INTERGENERATIONAL EQUITY: THE OLD AND THE NEW

 

The end of a calendar year often makes us reflect on the ‘old’ that we leave behind and the ‘new’ that we hope for. When most of the economic, social, and political problems that Goa faced last year, or even over the last few years, remain firmly in place, it makes little sense to hope for a better 2021. The pandemic, of course, gives us reasons to be even more pessimistic. We really do not know how 2021 will unfold, especially because the government everyday reinforces its spectacular inefficiency in handling the pandemic. It is for this reason that, rather than offering the usual clichés about a new calendar year, it might be better to reflect on some of the positive changes over the last six months.

 

I am referring especially to the massive participation of college students and other youth in environmental protests since, at least, June 2020. While youth have always participated in protests and agitations before, and have been as vocal and well-informed, this time around youth participation is marked by a clever social media savviness. Additionally, they believe in confronting their elected leaders directly, especially through social media, not kowtowing to them as if they were feudal lords. At the height of the pandemic, many college students started mobilizing public opinion on Whatsapp and Twitter. Soon, these mobilizations developed into letter-writing campaigns, as well as creating public awareness through hashtags (#savemollem), artworks, and Instagram stories.

 

The main issue in the recent participation of the youth in Goa is intergenerational equity. In other words, the future of Goa and young Goans. But there is a conceptual difference as the ‘future’ in the recent protests takes the environment as its basis, and not culture or politics. Intergenerational equity is rather an old concept in economics but one that has been gaining increasing traction in debates about the environment, especially climate change. Intergenerational equity here means that the environment is the basis of life, and any livelihood must be based on conserving and protecting the environment.

 

The demands are strikingly different from what one generally assumes would be made by the youth. The youth are simply asking the authorities to protect and conserve the environment, and not necessarily create economic opportunity—or development—so that more jobs are available in the future. The old ways of pacifying youth unrest through government jobs do not seem to be working these days because the demands are not about the economy but about the ecology.

 

There are some urgent reasons why the environment needs to be protected and conserved from predatory development. For one, as the pandemic has taught us, destroying forests will only lead to more diseases being released onto human habitation. Secondly, it is about having a place to call home, so that one can live and make a living by accessing basics like clean water, air, and food. Without ecology, as it is getting clearer to almost everyone, no employment, cultural life, or society is ever possible.

 

Today, we are concerned about our future because successive waves of development in Goa have destroyed the intergenerational equity for the Goan youth. Goa’s history of destructive development shows that those most affected by it are the youth from the subaltern classes. Take the example of the tourism industry. When the industry started booming from the 1980s, many young people in the coastal areas dropped out of schools. One can also think of the mining boom which, while creating deep scars on the environment in those regions, also left the people living there little or no facilities. An environmental crisis only deepens a preexisting social one.

 

The most important political change that environmental and intergeneration equity activism needs to deliver is rather in the social sphere. While the social media blitz has turned the tides against developmentalist policies, Goa is yet to create equitable stakeholders, the young and the old of all social background, within a vision of intergenerational equity. Intergenerational equity is throttled if there is no vision for how communities will interact and use the land in the future. To put it in another way, we are yet to create a vision where Goa’s rich ecology is preserved and handed over to the next generation irrespective of caste, creed, or religion.

 

The big question is this: Who will benefit from the Goan environment that we want to protect today? Because, over the years, resources that one generation can hand over to the next have been steadily depleting. There is less land, for instance, that a new generation of Goans can inherit, or even purchase, for the building boom fostered as development has taken it out of common Goans’ reach. Despite the so-called development that successive governments are proud of and constantly promote, more and more Goans are forced to migrate for decent jobs. Thus, it is not surprising that young Goans in their 20s and 30s find it better to opt for Portuguese citizenship. So, we need to protect the Goan environment to create a better and more cohesive Goan community.

 

The idea of intergenerational equity is rightly driving many to question the benefits of development for this and the next generations. The answers that the youth are giving us align with the destructive history of development in Goa: We don’t need more development! On a deeper reflection, the demands of the youth today are not really ‘new’ but by fulfilling it Goans can find better ways to regain the best aspects of the ‘old’ life they have lost through rampant development since the 1970s. That is what we need in the years to come.

MISPLACED PRIORITIES: PROFIT AT THE EXPENSE OF GOA

Of all the misplaced priorities of successive Goan governments, the most recent is the Vibrant Goa summit. The summit aimed to attract investment in the areas of pharma, tourism, IT, and real estate. Even a cursory glance at the industries that the Goan government is promoting should make the alarm bells ring. For it is precisely these industries and their unregulated promotion that causes economic, social, and cultural problems in Goa.

The problem with the government’s promotion of such business schemes lies in the non-recognition of the environmental cost on Goa and its people. Some weeks back, a tanker carrying the poisonous naphtha chemical, docked at the port in Vasco, drifted and ran aground in Dona Paula, posing a severe threat to the lives and livelihoods. We are still anxiously hoping that the poisonous chemical will not leak in the Goan waters, which are already polluted by MPT’s coal handling. The tanker drifted because the October retreating monsoons brought with it the cyclone Kyarr, causing much damage to life (in addition to trees and animals) and property.

The government’s response to disasters, whether man-made or natural, is inadequate. Governmental authorities do not display the initiative that one expects of their government to regulate and prevent disasters. It is not the first time that a ship has run aground. The infamous MV River Princess at Candolim and the barge hired for a wedding reception at Arossim have cause irreparable sand erosion at both these places. Cyclone Kyarr is not the first time that cyclonic winds have battered the coastline of Goa as well as caused floods. The government’s preparedness is almost nonexistent, which is to say that in times of crisis Goans can only depend on good fortune and the divine.

When the government is so inefficient to provide disaster management as well as the usual utilities like clean water (recall that Ilhas had no drinking water for 8-9 days in August and Ponda for even more this year) and regular electricity, it is beyond ridiculous that it promotes business and investment in Goa. How do you expect people to work if they do not have clean water to drink?

A note also on the Vibrant summits, the brainchild of the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, and a ‘Gujarat model of development’ is in order here. The claims of economic boost through the Vibrant Gujarat summit are at odds with the realities on ground. There is simply no accountability of the investment brought in by the thousands of MoUs signed in Gujarat. Compared to Goa’s 17 MoUs, Gujarat Vibrant summits have signed thousands of MoUs with business houses since its inception in 2003. The most recent assessment of the Vibrant Gujarat summit, with about 28,000 MoUs, confirms that it has not delivered on its lofty promises. And so, the question emerges: why does the government, assisted by the business community, engage in such shambolic ‘development’ and business practices?

The answer is startlingly simple: profit at any cost. By ‘profit,’ I do not only mean ‘greed’ of individuals but also a systemic problem wherein the social and political order rests on the extraction of natural resources by displacing the poor communities and an absence of fair redistribution of wealth. Demands for job creation or abysmal employment rates are then used as a smokescreen to promote businesses that do not care about worker rights and welfare. The government also does not display any seriousness in protecting worker rights. The result is an economic system that can collapse at any moment with catastrophic effects. Hence, it is a systemic problem that causes the most damage. Here’s how.

The government makes laws, such as those that create Special Economic Zones (SEZs) or Investment Promotion Boards, which give businesses incentives like tax breaks and a free hand to operate how they choose. Through its policies, such as trying to attract investment, the government abdicates its regulatory role—otherwise business houses refuse to participate in ‘boosting’ the economy. The government, as well as the business houses, circumvent the will and consent of the people on whose lands or in whose immediate vicinity these industries are established. Ignoring the irregularities, or rather actively promoting them, leads to massive losses to the exchequer. The exchequer also loses cash if the projects fail as the government, through a contractual binding, frees the business houses of all liabilities. In the case of the failed SEZs in Goa, the Goan government owes damages worth crores to the private business houses!

The systemic promotion of profit through law and policy is today, unfortunately, sustained by electoral democracy. Most people participate in the electoral democracy for basic amenities such as water, electricity, roads, and job security. But the result is opposite: both the government and business houses fail to deliver a stable economic system. Hence, the blame that individual voters are responsible for voting for the wrong guy by taking bribes, even if it is the case, does not explain the cause of my present situation. The vote of the honest voter also results in a systemic failure. Every government in power does the same thing, without fail.

Thus, we need to change our thinking about profit and economic growth. Stock market statistics are not a sign of progress and prosperity. As long as businesses demand unfair incentives, and as long as the government (party affiliation notwithstanding) humors such demands, the economic and social ills will continue unabated. Both the government and business houses must think of a ‘slower economy of life,’ meaning not a slow down of economic progress but a stable system that offers redistributive justice.

(First published in O Heraldo, dt: 6 November, 2019)

DELAYED RAINS ARE THE COST OF ‘DEVELOPMENT’

Water reserves are dangerously low owing to the delayed rains in most parts of the country; in some places, reservoirs are bone dry. Scientists express fears that in 3 or 4 decades, most Indian cities will be unlivable as they will run out of water. The delayed rains and the disruption of the seasonal cycles is another aspect of climate change, and it should be clear by now that such a change has dire consequences for the survival of life.

The climate change that we confront today is the product of human intervention as opposed to the climate fluctuations experienced by our ancestors. While bad seasons are a part of the natural cycle, the issue today is not the occasional natural disruptions but continued and increasing problems due to human intervention in nature, as well as a dire need for an efficient response to disasters or disaster-in-the-making by governments. As the problem is a man-made one, its solution lies in a sincere and creative response to the crisis by the government by taking into confidence various communities, especially marginalized communities.

In Goa, the almost-dry June is unprecedented in recent memory. The delayed monsoon has sparked fears of the scarcity of water and the disruption of the agricultural cycle in the future. The situation in Goa is grave because successive governments and profit-hungry business interests have destroyed the environment and the landscape at an unparalleled rate—politicians and bureaucrats call such destruction ‘development’. This ‘development’ involves unnecessary and environmentally destructive mega-projects, be they bridges, roads or highways, real estate in eco-sensitive areas, the cutting of trees and mangroves, the destruction of hills and mountains that act as water catchment areas or reservoirs, and rampant mining that forever destroys forests and water resources.

A stoppage in the destructive ‘development’ creates conditions where the environment heals to its previous condition. Following the ban on mining activities in Goa, many farmers reported a better yield as the groundwater table improved considerably. But though the ban on mining had given some respite to the forested areas of Goa, construction of mega-projects in other parts continues with the axing of thousands of trees.

The regularity of rainfall depends on trees and the forest cover. It is not enough that forests are preserved within the borders of Goa. What happens in the neighboring regions, too, affects the environment in Goa. The Maharashtra government, for instance, announced that the Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train project will affect more than 54,000 mangroves. The NGO Vanashakti, which released their findings last month of monitoring forests and eco-sensitive areas of the Konkan, says that within four years – from 2014-2018 – almost 1,600 acres of forests were lost to industry and mining.

Almost every environmental clearance from the government or an independent body involves the destructions of thousands of acres of forests. The ruling politicians and those who benefit from such mega-projects claim that the government bodies carry out compensatory afforestation. The Government of India until recently had a policy of afforestation, which the BJP government made into a law. However, the policy and the law does not work in reality as it does on paper. Sometimes the land earmarked for the compensatory afforestation displaces forest-dwelling communities, in other instances, it is unsuitable for plantation, or the compensatory afforestation project suffers from the apathy of the forest department.

The future, therefore, seems to be clear: Goa (as many other parts of India) faces rampant deforestation, and consequently a disruption of the seasonal cycles. While activist and civil society groups are finding some small but significant successes in their fight for the preservation of the environment, the question of the best way, or ways, to tackle environmental destruction still confronts the people of Goa. Successive governments have not adequately performed its duty in protecting the environment, nor have they shown goodwill towards the Goan environment by making strong protection policies and laws and implementing the same in letter and spirit. How, then, do we safeguard our future?

If we want to avoid delayed rains and other catastrophic climate change issues, we need to think of environmental concerns together with social concerns. In most occasions, the destructive ‘development’ is promoted in areas where communities of lesser socio-economic status live—land and water bodies are grabbed without any concern for the life and livelihood of such communities. For instance, in Goa’s mining areas, tribal and agrarian communities have lived for centuries; their lifestyle was seriously affected by mining. For the promotion of tourism, fishing communities, as well as agrarian ones, have suffered the ill-effects of high-end projects and upmarket ‘development’. Often the government and big businesses exploit the differences between different caste and class statuses, between those who own the land and those who are tenants—playing these sections against one another, and often using the legal procedures and the people’s lack of knowledge of these legal procedures to promote non-sustainable economic activities.

Currently, policy decisions by governmental bodies concerning the environment do not integrate the people—thus destructive policies displace communities, considering them as extraneous to the process of policy formation. Contrary to the governmental vision, environment-related activism in recent times in Goa is progressing in the right direction. The agitation against the increasing handling and transportation of coal, for instance, has integrated the concerns of the fishing community, some leaders of the movement earn their livelihood from fishing—a reason such efforts meet with success. Environmental activism can deepen their respective movements by subverting the caste and class fractures in Goan society.

Thus, stronger vision for a better environment and better politics needs to combine ecological issues with sociological ones.

(First published in O Heraldo, dt: 3 July, 2019)