November 15, 2014

Dabolim or Mopa for whom?

November 15, 2014

Unwinding Culture
Teotonio R. de Souza
Teotonio R. de Souza is the founder-director, Xavier Centre of Historical Research, Goa (1979-1994). He
presently resides in Portugal, where he is a University Professor and Fellow of the Portuguese Academy of
History since 1983 and tweets @ramkamat

My brief reflections here are provoked by the ongoing and fierce political debate
about a second airport in North Goa. Were the local people asked to give their
opinion when the Portuguese authorities threw open the land acquisition in
Mormugo in 1906 to industrialists and merchants? Or when General Craveiro
Lopes decided to open Goa to civil aviation in 1930?
The question that arises is: Who really cares for the interests of the people of the
locality? It was the defense of the colony and the development of the port and
railway link connecting it to British India that were uppermost in the plans of the
colonial administration in perennial need of economic survival. The peace and
prosperity of the people of the region is not reflected in any contemporary
documentation. But those were the colonial times when the colonial interests took
precedence.
Mormugo fort arrived as part of large-scale defense constructions that
characterized the period of the Spanish linkage with Portugal at the close of the
sixteenth century till 1640. It came under repeated Dutch fire before a peace
settlement was arranged with these Calvinist rebels against the Spanish catholic
rule. Mormugo attracted renewed attention in 1684, when it was decided to

abandon the plague-stricken capital city of Goa, further threatened by Sambhaji

in 1683, and replace it with a new capital.
Besides the other ills, the Inquisition had driven the more enterprising people of
the old capital to greener pastures in Bombay which was flourishing under the
English East India Company. After 30 years of hesitations and lingering for lack
of funds, the project of new capital in Mormugo was abandoned for good in
1712. What was already done served to give shelter to administrative offices,
prominent families and the nuns of Santa Monica during the Maratha invasion of
1739. Panjim became the new choice of capital in 1759.
CSJP, the social justice cell of the Goa Church was lamenting a few days ago:
The Goa Government, whose responsibility is to protect the rights of the people,
is instead citing questionable reasons as a justification for an airport which will
uproot the villagers of the locality, denying them rights to their ancestral land, their
settlement and livelihood and resulting in their displacement to an uncertain,
anxiety-filled new life. [http://bit.ly/1yloIdm]
Following the Liberation, Mormugo port and Dabolim airport gained a major uplift
and integration into the defense strategy of India and as hub for the development
of tourism. The well-being of the people of the locality continues to be sacrificed
for the territory and country, despite the widely proclaimed gains of democracy
based upon popular participation. Curiously, by quirk of fate, both Defense and
Tourism of the nation are handled by Goan politicians! Will they be more sensitive
to Goas needs and save the local populations by dispersing the developmental
pressure?
Unfortunately, the democracy is killing the democracy in Goa. The hue-and-cry
and the growing paranoia of the Salcete political barons alarmed by the shift of
political leadership to North of Goa, does not reflect any concern for the fate of
the Mormugo, Chicalim and adjacent localities which are already overwhelmed
by the environmental degradation caused by wanton development, which started
with the monster of Zuari Agro-Chemical.
The destruction of the traditional habitat of Mormugo during past century and
half can be gauged from some existing documentation, such as the first
Portuguese Goan novel Beatriz (1885). The protagonists of the novel were invited
for a birthday party of forts governor. Nearly one hundred pages of the novel
cover this event and present to us some rare features of the interior of the fort.
A clandestine rendez-vous of the lovers inside the fortified area during early hours
of the day some days later, made use of a furtive entry into the fortified premises.

Juvenal, the hero of the novel, used an underground passage from the ocean
side after facing a deadly cobra on his way.
More about the old Mormugo (including Vaddem) and Chicalim people and their
habitat can be read in rare reports submitted by the parish priest Fr. Aleixo Maral
Anto and by the Regedor (Justice of Peace) Antnio Caetano do Rozario
Alvares, in August and September of 1875 respectively. They refer to their
inhabitants who enjoyed calm in every sense (gozam de sossego em todo o
sentido)! No social vices or crimes were reported (os vcios e crimes
ordinariamente nenhuns e em nenhuma das classes).The number of inhabitants
is mentioned as 675 for Mormugo and Vaddem. There was not a single family
dedicated to trade, but there are references to pearl fishing near S. Jacinto, and
occasional gold mining at the springs inside the Mormugo fort. All this is a far
cry from what we witness today.
The Jesuit militancy is deeply ingrained in the psyche of the Sashtikar catholics.
It certainly enabled Goa to preserve its demographic characteristics in the midst
of the post-liberation democratic struggle, particularly in the struggle for saving
Konkani. However, the old-bhattkar mentality of the Portuguese times is
reinforced by the new political barons of Salcete, who do not mind sacrificing the
other social groups and other localities to their own parochial interests.