Category: Popular Essays

Who needs a break from taxes in India? According to the Union Finance Minister, it is those Indians with annual incomes of many lakhs and or even crores. As per the new tax regime introduced in the recent budget, to be implemented for the fiscal year 2025-26, Indians earning salaries of up to 12.75 lakhs a year (almost doubled from Rs 7 lakh previously) no longer have to pay income tax on their income. And the highest tax slab is 30% for an income of over Rs 24 lakhs a year; it is 30% currently too, but on incomes above Rs 10 lakhs. It is noteworthy that, as a result of these proposals, the government will forego revenue of about Rs 1 trillion in direct taxes, and Rs 2600 crore in indirect taxes, according to the minister herself. (more…)

The land of ‘fun and frolic’, as Goa’s tourist advertisements used to portray it, appears to be bursting at the seams with newer and newer kinds of rot. Many might actually see today’s Goa as the land of lawlessness, given the unlimited land scams and now job scams; the number of top ‘public servants’ suspected of breaking the law, like the former Chief Secretary; and now the way police are actually assisting prisoners to break out of prison. But on the surface, and surely thanks to the powers-that-be, Goa is nowadays depicted as a land of festivals – almost continuously celebrating something or the other. There were always the old festivals, most of them religious, many centered around individual shrines across the region, like the fests, zatras, and urus; the Hindu temple celebrations, in particular, thanks to Hindutva in power, are expanding and being increasingly sold to Indian Hindu tourists as attractions to rival the churches of Old Goa. But these traditional sites and celebrations cannot compete with the host of new and ultra-new festivals like Serendipity, the International Film Festival of India (IFFI), the National Games, Lok Utsav, and the latest Proud Ponjekar (!!), besides food festivals, wine festivals, heritage festivals, music festivals, you name it… increasing every year, and almost totally focused on tourists. (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…)

For the English version see here.

कोंकणी मराठी वाद सालाबादप्रमाणे एक दोन वेळा तरी उफाळून येतोच. कोंकणीवाले मराठीचे गोव्यातले अस्तित्व एक तर मान्य करत नाहीत किंवा सरसकट मराठी गोव्यात कधीच अस्तित्वात नव्हती असले अनैतिहासिक विधान करून मोकळे होतात. ह्यावर प्रतिक्रिया म्हणून मराठीवाले फादर थॉमस स्टीफन्स ह्यांच्या ख्रिस्तपुराणाचे व फादर क्रुवांच्या पीटर पुराणाचे दाखले देतात. व्हॉलीबॉलसारखा असल्या ऐतिहासिक पुराव्यांचा चेंडू एका बाजूहून दुसऱ्या बाजूस परतवला जातो. ह्यावेळी निमित्त झाले आहे दामोदर उर्फ भाई मावजो ह्यांनी गोवा राजभाषा कायद्यात मराठीविषयी केलेल्या वक्तव्याचे. खरंतर असल्या चेंडू परतवण्याच्या सामन्यात भाग घेऊन काही हशील नाही पण इतिहास शास्त्राच्या निकषांवर ह्या वादात हमखास येणाऱ्या वक्तव्यांची चिकित्सा करणे गरजेचे वाटले म्हणून हा लेखनप्रपंच. (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…)

Some weeks ago, I had the misfortune of having to make a round trip by bus between Old Goa and Panjim. Oh horror!

Now, you must not understand my horror of this trip to mean a disregard for public transport. On the contrary, I have for the longest time been a proponent of public transport, for reasons that I will presently come to, both in Goa, in other parts of India that I have lived in, as well as in Portugal where I lived for a decade. My commitment to public transport has to do with a personal commitment to the democratic and republican ideal – offering all persons, whether rich or poor, the option of traveling in dignity and convenience from one place to the other. This is to say, there is no need for a poor household to spend on a private vehicle, when these resources can be better utilised on other needs – further education, for example. Having an efficient public transport system also means that there are fewer vehicles on the road, reducing the need to widen roads – to accommodate the growing number of private vehicles – as well as the unnecessary expenditure on the flyovers that we are increasingly seeing in Goa – not ot mention the criminal number of road deaths that Goa is currently witness to. (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).

It is an established principle that for people to comply with a law, it must be clear and certain. However certainty remains elusive in Goa, where there are increasing disputes on which provisions of the Portuguese Civil Code, the Portuguese Civil Procedure Code and the Portuguese Commercial Code continue to be applicable either to Goa or to Goans.

Are Portuguese laws still applicable to Goa? Yes, some Portuguese laws, or, rather, some provisions of them, are still applicable to Goa. Some may debate whether these laws can be called Portuguese laws or not. However, setting aside nomenclature, the fundamental issue lies in the absence of a comprehensive list detailing which provisions from Portuguese laws remain applicable to Goa or its residents. Hence, uncertainty regarding the applicability of specific provisions or sets of provisions.

This came to the fore recently when the advocate for Pooja Sharma in the Assagao case célèbre, in the application for anticipatory bail, contended that his client has the right to use force, to evict a trespasser. It was canvassed by the Advocate for the said Pooja Sharma that as per Article 486 of the Portuguese Civil Code, the owner of a property is entitled to evict the trespasser by himself or by taking recourse to the Court. This argument was sought to be countered by the Additional Public Prosecutor for the State who submitted that the Applicant being a Non-Goan cannot claim the benefit of Article 486 of the Portuguese Civil Code. The High Court of Bombay at Goa, in its wisdom, remained silent on this point, apparently seeing it as irrelevant to decide on the application for anticipatory bail.

Now, this poses three questions – whether Article 486 of the Portuguese Civil Code is still applicable to Goa, post its integration into India. Two, in so far as those provisions of Portuguese Civil Code which are still applicable, whether the same are only applicable to Goans. Three, who are Goans?

Section 486 details what measures can be taken by the possessor of a property when confronted with trespass. But others may argue that the possessor of a property can file a civil suit, let’s say, seeking reliefs under certain Indian Laws like the Specific Relief Act. So now when Central laws like the Specific Relief Act, or, for that matter, the Transfer of Property Act, have been extended to Goa, after Goa’s integration into India, the question remains whether Articles like Article 486 of the Portuguese Civil Code would still be applicable to Goa. When laws float in such grey zones, opportunism or illegality have the potential to flourish.

If such a provision like section 486 is considered to be applicable, it would be applicable to Goans as well as non-Goans, because it is a law of the land, and it pertains to measures to deal with land. It is another matter altogether when it comes to family and those provisions relating to Portuguese Civil Code which are in the chapters relating to marriage, or guardianship, because those laws are personal and applicable to Goans alone.

Again, the definition of who is a Goan is elusive, in that the definition of Goans is defined in the Goa Succession, Special Notaries and Inventory Proceeding Act, 2012, but only for the purposes of that law.

There are other provisions that put many Goans in a quandary. For instance, there is a provision in the Portuguese Civil Code, but not in the sections that pertain to family laws, that parents cannot sell property to one child, without the consent of the other children, and also a judgement of the Bombay High Court that this provision, is indeed applicable to Goa.

Now when a person purchases property that is so sold to one of the children, the Registrar himself is not educated on this provision, and neither are the present day lawyers because the Portuguese Civil Code is not taught in college, and since there is no clarity about which provisions of the Portuguese Civil Code continue to be applicable, who will be that teacher and how will such a teacher put these provisions together, even if it were to be taught? Since the Indian law – the Transfer of Property Act, which governs matters relating to transfer of property is extended to Goa, most are unlikely to refer to the Portuguese Civil Code for anything on the subject.

When it is stated that there is no certainty in the law, some argue that we have the Goa Daman and Diu (Administration) Act, 1962, which clearly sets out that on subjects where the pre-1961 Indian laws have not been extended to Goa, or where Indian laws have no provisions on the subject, any Portuguese laws or provisions on those subjects can apply. Now the question would be which provisions are these. It is problematic to have to skim through an entire Portuguese Civil Code, or Portuguese Civil Procedure Code, or any other Portuguese laws, for that matter, which, incidentally, are not entirely translated by the Government, and still more problematic, when the law allows for interpretation on even whether that law is applicable to Goa or Goans or not. It is about looking with a microscope at the Indian law and also the Portuguese laws, and then trying to make sense. This leaves lot of room for uncertainty and is a minefield for powerful wheeler dealers to thrive.

It, therefore, makes sense, once and for all, to set the matter at rest and clarify to Goa, Goans and the world, as to what law is applicable to Goa, and/or to Goans. This would need the setting up of a law commission or a committee, which should have practicing lawyers, and people extensively engaging with the law, and must also factor diversity. Once the list of provisions is compiled, it could be codified. The draft of the codified law, could then be placed before the Goa Legislative Assembly, where it could be enacted as law, so that at least from henceforth, there is no confusion as to which law applies.

(First published in O Heraldo, dt: 3 August 2024)