UNDEMOCRATIC: The arrest of a group of people, protesting peacefully against the cutting down of trees at Mollem wildlife sanctuary and other projects, which will compromise with the environmental climate of Goa, were ill-treated and brutally arrested by the police on December 19, 2020

By Rajan Narayan

The 59th anniversary of Liberation Day which was to kick off the 60th anniversary celebration saw the police acting like the agents of dictator Salazar under the orders of Chief Minister of Goa`Salazar’ Pramod Sawant. On Liberation Day a group of young people were arrested at the Panjim Church Square and Captain Venzy Veigas of Goenkarcho Ekvott was taken into preventive custody. The people of Goa were not permitted to attend the cultural festival organised to celebrate the countdown to the 60th anniversary of Goa’s Liberation from Portuguese rule…

The 59th and the 60th anniversary of Goa’s Liberation saw the return of Salazar Raj in Goa. On Liberation day the police arrested several young Goans including women and children protesting peacefully against the Mollem 420 watt power project and the double tracking of the South Western Railway. The protestors were not blocking traffic. They were not violent. They were not raising slogans. They were holding a peaceful Gandhian protest against projects likely to destroy cool green status of holiday state Goa. These are projects which will raise the temperature of Goa to 30 degrees C from the already high 23 degrees.
The protestors were arrested under Section 144 which prevents the gathering of four or more people at any public place. The police had no grounds to arrest the peaceful protestors. The men, women and children were dragged to the waiting police van and taken to Ponda and Aggasaim police station and released after been retained for five hours. To compound the totally illegal arrest of the youth the police also arrested Captain Venzy and the parish priest of Chicalim, Dr Fr Bolmax Pereira .
Panjim’s Church of Immaculate Conception which is unique because of the grand flight of step ways leading up to the church and the church square itself is a major tourist attraction. Even on a normal tourist day hundreds of tourist and locals sit on the church step ways and click photographs at the picturesque venue. The church square was not amongst the many streets off the Campal promenade or DB marg blocked for the celebration at DB grounds from 6pm onwards.
Presumably the rest of Panjim was freely open for tourists and citizens to take in the sights of the Liberation highlights and decorations in town. The church square was open for tourists or anyone to visit. But on Liberation day which marks the Goa’s freedom from dictatorial Portuguese colonial rule the group of niz Goenkars were not permitted to protest peacefully at the Panjim church square.

LIBERATION MEANS FREEDOM

LIBERATION means freedom. And according to the Indian Constitution itself freedom of movement is guaranteed to all citizens of Goa. But what did our powers that be do this Liberation day? On Liberation day all the main roads were blocked from the Dayanand Bandodkar road to the Miramar Dona Paula highway and all the approach roads to Azad maidan where President Kovind paid homage to the martyrs of the freedom movement.
From Azad maidan the presidential convoy proceeded to the DB grounds for he was the chief guest to launch the 60th anniversary celebrations of the Liberation of Goa where a cultural program had been planned with freedom fighters and special invitees invited. This is the same Dayanand Bandodkar grounds which were earlier vandalised when the first International Film Festival of India came to Goa – before this these grounds served as the first home to Goans for football and it was the only football grounds and stadium built by the first chief minister of Goa, Dayanand Bandodkar. The stadium was demolished by none other than the other Salazar, the late Manohar Parrikar, when he was looking for venues to host the first IFFI in Goa in 2004.
The freedom of movement of the people of Goa this Liberation day was blocked out of concerns for the security of President Kovind, the chief guest at this year’s Liberation day celebrations. It is not as if the president was in Delhi where he is under a greater threat because of the agitating farmers who have come to protest against the recently passed three agricultural bills. It is not as though the president was in Kashmir where he may be targeted by Pakistani terrorists. It is not as if the president was in West Bengal where warmongering is going on between the BJP and Trinamol party of Mamta didi. The president was in peaceful Goa!
Even when Goans protested against the double tracking and Mollem power station meant for the benefit of the Adani parivar, they did not engaged in any violence. They peacefully protested on the rail tracks of the South Western Railway; and even the day before the president’s visit some protestors held a night long vigil Arrosim. How did they pose any threat to the president of India? Surely they had a right to let the president know that all is not well in Goa and that the local government is destroying Goa’s green status? A president described Goa as the best state in the country.
It is not President Ramnath Kovind who is to blamed for the brutality and the blockage of large parts of Panjim when the minority community was out in large numbers for Christmas shopping. We do not know whether it was meant to be a PR exercise. But the fact remains that when President Kovind visited the Mahalsa temple at Verna, a marriage was going on there. Despite the over-zealousness of a paranoid police force the president when he heard about forbid any stoppage of the marriage and on the contrary he blessed the couple who got married in peace.
Only after the saath pheras were completed did the president offer his prayers to the Mahalsa temple deity. It’s a very old temple which was reconstructed with major contributions from an NRI Catholic by name Jerome Mendes, of Leonara’s Hotel on the nearby highway. This is the Goa that Goans and outsiders love. A Goa where all communities live in peace and harmony.

Curiously the news items on the president not obstructing the marriage appeared only in the Times of India and was based on a Raj Bhavan brief about the incident. Apparently President K Kovind has much more regard for the ordinary people of India than Salazar Pramod Sawant. On an earlier occasion a couple had scheduled their wedding at a five-star hotel in Hyderabad. The hotel people cancelled the booking because the president was expected to stay in hotel.
Reportedly, the NRI bride wrote to the President’s Office on how she could not get married because of his official visit and his stay in the same hotel where the wedding was scheduled. President Kovind wrote back saying that he had no objections to their getting married even though he would be staying in the hotel on the day of the marriage.
So clearly it is not presidents and prime ministers, with the exception of Prime Minister Narendara Modi perhaps, who like to create problems for the aam aadmi or common citizens. It is the officials and particularly the police who want to impress their bosses! Coming back to the case of the peaceful protestors arrested at the Panaji Church Square on Liberation it was the District Superintendent of Police of North Goa Utkrisht Prasoon who was behind the arrest of the young people. The DSP North Goa is an IPS officer and in Goan Konkani parlance, a bhaile. No Goan officer, even if he was an IPS officer, would not have behaved in such a dictatorial manner. It is the outside bureaucrats from Delhi who are used to harassing the common man who made the presidential visit to Goa a nightmare for Goans.
The police in Goa and all the officials from the chief secretary downwards must read the Indian Constitution. They must be told that Goa is no longer ruled by the Portuguese dictator, Antonio de Oliveira Salazar, but is part and parcel of democratic India. That the Indian Army liberated Goa on December 19, 1961. That not only the Constitution but the Supreme Court has recently upheld the right of citizens to protest.
Intervening in the writ petitions filed for and against the strike of the farmers in an around Delhi, the SC has categorically stated that the farmers have a right to protest as long as they are peaceful and not obstructing any other citizens. The young Goans who were protesting in front of the Panjim church square fitted in the definition of a peaceful non-violent protest, it was totally peaceful and did not cause obstruction or violence to anyone.
Presumably, the reason why the police arrested the young group of protestors including women and children, was because they knew that Chief Minister Pramod Sawant would have to pass the Panjim church to attend the Liberation day function at DB grounds. It is to please the CM that the North Goa SP arrested the young people. And his acting counterpart in the south Arvind Gavas who is against the bhaile IPS officer who arrested Captain Venzy and the Chicalim Priest Dr Fr Bolmax Pereira. The excuse was that this was a preventive arrest to ensure that no citizens carried out any agitations during president’s visit.
It is not illegal to protest even if the president is visiting Goa! It is not illegal to protest even before the president of India. As head of the country the president must be informed of how Central schemes are contributing to the destruction of Goa’s much loved green environment. He must be made aware that over 10,000 trees would have to be cut for the Mollem power project alone.
The president is the last court of appeal for the ordinary people of this country. It is only the president who can forgive a criminal who has been sentenced to death by even the SC. The people of Goa should march in huge numbers to the residence of the Chief Minister of Goa. And to the office of the SP North and SP South. And remind them that we did not become a colony of India after we were liberated. That we are a part of the democratic Republic of India.
Therefore, what happened on Liberation day, December 19, 2020 was not symbolic of a liberated Goa. It represented the return of Salazar rule to Goa. Is Salazar Pramod Sawant listening to the angry voices of the people of Goa?