THE GOAN | MAPUSA
On a day when Goa joins the nation in celebrating 80 years of Independence, there is another Goa that will spend August 15 looking towards barricades, protest sites and government offices – not with flags alone, but with demands.
From Karapur to Velsao, from the Town and Country Planning office in Panaji to the tribal belt, citizens are fighting battles over land, development, access, environmental protection and political representation.
The irony will not be lost on those on the streets: Goa may have been liberated from colonial rule, but eight decades later, many citizens believe they are still fighting to have a say in what happens to their land and their State.
“The problems we face today are much the same as those faced by our ancestors. Earlier, people fought the British and the Portuguese for their rights; today, we are fighting our own government,” said Adv Mahesh Rane, a political observer and president of Together for Mapusa.
“Though Goa was liberated from Portuguese rule, we still struggle to breathe freely amid inflation, unemployment, repeated NEET paper leaks, water and road problems and the destruction of our forests and hills,” he said.
THE DIFFERENT AGITATIONS
At least four major agitations have acquired a significance that goes beyond the immediate issue that triggered them.
In Karapur, villagers have been agitating for months against a proposed mega housing project and have now drawn a line in the sand – August 15 – warning of a road blockade if the project is not scrapped. The agitation has already crossed the 120-day mark.
In Velsao, the battle is over something far more basic: the right to reach home.
Residents have been protesting the impact of railway double-tracking work, alleging that construction material and work related to the project have blocked traditional access routes serving houses in the area.
The dispute has escalated to the point where villagers themselves cleared material from an access route, while political leaders subsequently joined the demand for restoration of the traditional pathways. Railway authorities, however, dispute the villagers' claim to a legally established right of way.
Then there is the wider “Enough Is Enough” campaign, which has transformed opposition to Sections 39A and 17(2) of the Goa Town and Country Planning Act into a larger battle over the future of the State.
Citizens, environmentalists, villagers and opposition groups have accused the provisions of facilitating land-use changes and conversions that they believe could accelerate unsustainable development.
The movement has already taken its protest to the TCP headquarters and demanded repeal of the contentious provisions, warning that the agitation could be intensified through a Gandhian-style non-cooperation campaign involving local bodies.
For Adv. Norma Alvares, social worker and environmentalist, the growing protests are symptomatic of a deeper sense of disenchantment among Goans.
“It is unfortunate that on this Independence Day, we feel we no longer have the freedom to decide the future of our Mankulem Goem. The government appears unresponsive to people’s wishes,” she said.
“Protests against railway expansion, the coal corridor, the Karapur project and Section 39A show that Goans have had enough and cannot celebrate Independence Day with the joy and freedom it deserves,” Alvares said.
And running parallel to these land and environment battles is a very different, but equally significant, assertion – the demand by Goa's tribal community for political representation.
The United Tribal Associations Alliance (UTAA) has maintained pressure on the government over reservation of seats for Scheduled Tribes, insisting that the process must result in actual political representation ahead of the 2027 Assembly elections.
Its Maha Melava, shifted to Mardol after permission issues in Panaji, has kept the reservation demand firmly in the political spotlight.
DIFFERENT BATTLES, BUT SAME QUESTION
The causes may be different. Karapur is fighting a project. Velsao is fighting over access. The TCP protest is about land-use policy. The tribal agitation is about constitutional and political representation.
But beneath each of these struggles lies the same fundamental question:
Who gets to decide Goa's future – the State, developers and institutions or the people who live here?
That question acquires particular resonance on Independence Day.
The freedom struggle that Goa remembers today was, at its core, a struggle over the right to determine its own destiny. Today, the contest is no longer against a colonial ruler. It is between citizens and a rapidly changing model of development that many believe is leaving too little space for public participation.
Yet political activist Adv Radharao Gracias believes the blame cannot be placed entirely at the government's door.
“I don’t blame the government or politicians for the situation we are in. The real problem is the voters. Why should politicians heed protests when they know votes can be bought?” Gracias said.
“As long as voters accept money and remain dishonest, they will continue to be treated as commodities,” he said.
His observation points to another uncomfortable dimension of Goa's present political landscape: the strength of any people's movement ultimately depends on the willingness of citizens to carry their demands beyond the protest site and into the ballot box.
The protests, therefore, are not merely about individual projects or provisions of law. They are also about the nature of democracy itself – whether public participation begins and ends with elections or whether citizens have a meaningful role in decisions that fundamentally alter their communities.
