Goans still hope to preserve identity

Bosco de Sousa Eremita, Panaji

Goa recently marked 50 years since its liberation from Portuguese colonial rule and its merger with India. At the time of its liberation, on December 19, 1961, India’s then prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru promised to safeguard Goa’s identity – customs, practices and policies inherited from the Portuguese, who ruled the area from 1510. Down the years, the people of Goa have begun to believe their identity was under threat, though their spirits were lifted when Sonia Gandhi, grand-daughter of Nehru and chairperson of the federal ruling coalition, promised to take up Goa’s demand for special status in India. Gandhi addressed more than 50,000 people at an anniversary event in the state capital of Panaji. Special status, Goans say, would restrict outsiders from buying land and property in Goa, the top tourist destination in the country. For some time now, even Church circles have reverberated with the clamor for protection of Goa’s land and environment. The principal cause for concern among Goans is the state’s land use plan for the next decade, known as the Goa Regional Plan 2021. The draft plan was first made public in 2009 and its notification was finally published on October 21 this year. The Church and village bodies that discussed the plan determined that it paved the way for unbridled construction activity in violation of environment regulations. On December 16, thousands marched to the state capital to demand scrapping of the plan. The archdiocesan Council of Social Justice and Peace (CSJP) noted that the plan did not specify forests, scrub vegetation or grazing lands as natural cover. Such is the case also with areas lying below sea level, locally known as Khazan land that falls under the jurisdiction of Eco-Sensitive Zone 1. People want fields, ponds, creeks, sluice gates, fish farming and salt pans also to be >The author was less than a year old when Goa's Liberation took place. At 51, and based at Porvorim, near Panjim, he has worked as a journalist for more than 25 years, having served as editor of the Panjim-based Gomantak Times