Gaonkaari
Repealing Section 39(A) Is More Important for Goa Than Scrapping SIR; Don’t Let Goa’s Core Issues Get Lost Amid Political Agitations
Goa stands at a critical crossroads. The state’s land, hills, forests, agricultural fields, water resources and traditional land rights are facing serious threats. The rights of tenants and mundkars, implementation of the Forest Rights Act, unresolved Alvara land issues, protection of Comunidade lands and the demand to repeal Section 39(A) of the Town and Country Planning Act are all matters directly linked to Goa’s very existence and identity.
Just as public movements have begun gathering momentum around these crucial issues, constitutional rights, the demand for the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls have suddenly started dominating the agenda of public protests. Is this shift happening naturally, or is attention being deliberately diverted? This question deserves serious consideration.
Protecting democracy, safeguarding the independence of constitutional institutions and ensuring the credibility of the electoral process are undoubtedly important national concerns. Their seriousness cannot be underestimated. However, political parties, legal experts, intellectuals and civil society organisations across the country are already actively raising these issues. Opposition parties also have political reasons to mobilise around them.
But who will stand up for Goa’s land? Who will protect Goa’s identity and existence? And who will pay the price if Goa’s fundamental concerns disappear in the noise of national politics?
For Goa, repealing Section 39(A) is more urgent than scrapping SIR. Holding the Town and Country Planning Minister politically accountable is a more pressing concern for Goa than demanding the resignation of the Chief Election Commissioner.
Electoral irregularities can be challenged through constitutional and judicial mechanisms. However, once hills are destroyed, agricultural lands are buried under concrete and ancestral lands slip out of local hands, recovering them becomes almost impossible.
Movements such as Enough is Enough, Goa, environmental organisations and social activists must recognise this reality. There is absolutely nothing wrong with taking a stand on national issues. But such involvement must not weaken the intensity or focus of movements addressing Goa’s immediate concerns.
Political parties may change their priorities according to electoral calculations. Civil society movements, however, must remain committed to the survival, rights and interests of the people.
Today, Goa desperately needs a broad-based people’s movement to protect its land. The government must be held accountable for Section 39(A), pending tenancy and mundkar rights, unresolved forest rights claims, Alvara land disputes and encroachments on Comunidade properties. Sustained public pressure must be maintained on these issues.
When the direction of public movements changes, the pressure on those in power changes too. Activists must therefore carefully determine which issues deserve immediate priority.
Abandoning Goa’s pressing concerns to participate in every national political confrontation is like ignoring a fire raging in one’s own house while debating the smoke rising from someone else’s.
Democracy must certainly be protected. But Goa’s land, its people and its very identity must also survive within that democracy!
Let us remember: governments can be changed, Election Commissioners can be replaced and laws can be amended. But rebuilding a Goa that has been environmentally devastated and stripped of its land and identity will not be easy.
