich families from Delhi and Mumbai who are now ‘based’ in Goa – have no problem finding space for their so-called international-quality facilities, but 24 government schools don’t even have their own premises. Every kind of tertiary-level education opportunity is springing up in Goa, from prestigious technology institutes (both public like IIT and NIT, and private like BITS Pilani), multiple law and management colleges (again both public and private), to new film institutes, agriculture colleges, veterinary colleges, and all kinds of universities, you name it. But the fact that enrollment is dropping in government primary schools is not a problem. Sawant has been determined, for years now, to find an ‘appropriate’ site for the IIT – even though he comes up against strong opposition from the local populace every time, with them refusing to give up the acres and acres of land for all the lavish facilities that these government-run ‘premier’ institutes are famous for. Despite this, he hasn’t given up, and recently declared that the current choice is Rivona village. But he can’t find even small playgrounds for government-run primary schools.
This is the meaning of Brahmanical education system in a nutshell. Those who have the background to buy quality primary school education (with English as MOI) in Goa are also spoilt for choice in terms of what they can do later, right up to the tertiary level and beyond. Those at the other end of the spectrum are meanwhile provided all the conditions to force them to drop out of education altogether.
(A shorter version of this article was published in O Heraldo, in July 2024).
The BJP candidate for South Goa, Pallavi Dempo, has declared a combined worth, with her husband, of Rs 1400 crore. This amount reportedly includes, besides much property in Goa, a flat in London and another in Dubai, many luxury cars, and a huge amount of gold.
This declaration has surely made Dempo one of the richest candidates across India in this election. Now, there are many who, reading this, will say: So what? This is ‘white’ or legal wealth – i.e. openly declared assets on which taxes have presumably been paid. Plus, she may be among the richest, but wealthiness has become the norm among politicians and political contenders. According to media reports, 439 members of the current Lok Sabha were crorepatis when they were elected in 2019. According to one report of 2022, the average Member of today’s Parliament (MP) is not just a crorepati but a substantial one: the average Lok Sabha MP is worth about Rs 20 crores, while the Rajya Sabha MPs are 4 times worse, at an average of Rs 79 crores. Not only this, but the wealth of politicians is found to grow exponentially, the longer and more successful they are at electoral politics.
All this has no connection to the wealth of their constituents, of course. The per capita annual Indian income has nearly doubled since 2014-15 (when Modi came to power), say most reports, but that average figure hides an ugly reality – that only a few Indians have grown rich under Modi — and not just rich, but phenomenally, obscenely, rich – while many others have seen their real incomes go down. From the pandemic till November 2022, the rich have seen their income surge by 121%, while the number of hungry people in India grew from 19 crores to 35 crores. According to the Oxfam India report of 2023 (‘Survival of the Richest: The India Supplement’), and the World Inequality Lab report of March 2024, the top 1 percent in India now own more than 40% of India’s wealth, while the bottom 50% (half the population) owns just 3-6%. Inequality in India is now among the highest in the world, and higher than it was under colonial rule – so vilified by ‘liberation’-glorifying politicians like Pramod Sawant. Things are so bad that if you earn the ‘average’ income of India, you are earning more than 90% of the population – that’s how skewed we are.
Comparing these politicians, flourishing as they are in luxury cars, foreign homes, and tons of gold, to the vast majority of their constituents, in Goa and India, who languish in the most wretched of employment, housing, healthcare, and environmental conditions, is it really possible that the former can ever ‘represent’ the latter?
But then, they are not even trying. It is well-known that people are not entering politics today to ‘serve the people’, as the cliché goes; they are entering only to make money. Indeed, electoral politics has become one of the most lucrative of careers – far better than becoming a doctor or an engineer, the top career options of yore. We are surrounded by career politicians, who may help a constituent here and there, who may spend a fraction of the lavish government funds at their disposal on a few public works, and who will definitely slap you on the back and ask about your kids, but who would never dream of disturbing the system in even the smallest of ways. For them, the system is perfect. Unemployment is a problem in South Goa, admitted Pallavi Dempo (probably by mistake), but can you ever imagine her trying to make decent employment a right guaranteed by her government? Hardly. Electoral politics is a career, and these candidates are focused only on success in their career, which means winning elections, keeping their friends and funders happy, and making even more money for themselves.
But this success is not for everyone. For this career, to have 1400 crores – or 79 crores, or at least a measly 20 crores – at your disposal has become a basic requirement. The more money the candidate has, the more likely is she to win – this is a known fact. Hence the big funders of the past, the electoral bonds of today, but even more the growth of super-wealthy candidates contesting against super-wealthy candidates – all to become our so-called representatives. Elections have become the time to choose which billionaire you prefer – not to represent you, of course – but use you as the stepping-stone to even more billions.
Isn’t this a bit too much? Even if we believe that things can’t change, even if we think that today’s sham democracy is all that’s possible, and that politicians will always be like today’s politicians – even by these very low standards – most of today’s candidates should be completely unacceptable as contestants for power. Because, even if electoral politics in today’s India is not a route to changing society for the better, but just a means to become rich for the individual politician, why should the super-rich like Dempo – who surely doesn’t need any more wealth – be allowed to benefit? And similarly, why should certain individuals be allowed to hog political seats non-stop for decades just because their charisma and political backing ensures that they win?
If political power is a high-income job, then the holding of political power needs to be made accessible to all, just like other government jobs. And that can only happen by, first, banning the ‘creamy layer’ of society from electoral politics, and, second, banning anybody who has held political power once from holding it again. Every citizen should have the right – and duty, actually – to hold political power. Today that right exists only on paper. But banning the billionaires as well as the career politicians will allow more people to participate in the holding of power, and that wider participation will surely rock the rotten boat of the Indian establishment, something that we desperately need.
Old trees cut, at the cost of micro-climate, global warming, and wildlife collapse. Schools closed, at the cost of children’s futures. Markets closed and shop shutters down, at the cost of vulnerable livelihoods. Street dogs disappeared and roadside cattle driven away, at the cost of their wellbeing, even lives. Normal traffic, public bus services, and even emergency traffic seriously affected, at the cost of time, money, health, and worse.
What does this sound like? Evacuation before some disaster, or preparation for some attack? No, no, just the Goa government getting ready for a one-day visit of the country’s Prime Minister (PM). And, in their usual commitment to the all-important tourist population, they announced that (amidst all the chaos and destruction, and whatever happens to anyone else) anyone going to the airport or railway station would not be inconvenienced.
Can the state government explain why trees had to be cut and street dogs evicted for the prime-ministerial visit? And how children attending school would harm the PM? Yes, the traffic on the roads might be higher as a result, but children going to school surely counts as essential traffic? Besides, many of them would be travelling in school buses, thus creating the least chaos when it comes to traffic. If anybody should have been asked to stay at home to avoid creating traffic snarls, one would surely start with the PM himself and his unending cavalcade of vehicles. But you can’t expect Chief Minister Pramod Sawant to understand this simple fact, not when he himself has hiked the size of his own entourage – to ensure he creates more trouble for everyone else on the road, because that, apparently, proves how important he is.
What was the purpose of the PM’s visit? Is talking about Viksit Goa (Developed Goa) so important that it justifies the loss of trees and wildlife, dogs and cattle, income and education, not to mention the huge amounts of public money that gets spent in ferrying a VVVIP around the country? Because talking is exactly what he did here, besides completely unnecessary and vainglorious activities like inaugurations and laying of foundation stones, most of them apparently online. Goa, he declared, will be developed as a destination for conference tourism; its connectivity improved to make it a logistics hub, and, through the establishments of many institutions, also an educational hub. The promise of a super-duper hub of tourism, logistics, and education – that was his basic message. Seriously, couldn’t this have been said from Delhi?
Especially since most Goans are hardly going to benefit from this Viksit hub. The PM praised the state government for implementing all central schemes brilliantly – yes, the same state government which, after spending tens of thousands of crores of our money on infrastructure, and destroying the environment wholesale in the process, is simultaneously failing on every front when it comes to basic infrastructure for local communities. This state government claims that Goa is ‘har ghar jal’ (every house has water, one presumes), when severe water shortages are becoming common in many Goan villages, right from Pernem to the north, to Quepem in the south, even as projects for ‘villas with swimming pool’ are cleared at lightning speed all over. Similarly, this self-proclaimed ‘Open Defecation Free’ state has umpteen families (Goan families, not the vilified migrants) all over the state who still do not have toilets at home despite repeated applications; not to mention a capital city where the municipal corporation’s (CCP) public sweepers and garbage collectors are told by their own supervisors to ‘do it behind a tree’.
As for road infrastructure, where does one start? Everywhere you look, local communities are up in arms against the grabbing of their land by prestigious national road projects which, according to the Chief Minister himself, have already cost the public a whopping Rs 20,000 crores. With the government now slashing taxes on luxury cars, while ignoring the decrepit state of public transport, we know who the new highways are being planned for. But when it comes to roads actually needed by the people, where is the government? Goa had no road good enough for an ambulance to approach the house of a Goan man, Mr. Paik Gaonkar, in the tribal village of Kazugotta in Sanguem, after he suffered a heart attack on Republic Day last month. And no basic ambulance service either. Not only did the ambulance have to halt 2.5 kilometres away from Gaonkar’s home, the vehicle itself was not equipped with even a stretcher, leave aside other life-saving equipment. The grievously-ill man was carried to the ambulance in a blanket on the shoulders of a family-member, and had passed away by the time he reached the hospital.
Kazugotta is not the only tribal village in Goa which still lacks motorable roads, say tribal activists, who have demanded that the government explain where the tribal welfare budget of hundreds of crores of rupees has gone. A new road had actually been sanctioned in Kazugotta for Rs 4 crores in 2013, but was never completed, despite repeated complaints by locals. When villagers recently took up the issue with the authorities, they were told that the road would now cost 10 crores, and that it was hardly justified to spend that much money on a village of ‘just’ 150 people.
So, twenty thousand crores are available for roads that locals do NOT want, but not even ten crores for a road that people desperately need. Goa also has helicopter cabs for the super-rich to hop from spot to spot, but no emergency medical services for locals. This is what CM Pramod Sawant apparently means by ‘purna swaraj’ or complete freedom – complete freedom for corporates destroying Goa’s environment, for tourists consuming Goa, and for super-rich Goans like those who killed 3 people in Banastarim with their luxury SUV.
Goa’s connectivity is being improved, so the PM says. And well he might. We cannot provide a basic road or ambulance service to a village of 150 Goans, but we are happy to hammer all normal life for the super-fast passage of his cavalcade, which incidentally always includes a top-quality ambulance – or two – whether he travels by road or air. This is actually a preview of the Viksit super-hub that Goa is becoming even as we speak – international-quality connectivity for the moneyed and powerful, and disconnected locals.
(First published in O Heraldo, dt: 10 February 2024)
The slogan Bomkarank zai bypass can be seen as soon as you enter this village on the Panjim-Ponda highway. The people here are up in arms against the widening of the highway, as planned by the government, from two lanes to four; and demand a bypass instead. Widening will mean the destruction of many houses, they say, besides dividing the village even more than today, and affecting the village temples, situated right next to the existing highway. They ask how come this government which keeps talking about ancient temples supposedly destroyed by the Portuguese, and has even set aside crores for rebuilding those non-existent temples, has no concern for the temples of today. (more…)
An employee of Goa’s electricity department, Krishna Pawar, variously described as an ‘assistant linesman’ or a ‘lines helper’, was killed in the last week of November, electrocuted while climbing down an electricity pole in Siolim after doing some repairs. ‘Action’ was immediately announced by the government. As announced by Sudin Dhavalikar, Power Minister, this ‘action’ included a suspension of the linesman who was Pawar’s superior, placing a junior engineer in the same office under scrutiny, and setting up an enquiry by a ‘high-powered committee’. Dhavalikar further added that the dead man’s family would receive compensation ‘according to the norms’ in two months, along with a job for the widow which he said he personally guaranteed. (more…)
Goa should become the maritime hub of the country, feels Chief Minister Pramod Sawant. What exactly does that mean? At first hearing, it sounds like a lot of hot air. Speaking at the Global Maritime Summit 2023, the Chief Minister claimed that Goa’s maritime sector is no less than a “multi-faceted powerhouse” driving economic growth, innovation, and connectivity, “from ship-building and repair, to cruise tourism, from maritime education to port-led industrialisation…”. He further urged the Union Government to develop Goa’s coastline as a “major multi-modal maritime logistics hub”. (more…)