THE ANATOMY OF RESISTANCE: SOCIETY AND PROTEST

India’s bid to be a superpower, or at least economically dominate the region of Asia has guided many policy decisions in the last decade or so. The Mopa airport is part of this scheme. Ever since the airport was proposed, circa 2000, India’s economic policy has consistently promoted airports and projected them as a way to allow small cities or towns, and rural areas to partake of the economic benefits of a surging economy, while also opening up these spaces for the investment of global capital and infrastructure development. The brunt of this ‘development’, as is all too familiar for Goans, has to be borne by the people on whom it is forced – especially the marginalized ones. The idea that smaller undeveloped areas can be included in the circuits of a surging economy – in turn benefiting the people of these regions – by massive injection of infrastructure investment simply does not hold water.

This neoliberal model of development has also met its opposition. In recent times we are familiar with the opposition to mega projects at Tiracol, Sancoale, Mopa, and Vasco as defining the political discourse in Goa. The massive, and hitherto unprecedented, public hearing in Vasco demonstrated that spirited public debate poses a challenge to governmental inefficiency and generally misguided policy making. The resistance that is shaping up in Vasco in comparison with other recent cases can help us identify the forces that are crucial in the success and failure of people’s resistance against development. Simply put, why did a public hearing this effective take place in Vasco and not in Mopa?

To begin with, one has to look at what is being opposed. Coal pollution is visible, its effects felt immediately through respiratory disorders, whereas clearing large chunks of forests changes the climate and ecology slowly, at times almost imperceptibly. This perhaps impacts the urgency with which people mobilize. The literacy rate and the access to higher education also have an impact on the protest and resistance for a particular place. Even if the literacy rate stands at 83.63% at Mopa, there is an absence of professionals such as lawyers, whose skills and clout come in handy in times of crises. Vasco on the other hand has a good number of such professionals – lawyers, teachers, doctors – who can contribute to the fight. Moreover, while Vasco contains a diverse population of people – diverse in terms of education and social background, Mopa’s villages largely have farming and pastoral communities, or communities belonging to the bahujan samaj. The 2011 Census reports that there are about 70 persons belonging to the Scheduled Castes communities. These communities are rather scattered from each other, while the area that is marked for the Greenfield airport is a lush green plateau that is largely forested.

If the fight for Goa’s identity and environment must go on and won in the favor of its people, it needs the active support of diverse sections of the society. In the same way, one can think of how certain pockets of Goa which contain small communities need the support from outside resources to make their voices heard. These ‘outside resources’ could be access to higher education or professional education to its members, access to centers of judicial and executive power, and access to media platforms so that grievances once articulated reach the widest possible people. Linked to the issue of internal collaboration is the ability to understand that local mobilizations are connected to other struggles elsewhere in the world. Thus, activists in Vasco were able to include the struggle of people in Carmichael, Australia as part of their own discourse of protest. The same, however, is not observed in Mopa despite the fact that there are global movements against aerotropolises, and many places in Poland, South Korea, Taiwan, and Nepal are fighting against the development of mega airports.

However, the most crucial factor that affects the success or failure of protest is the social background of the communities that are fighting to protect their rights and/or the environment. Many of these developmental projects are situated on lands that subaltern communities use for their sustenance. Further, marginalized communities are deliberately divided amongst themselves by selective offers of jobs, or some other largesse which is denied to other marginalized communities within the same area.

We can also think of the importance of literacy and education as being crucial in understanding the policies formulated by the government. Many of the families living in Mopa had received notices informing them of the government’s plan of acquiring the land. However, these notices were in English which resulted in most of the people having very little clue of what was happening. In this context, it was heartening to note that activists during the Vasco hearing demanding that all material pertaining to the project, including the minutes of the public hearing, be made available in other local languages – a procedure which the government machinery had failed to follow.

Thus, it would appear that the way a society is structured and the way this very society treats its subaltern members directly impacts its ability to resist power and annihilation. Moreover, if governmental policies and private capital is constantly able to move ahead despite the express wish of the people then it is an indication of how democratic processes have failed many communities within a particular society. And in the final analysis, how there isn’t equality amongst all Goans.

(First published in O Heraldo, dt: 22 November, 2017)

MORMUGAO TO MOPA: A CASE OF (OB)NOXIOUS DEVELOPMENT

There should by now be no doubt in our minds that any large infrastructure development in India happens only through the destruction of resources like land, water, and air. This economic system is largely the legacy of British colonialism and Nehruvian socialist policies that promoted large scale land acquisitions and mega projects such as massive dams and industries. The many protests and demonstrations that one witnesses against polluting industries and wholesale land acquisitions in India is a fallout of this process initiated by the British Raj and followed through – ostensibly due to national interest – by the independent nation-state of India.

The excellent reportage by Smita Nair (in a reputed national daily and also published in O Heraldo)  on the coal transportation corridor from Mormugao Port to Bellary clearly reveals that people – through whose houses and villages this new  corridor passes – have no say whatsoever in governmental policies even when they destroy their lives and livelihoods. Several studies that predict an ecological disaster and even a massive public hearing – unprecedented in the history of India – which provided enough testimonials on how the expansion of coal handling would affect (and is affecting) the people of Goa, seems to have fallen on deaf ears. In short, ‘development’ as it currently unfolds in Goa is a destruction of life-sustaining resources and a direct assault on the lives of the people.

The responses by those who are affected by the developments in Vasco and other areas, through which the coal is transported by road, rivers, and rail, is indicative of a shift in the debate. For this reason, it is important to dwell on these responses together and understand their implications for the future. I have selected these responses dealing only with the need for infrastructure such as roads, public transport, and hospitals. These responses indicate to us that we do have a way to prioritize the needs of the locals over and above everything else.

Lumina D’Costa Almeida is categorical in her understanding that the Goan way of life is antithetical to the development of the government-corporate combine: “You bring highways and a sense of hurriedness. You won’t appreciate susegad (a ‘quiet’ life) and its importance for a healthy living. Your definition of development is different from ours”. This development is often promoted without any proper information given to the public. As Dan Vaz says, “The highways are being made into four lanes, six lanes. No one is telling us what they are being widened for. When we say we do not want such unplanned infrastructure, we are told it is in the national interest”. Obviously, the locals see no improvement in their lives, as Meena Barretto asserts, “Without expanding public transport for locals, they are building highways for the trucks”. That the basic infrastructure needs of the locals are not satisfied is clearly visible in Zulema Barros Pereira’s plea to “[g]ive us a hospital first”.

If one puts together these various views, what is the picture that emerges? First, the state has grossly failed to provide basic infrastructure to the public. Despite this obvious and glaring shortcoming, the state is reluctant to recognize its fault. Rather, the state chooses to cover up its shortcomings by promoting mega projects that further deplete the quality of life of its citizens. Secondly, the state does not view the citizens as stakeholders in the economic and political future of the land. If indeed the citizens were seen as stakeholders, Goa would not have witnessed the government-corporate combine trying to bulldoze its way through villages and forests.

But why do we need all this development if its effects are disastrous? Stated in another way, how is such development justified in the first place? The simple answer to this – one that politicians often give – is the need to create jobs. The casino industry can be a good example: while it was promoted or justified as creating employment for locals, the recent migration of peoples from the ‘northeast’ regions of India to service this industry indicates that local Goans either don’t want to, can’t find or are not given employment in this sector. The same is true of the five star hotel industry. And now we are witness to the same ‘it-will-create-jobs’ rhetoric as far as Mopa airport is concerned. Some days back, some 15 persons, each belonging to 15 Dhangar families affected by the Greenfield airport, were given appointment letters – to what post exactly? – by the private firm that is developing the airport. Only 15 so far in an airport that projects to service millions of passengers. Obviously, many more people will be needed from outside the state to service the airport once it is ready.

But the point that needs to be stressed is how the pattern of development is similar in the cases discussed above: entailing the widespread destruction of natural resources. Environmental damage, whether caused in Vasco or Mopa, will impact other places. What good are jobs when people will not be able to breathe properly?

The notion of development needs to change within Goan and Indian politics. Thus, rather than a vague idea of development led by government and corporate, every election needs to see people demanding a collective future for Goa, one that is infused with the vocabularies of human rights, people’s participation, and the privileging of the local people – and not just one section of the populace over the other. Goa’s decades-long struggles for protecting its identity and environment have led us to collectively ask the right question today: whom is this development for? 

(First published in O Heraldo, dt: 8 November, 2017)