GOA – A STORY OF A MILLION TEARS by Soter D’Souza

Capturing just a thousand smiles from amongst a 14 lakh people is all what the Government of Goa can boast about in the 50th year of Goa's liberation. It brings back memories of the disastrous 'India Shinning' and 'India Moving' campaign of the NDA government which instead of generating an excitement among the 'aam admi' only insulted their intelligence. Who shined and who felt good is now history.

With the oppressive and exploitative forces in Goa and Hamara Bharat pulling out every trick in their hat to create a 'feel good' factor in the 50th year of Goa's liberation from Portuguese rule, the naked reality of Goa's disaster remains there for all to see. The State and corporate sponsored assault on the intellect of the aam admi is not in a position to erase this truth. From google imagery to the agonising cries of oppression in the remotest corners of Goa, the utter trangressions and aggressions of the Indian political establishment in the name of development just refuses to be eclipsed with photographs of a thousand smiles. An aerial view will reveal that the smile on the face of 'Amchem Goa' is no more visible. It is a bruised, scarred and weeping face from Pernem to Canacona and from Tiracol to Agonda.

Goans are in mourning after 50 years of Goa's violent take over by the Indian armed forces. Since that fateful day of 19th December 1961, the Goan identity has been subjected to nothing but a constant assault in the name of language, national projects or real estate and mining. Sections of Goans who question the assault are labelled anti-nationals and anti-development. The latest assault on the goan intellect are the findings of a corporate sponsored study which has been carried out by the supposed seat of learning in Goa which claims to have discovered the presence of huge gold deposits. This has sent shivers down the spine of every goan who now fears a gold rush in Goa and a final assault on whatever natural resources that remain. The sharks from affluent India are just scrambling for that piece of Goa to experience that exclusive orgasm of flattening her hill slopes, tearing down the forests, filling the khazans and cornering her beaches for that ecstatic view, offered by a migrant Chief Town Planner, real estate developers and the Tourism industry.

For the true Goan there is very little to rejoice in this 50th year of Goa's political liberation. For the oppressors and exploiters there is definitely reason to celebrate. They have managed to subjugate the Goan opinion and pollute the goan culture. That is why not a single Goan news daily has a local editor today. Revenues from real estate and casinos has lured the Goan media into singing 'All is well'. The seat of learning, Goa Univeristy, is reduced to nothing but a colony of migrant left over academicians from 'Hamara Bharat'. While Goa's sons and daughters man some of the top universities in the world, its own Goa Uiversity is reduced to a garbage bin and a breeding ground for communal and ethnic strife. Goans are made to believe that they are a piece of shit incapable of running their own affairs. This is the single greatest achievement of the political and economic aggressors. It is from here that all the disagreements stem and that is why the efforts to define Goan identity draws nothing but a blank. That is why the efforts to give konkani its due place meets with opposition. That is why goans are not able to unite and face the aggressors. When the goan intellect remains colonised by migrant opinion makers from 'Hamara Bharat', there will just not be a revolution.

When Mahatma Gandhi's 'My Experiments with Truth' gets published in vernacular to commemorate the 50th Year of Goa's liberation, the truth kept hidden from goans is that this initiative has also been sponsored by none other than the the exploitative and destructive mining and real estate barons. It is published in a script that half of Goa's konkani reading population will not be able to decipher. And while the convenient part of Mahatma Gandhi is popularised, the ugly truth that this saint has scripted in "Hind Swaraj' will remain hidden from the common Goan till Goa is annihilated and made to dissappear from the Indian map.

From a beautiful and peaceful colony of the Portuguese, Goa is now a destination for sword fights, dacoits, drug smugglers, land mafia, garbage, prostitutes, stinking sewers, slums and beggars. Goa is fast deteriorating into any of India's stinking, congested, corrupt and crime ridden metros. The Regional Plan 2021 is exactly the blue print for the final assault scripted by her own prodigal sons turned agents of that greedy and sadistic Bharat Sarkar. It is becoming increasingly difficult to spot a goan in a bus or on the street. The only place one gets to see goans is for a tiatr. What is left of Goa, is the question everybody seems to ask.

So this is the story of a liberated colony of India. It is the Indian adventure of political, social and economic rape that is suppressed with threats of imprisonment for sedition. But the Mahatma has said, the body may be oppressed but the soul will continue to cry out for justice. Goa's 50 years of liberation story is all about those million tears shed by her sons and daughters that no media house is ready to expose. This is the story where a thousand false smiles get forcibly planted onto mother Goa's face to conceal a million tears that flow down her bruised cheeks in her 50th year of so claimed liberation.