The piles of garbage across Goa remind me
of an event in Goa’s history. Goa’s recorded history does provide us with
instances that enable us to draw a parallel and see the disastrous effects of waste
management when not checked properly and seriously. While my attempt in this
essay will be to draw parallels with the past, it must also be stated that the
problem of garbage management is a recent one associated with factors of
rampant urbanization, large-scale use of non-biodegradable materials, and
lapses on the part of the State.
After becoming the capital of the
Portuguese Empire in Asia, the City of Goa or Velha Goa was ravaged by epidemics at least a couple of times. The
fortunes of the City as a great entrepôt or a metropolis were impacted by these
epidemics. The Goan scholar José Nicolau da Fonseca writing about the city in
his book An Historical and
Archæological Sketch of the City of Goa (1878) makes a mention of the
devastating epidemic of 1570.
Along with the siege by Ali Adil Shah’s
large army that led to food shortages, Fonseca argued that it were the
unsanitary conditions then prevailing in the City that were responsible for the
outbreak of an epidemic. “The city was in the first place surrounded by marshes
and stagnant pools, emitting noxious exhalations, whilst little or no attention
was paid to the hygienic conditions essential for the preservation of public
health. The muddy banks of the river outside the city were generally covered
with the detritus of animal and vegetable matter, which being exposed at low
tide to the tropical sun underwent putrefaction, and thereby bred the germs of
disease” (p. 150).
Moreover, Fonseca wrote that open
defecation took place (with the permission of the Government) within the limits
of the City, that there was a lack of access to potable drinking water (due to
Governmental neglect), and that garbage littered on the main thoroughfares of
the City so much so that “nobody was prevented from throwing any quantity of
filth he chose into the streets” increased the devastation. Even before the
epidemic, the dirty streets and lack of clean water had contributed to creating
unhygienic living conditions.
If one drives around Goa, one is quite
shocked (or not) to see piles of garbage dumped along the sides of roads. What
is also alarming is the manner in which places close to habitation or water
bodies are used as landfill sites. The garbage dumped at the Campal Parade
ground in Panjim is a case in point. That garbage is dumped in an area that
hosted exhibitions and events, or was an open space for the public is a
shocking lapse on the part of the authorities, not to mention an acute health
hazard. There are more examples in Panjim itself that enable us to see parallels
with the conditions then prevailing in the City of Goa.
The area close to the new building of
the Central Library at Patto is being used as a landfill for quite a number of
years. Apart from a lack of planning or vision that the authorities and the
city administration have displayed, there is also the danger of noxious gases
poisoning scholars and general readers or fires causing permanent damage to an
institution that houses some of the rarest books, newspapers, magazines, and
manuscripts in Asia. Such a premier library should have had a prominent place
as an institution symbolic of intellectual production in Goa and not enveloped
by the stink and danger of garbage.
It is precisely such State apathy and a
crisis of management that increases the danger to the lives of citizens and
reduces the quality of life. Recently, O
Heraldo reported that the newly operational Solid Waste Management plant in
Saligao was functioning
only up to half of its capacity. There were talks about transferring the garbage
from Campal to the new plant in Saligao, but it is evident that
bureaucratic insouciance and an
attitude to pass the responsibility to some other department or individual would
result in more garbage piling alongside roads and open spaces right in the
middle of cities.
The case of the epidemic of 1570 and the
rising problem of garbage management today seems to have striking similarities.
For one, the then administration which had a duty of regulating and enforcing
laws regarding public health had failed miserably. It can be argued that the present
administration is also failing in a similar duty. Secondly, people then as
today have no qualms in dumping garbage along the roads. There are also
important differences in terms of technology and the manner in which it
contributes to the generation and the disposal of waste. But it does appear
that history is coming full circle. One may think if this is a case of ‘history
repeating itself’ or if it is a case of cyclical history wherein things move
from being good to bad and back to good again. For many would recall that
public order and civic sense was prevailing in Goan towns and cities during the
last few decades of Portuguese rule. Whatever may be the case, it cannot be
denied that all of us are facing a major crisis of public health if the status
quo in the functioning of public affairs is maintained. And perhaps thinking
about such instances in the past might help us in being alert to problems of
the present that are increasingly threatening us.
(First published in O Heraldo, dt: 20 July, 2016)
(First published in O Heraldo, dt: 20 July, 2016)
