From Agricultural Prosperity to Polluting Industries -- By Nisser Dias

Cuncolim a very historical town is prosperous compare to it immediate neighbours due to its fertile land and fields with abundance of fresh water from streams flowing towards is from the hinterland lands beyond. Cuncolim has also been returned surplus agricultural production both in grains and coconuts.

From times immemorial skilled craftsmen like carpenters, masons, gun smith and others have emerged from here. If one inquires from elderly folks they are bound to tell you that antique furniture in old Portuguese mansions were prepared by the carpenters hailing for this place. In fact it is written in the annals of history that the Portuguese prepared their guns in Cuncolim and compared them to the made in Germany.

The people of this town till date have a very defiant attitude and just cannot be cowed down by mere posturing and this made them to stand-up to the erstwhile Portuguese rulers thereby marking history with a trail of blood and death.

History

Before the Portuguese set foot in Goa in 1510, Cuncolim was inhabited mostly by devout Hindu population hailing from Kshatriya caste.

The Portuguese rulers to fulfil the wishes of Christian faith sent missionaries to Goa to propagate it. The colonial government in Goa supported the conversions with incentives. Rice was given to the poor, good positions in the Portuguese colonies to the middle class and military support for local rulers.

As time passed the Portuguese started destroying temples. Many Hindu temples at Assolna and Cuncolim were also destroyed against the wishes of the local population.

The main reason for which displeased the local population the traditional fairs connected with temple and religious festivities constituted the bazaar economy of Cuncolim. The demolition of temples meant denial of religious and cultural traditions which in-turn disturbed the social structure and local economy.

Angered by this Gaunkars refused to pay rent to the Portuguese authorities. They defied the colonial rulers and refused to give up their practice of the Hindu religion, constructed temples which were destroyed challenging the ban. Due to this defiance missionaries found it impossible to convert them.

Five Jesuits massacred

Five Jesuits met in Orlim Church in 1583, and proceeded to Cuncolim, with the objective of erecting a cross and selecting ground for building a church.

Hearing this, villagers after holding a council, advanced in large numbers, armed with swords, lances, and other weapons, towards the spot where the Jesuits priests, one European civilian and 14 native Christian had assembled and massacred them there . A “Martyrs” chapel was erected, dedicated to the priests and layman killed in 1583.

Another Chapel dedicated to St. Francis Xavier, the patron saint of Goa, was the site where the bodies of the murdered priests were dumped in a well. The well still stands today inside the chapel and is opened for people to view once a year during the feast of St. Xavier.

Portuguese avenges the murder

Following the massacre, the chief of the Portuguese Army in retaliation destroyed orchards in the village and unleashed many atrocities on the local population. Subsequently the local leaders from the Kshatriya Gaunkars community of Cuncolim were invited for talks at the Assolna fort situated on the banks of the River Sal. Sixteen of the seventeen leaders were executed while one escaped. As of today Assolna church is constructed at the fort site where the villagers were put to death.

Chieftains Memorial

In 2003, Prof. late Vermissio Coutinho, head of the Cuncolim Chieftains Memorial Trust. Constructed a memorial in memory of the slain chieftains.

Even to this day, after more than 5 centuries the animosity between the Gaunkars and others surfaces but overall the villagers have moved forward and the both the communities live in harmony.

Development

One could say Cuncolim a village with 12 Municipal wards has seen lots of development over the years. They can boast of a modern bus terminal, fish market and community halls. There is an industrial estate which caters to the employment needs of sizeable population.

However there are pitfalls because of the pollution laden industries. Some years back people had to rise against hazardous waste disposal throwing safety norms to the winds. Industrial units were blamed for pollution of groundwater with heavy metals like zinc, cadmium, copper, nickel and other polluting solvents

Personalities of Cuncolim

Prof. late Vermissio Coutinho was instrumental in leading his villagers to build the memorial for the chieftains massacred by the Portuguese. Former MLA and Chief Justice (rtd.) of Allahabad High Court Ferdino Rebello. Goa Bench High Court Judge (rtd) Nelson Britto. Rajya Sabha MP Shantaram Naik. Konkani writer late Fr. Planton Faria. Superintendent of Police (rtd) Tony Fernandes. Elvis Gomes another son of the soil who recently opted for voluntary retirement from government services to take plunge in politics is held in high regard in Cuncolim.

The undeclared Emergency by Modi sarkar -- By Cleofato Almeida Coutinho



Unmasking of Prime Minister Narendra Modi

The unprecedented decision (now kept on hold) to off-air NDTV India for a day is a dangerous step for Indian democracy. The central government’s action has been condemned by the journalists and editors of all press councils drawing parallels to the emergency of 1975. Why do we suddenly feel that the ban is reminiscent of the 1975 emergency? The 1975 emergency may be known for regime of terror but the darkest patch was the suppression of dissent.

The emergency provision borrowed from Germany’s Weimer constitution found its way into the Indian constitution after the constituent assembly opined that the young country would require such draconian powers. A provision to restrict freedom of speech and expression based upon security of the country was also provided for. Laws like sedition are sustained under that provision. We can acquit the founding fathers as the constitution was  formulated against the backdrop of the partition riots. Possibly they lost track that the post world war II Constitution of Federal Republic of Germany does not vest the government with such emergency powers.

Mrs. Gandhi came to power in 1971 with the great slogan of ‘Garibi Hatao’ after the banks were nationalized. It was thought the money of the rich lying in banks would now go to the poor. But after four years nothing of that sort happened and her creditability started eroding. As the increase in prices of essential commodities soared, Mrs. Gandhi’s popularity started dropping. The Supreme Court’s refusal to grant a blanket stay on the Allahabad judgement unseating her from the Rae Bareily constituency was the last straw. She was advised to suppress all dissent which was made possible by the imposition of emergency. Fali Nariman tells us that Mrs. Gandhi was herself surprised that the country’s intelligensia has not reacted adversely. 

 At the heart of the controversy is NDTV not following that ‘nationalist’ line. We are passing through a phase where every violation of a citizens’ right to dissent is sustained on security of the country and nationalism planks. The attack on the NGOs or a sedition charge against Kanaya Kumar is supported by the right wing class by the measuring rod of nationalistic vigilantism. Various facebook groups and whatsapp groups are loaded with posts proclaiming that nationalist line with the flavour of country’ security and patriotism. Flash back to 1975.

As the ‘achhe din’ times peter out, the need of sustaining suppression of dissent by looking for terrorists and anti nationals in your backyard shall increase. Amidst a clamour to closedown NDTV Nikhil Wagle rightly summed it up in a tweet. ‘Today it is national security over freedom, tomorrow it could be national security over democracy itself’.

The building of hate and spread of venom against progressive thought and free thinking has always been the agenda of the right wing forces. It is under such an atmosphere that Pune’s Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute could be vandalized. It is in this atmosphere of hate that country’s three leading progressive rationalists Narendra Dhabolkar, Govind Pansare and M.M. Kalburgi became easy targets.  Dadri’s Mohammed Akhlaq’s is a shining example of lyching resulting from atmosphere of hate and religious fanaticism built around Hindutva and cow and beef. The venom is  spread by the self votaries of Hinduism   with the patronage of the ruling dispensation. The   minister for culture  Mahesh Sharma, Sakshi Maharaj and  Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti are the new messengers of jingoism with the likes of Tarun Vijay providing ideological support.

What sort of a freedom is it when renowned film maker Karan Johar had to pay five crores  rupees to Army Welfare Fund for buying peace for screening his film which  had a Pakistani actor. And   peace is brokered by a chief minister! The images of the Wankhade Stadium being vandalized by the Sena and the black paint on Sudheendra Kulkarni’s face for appearing at a public function with the former Pakistani foreign minister must have flashed  in the his mind when he  crawled  to proclaim that he would never work with the Pakistani artist.

Re-incarnation of Hitler

 The problem here is, any stupid and erratic action is justified with impunity under the guise of ‘nationalism’. The fringe elements’ belief that their brand of nationalism gives them a right to take law in their own hands.  True Nationalism is subverted to justify any attack on freedom of speech and right to dissent. It is in that context that we have to understand the  justification of attack on  NDTV India.  



Adv. Cleofato A Coutinho

Suhas Palshikar, political scientist tells us that Indira Gandhi did not abandon democracy but mixed it with her personal authoritarian traits but today’s democracy is laced with that nationalist line coupled with security of the country.  Nikhil Wagle’s tweet is so apt. Imagine an emergency provision in the hands of right wing forces. Any dictatorial regime can be flavoured by that nationalist line. For past 25 years we have witnessed that our society is getting less tolerant to diversity and secular principles. It is in that context that Palshikar predicted that we could have anti diversity majoritarian democracy. That is certainly against very idea of India.

If Indira was surprised that the country’s intelligentsia did not react adversely in 1975, Dakshianyan Abhiyan led by Ganesh Devi is now poised to take on the pseudo nationaliasts 

 (The writer is practicing advocate, senior faculty in law and political analyst)

 

Take note: Monastery rings in change. -- By Nisser Dias

From the time the Government of India banned the higher denomination currency notes, people across the country are facing acute hardships to either exchange Rs. 1000 and Rs. 500 notes they already have in their possession for smaller denominations.

From November 8, people are making a beeline to the banks and standing for hours in queues at various banks to exchange and withdraw their money.

With no end in sight and to provide some respite to the needy Carmelite Monastery in Margao extended its helping hand to the needy and those in dire straits.

Fr. Archie Gonsalves

On Sunday, Superior of the Carmelite Monastery Rev. Fr. Archie Gonsalves announced that they are ready to accept Rs. 2000 notes and give change worth that amount in Rs. 100 from their collection of Sunday masses.

At the same time he made an appeal that the cause should be genuine like people have trouble to buy medicines and cannot do so because of change or discharge from hospitals and similar causes.

Fr. Archie said it was well received and lots of people availed this token of humility. “The response was positive, infact we had to curtail upto Rs. 2000 in exchange so that we could reach out to many more people in distress, at the same time poor people did come with Rs. 1000 and Rs. 500 but as per the government order we could not accept it and we are deeply sorry as we could not help them”. He however said that Carmelite Monastery is ready to help out in whichever way they can without crossing the lines drawn by the government.

The surgical attack against black money is just a farce -- Fr. Victor Ferrao

The sudden demonetization of high denomination notes has shown mixed reception.  The Government and its cheering team celebrated it as a bold step to check black money. Some even have gone to the extent of calling it a surgical strike. The manner in which the ordinary people of all walks of life reacted at a simple petrol pump, only shows that it cannot be equated to surgical strikes. Surgical strike only attacks the terrorists and not innocent people who may inhabit close to the territory under attack. This midnight strike is more closer to terror strikes as such attacks target also the innocent. With 80% of the currency in the market being that of the high denomination, this demonetization has affected almost every citizen of our country. Almost all opposition parties have questioned the timing of this attack while leaders of TMC have threatened to file a PIL in the High Court in Kolkota.

Social media is full of people who see conspiracy in the action. Some see the hand of Ambanis and draw a parallel with the 31st December which happens to be the common day for the closure of the free scheme offer of Reliance ‘Jio’ as well as the deposition of the notes of high denomination in the bank.  Others like Akhilesh Yadav think that the mid night attack has a political motive in view of Uttar Pradesh elections.  Some extend this motive even to elections in Punjab and Goa. Those in the legal field, like adovcate Jhamshed Mistry and Jabbar Singh have moved the Bombay High Court alleging that the demonetization was an illegal act as it was done through gazetted notification. They claim that de-monetization could be done only through an ordinance or amendment of the High Denomination Bank Notes Act 1978. 

It might help us to examine the effectiveness of the mid night action through a calm and critical lens.  The demonetization is not new to independent India though it has been greeted as an unprecedented action. Such an action was taken in 1946 and 1978 respectively. The difference at that time was that the banning of very high denomination notes like 1000, 5000 and 10,000 did not affect the poor as in those days poor never ever saw these notes as they amounted to a huge sum of money.  The difference of demonetization that we are facing today affects everyone, particularly the poor. Almost all the opposition parties have raised this issue. Some may argue that the government’s action ridiculously renders the poor as responsible for black money in our country. In a single mighty stroke, the Government has made all Indians guilty of black marketing.  This indeed

is unprecedented since our law threatens the hardest criminal as innocent unless proven guilty.  In the context of the mid night attack, in a single stroke every Indian has become guilty unless proved innocent of black marketing.  Hence, the social legality of this action leaves several questions unanswered.  Though the end is portrayed as noble in a short term and beneficial to all Indians, including our poor people in the long term, the means that are employed seem to fail to convince several among us.   But we must ask deeper questions. How does the criminalizing of the possession of even a single note of high denomination check the parallel black economy?  The presumption that seems to underlie this action is that notes of high denomination constitute black economy. Such a presumption appears to be faulty.  There is more to black economy than simply notes of high value.

The new notes

To understand this we may have to put on the thinking cap of Karl Marx. Indeed, we can safely say by expanding the ideas of Karl Marx that he would regard surplus wealth that is accumulated by the capitalist as dirty money. Just like black money is the surplus that is generated without paying the legitimate taxes to government, Marx saw surplus capital as being generated by denial of the legitimate payments to the workers.  Marx did not find fault directly with money that is merely the means of circulation and accumulation but drew our attention to the means of production that produces this inequality and surplus value.  The fact that the black money is the surplus capital that is generated without paying legitimate taxes cannot be debated. But by mere withdrawal of notes of high denomination is not going to affect the means of production of this surplus and parallel black economy.  Real surgical strikes should have attacked the means of production and not means of circulation. The midnight attack may have somewhat derailed this black economy but has not destroyed it. It can mutate and transform fast. Moreover, accumulation of wealth is not entirely accumulation of notes of high denomination alone. It involves accumulation of gold, assets and even business etc.  Hence, so called surgical attacks on the black money is ill fated to become toothless against the mighty black economy that has deep roots in our country.   The de-monetization of notes of high denomination might choke the black economy for a moment but will not destroy the means of production of black economy in our country.

Some of us have welcomed the so-called bold move of Modi Sarkar. The issue is will the same Sarkar have the required spine to outlaw the black economy that funds the political parties in our country? All parties with a very few exceptions receive donations in cheques.  When shall we have cashless donations being made mandatory to our political parties? By their own admission, BJP as well other parties receive more donations in cash than cheques. This suggests that the political

Fr. Victor Ferrao

parties to which the Modi Sarkar and allies belong are vulnerable to the acceptance of money generated by black economy.  When the ruling political parties appear to be neck deep beneficiaries of the black economy and would want it to survive, this simplified action of withdrawal of notes of high denomination appears to be only a short term distraction. Moreover, the introduction of even higher denomination notes amounting to 2000 seems to send wrong signals.  It seems to tell the poor you cannot have bread so eat cake. The withdrawal of high denomination could generate deflation and thus monetarily check inflation. But the coming of Rs. 2000 in the market might reverse these little benefits that the poor may get from the midnight attack.  All in all, the mid night strike is not a celebration of freedom at mid night but appears to be an (un)freedom forced on us at mid night. 

 

Congress plays hide and seek to form an alliance to defeat the communal forces in Goa -- By Nisser Dias

Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi conveyed a mixed message to its Goa unit. He recently advised the Goan MLAs who had visited him not to close doors on an alliance with secular parties to be followed by another message urging all the blocks in Goa to gear up to face elections. This has left it workers in confused state of mind. How the buzz at the ground level in Goa seems to be different as sources in the Congress indicated that the doors seems to have been sealed on a ‘mahagatbandhan or alliance’.

And the likely reason being the other parties are asking for too many seats which is likely to leave the Congress with just the 9 seats they currently have in their kitty in the Assembly.

This equation personifies in the Salcete taluka, which the Congress always considered it as its bastion but during the 2012 election had to contend with only two seats.

Salcete taluka consists of eight constituencies

namely Nuvem, Fatorda, Benaulim, Navelim, Velim, Curtorim, Cuncolim, Margao. At the 2012 Assembly hustings it managed to secure only two namely Margao and Curtorim, while Nuvem and Benaulim were won by Goa Vikas Party (GVP), Fatorda, Navelim, Velim and Benaulim went to the independents and BJP bagged Cuncolim.

In the present scenario NCP Goa president Jose Philip D’souza says, besides Benaulim they would want Navelim as they have a strong presence there in case of alliance with the Congress and other secular minded parties.

Presently Navelim is being represented by independent MLA and Fisheries Minister Avertano Furtado who had defeated Churchill Alemao in 2012. The Congress as of now does not have a leader and rumours of GPCC Luizinho Faleiro’s wanting to contest doing the round has muddied the waters further.

In Benaulim, NCP has already declared Churchill as their candidate but the Congress though had one nomination from the block president Edwin Barreto, is yet to declare their candidate giving a head start to AAP and NCP who have already started a vigorous campaign. The current MLA Caitu D’silva is also in the fray but is said to be contesting independently.

Goa Forward also wants to extend its tentacles to Velim constituency in Salcete  through its candidate Anthony Rodrigues, which is being represented by an independent Benjamin D’silva.

Goa Forward party symbol

Cuncolim is currently BJP’s seat. The Congress is a fix as its former MLA Joaquim Alemao has threatened to contest on People’s ticket if denied his party ticket. To add to the confusion ex-civil servant Elvis Gomes who has a sizeable following being son of the soil has thrown his hat in the ring and have bagged the AAP ticket.

So that leaves Congress with Curtorim and Margao in case of an alliance. Goa Forward mentor Vijay Sardessai when was asked if his party has closed doors on an alliance with the Congress he said, “I am giving due weightage to public sentiments and according to a survey 70 percent of Goa does not want BJP to come back to, power, but majority of people still feel BJP will form the government”. “Respecting people’s sentiments I am open for an alliance with everybody and anybody to send BJP home, but this has been mis-construed as a weakness on my side and I do not need Congress to win in Fatorda”. “What I’m asking for is the unity of forces in the opposition to get rid of the BJP to save Goem, Goemkar and Goemkponn”.

Congress party spokesperson advocate Pratima Coutinho said, “most of the blocks in Goa have opposed alliance as our people have been working for five years and we have 3 to 4 candidates in the block and if alliance takes place these people will be sidelined and it will affect the grassroot workers, but decision of an alliance solely depends on the high command including the GPCC president”.