Deepak Laad
Welcome to the capital of parties!’ screams a casino billboard at the Campal promenade. The day is not far when you will see many more billboards springing up all over Goa welcoming tourists to the ‘casino state of India’.
There is a similarity between Goa and Macau, also known as Macao - a small territory situated to the south of China. Historically, like Goa, Macau was a Portuguese colony, that was ceded to China in December 1999 on expiry of the lease. The Indian army drove the Portuguese out of Goa in December 1961.
Now there is another similarity in present times. Macau is infamous the world over for its gambling industry and crime syndicates, mafia gangs, brothels and pimps that come with it.
In the Hollywood movie ‘Man with the Golden Gun’ Ian Fleming’s James Bond, Roger Moore goes looking for the celluloid antagonist Christopher Lee (Francisco Scaramanga) in Macau and so does Bond Daniel Craig on the trail of villain Javier Bardem (Raoul Silva) in the movie Skyfall.
Goa too is going the Macau way. In Hindi, Tamil, Telgu movies the celluloid casino owners, drug lords and their henchmen are shown as residents of Goa. We need not blame them as the reel life depicts the real life in today’s Goa. Every day raids yield drugs worth lakhs from a single peddler. It is indicative of enormity of nefarious activities in the state.
Casinos in Goa can now be described as a state-backed industry. Imagine the government earnestly going around scouting for locations in Pernem for a dozen grand casinos that are on the cards in the near future. The Pernem Congress block committee has suddenly discovered that it will hurt their culture and so they have petitioned the collector against the government’s move.
It is confounding why like the Congressmen, the bloc committees of BJP and MGP from the area have not come forward with similar action? Are we to assume that they are favourably inclined to make gambling a facet of their local culture now? The political parties while in opposition think the way the right-minded culture loving Goans think and act justly. Once in power it is the familiar about-turns, stepping in the shoe of the party they have defeated and doing exactly the same things they had opposed and made an issue to win the elections.
Goa is on its way to embrace casino tourism. The under-construction Mopa international airport will ferry gamblers from different parts of the globe to play in the proposed casinos in Pernem. Otherwise there is no reason why a tiny state should have another airport at the cost of Rs 3000 crore and cutting down over 2 lakh trees.
In recent time the number of tourist visiting our state has dwindled sharply. During the New Year season, the beach shacks looked empty and bare and the owners were seen waiting endlessly for the non-existent tourists to show up.
On January 16, we celebrated the 53rd Opinion Poll day or ‘Asmitai dis’ as it is termed in Konkani. In recent years observing the day has been reduced to a farce by the politicians. Ministers parrot on the occasion the oft used lines to the point of fraying “ ‘the opinion day has made it possible to safeguard our Goan culture.’ Does Michael Lobo, one such minister who addressed a press conference on the opinion poll day, see any vestige of the Goan culture left in the northern beach town belt he hails from? We do not know what science and technology has to do with casinos, but the minister handling the portfolio is often seen singing paeans to the casino industry and thanking it for boosting tourism and contributing to the state’s exchequer.
Take an unflinching hard look at the recent unpleasant and unfortunate incidents that have taken place in the state and we know that the culture of the land is now a thing of the past. Among the racketeers involved in land, drugs and prostitution deals you will invariably come across locals too, involved alongside foreigners and migrants from other Indian states.
When a people’s representative on a local body commits suicide blaming blackmail, then chances are that he too was a racketeer. Because normally a person who is engaged in illegal activities runs the risk of getting blackmailed by fellow racketeers. Otherwise the question arises why did he not approach the police complaining about the blackmail or perceived threat to his life?
Similarly when a local youth is brutally murdered by his African girlfriend some drug deal gone sour cannot be ruled out.
With airport and casinos coming up in Pernem the parcels of land in surrounding areas suddenly become precious commodity. We will witness ever increasing rivalries among land sharks out to grab prime properties that might entail more murders, deaths under mysterious
circumstances.
The money“grabbing political class is responsible for the destruction of our culture. Recently we witnessed our tourism minister shaking a leg at the EDM festival. In the coming years we may see him at a casino table playing poker, of course with good intentions as an ambassador out to boost tourism and earn taxes for the state exchequer. Gambling, drugs and prostitution has wreaked havoc on our culture.
The father of the Opinion Poll, Dr Jack de Sequeira, must be turning over in his grave, looking at the ruination of the culture he once fought so hard to protect.
