After years of following, being intrigued by and keeping track of environmental issues in Goa, one could still say that the Mhadei issue is about the most curious of them all.
How do you understand it? Who caused the mess? What is the way out of it? There are many questions, and the answers are, as they would say, just blowing in the wind.
Environmental issues in Goa have come in three or four different 'packages'. In some cases, the government of the day, pushed something controversial down in certain areas of the State. In most cases, this was a localised problem, and the rest of Goa didn't feel too much impacted (or concerned) about it.
This could be true of sand-mining along the Salcete coast, one of the early but forgotten issues to arise here. In the 1970s, someone got the wise idea that sand from Goa's beaches should go into making glass. Then, there was the trawling and mechanised fishing along the Goa coast since the late 1960s or early 1970s.
This would also be true of controversial plants set up (or sought to be set up) in diverse parts of Goa. Like the Nylon 6,6, or MetaStrips. Or, there was the pollution caused by the Zuari's when it was just set up, and so on.
There were even large hotel projects protested against, like the Shahs' in Canacona, and the Seema Resorts in Agonda. These, by now, have mostly been forgotten. But when the history of environmental campaigns in Goa comes to be adequately written, we might realise how these fit into the bigger jigsaw.
Likewise, the SEZs, large convention centre or the long-planned IT habitat have also come and gone as mysteriously. Public memory is short.
Then, there was the case of the Thapar-DuPont Nylon 6,6 plant, in the 1980s. While the environmentalists took credit for sending it packing, there was more to that story.
Obviously, there were also industrial rivalry at play there. It was well known, then too, that the Nylon 6,6 yarn would act as a rival to Nylon 6. The latter was being produced by Ambanis. At that time too, that industrial group (in Congress times) as now (under the BJP) was an influential player with close connections to the ruling party.
Mining has been long debated, and the stoppage of its activities in the interiors of Goa's north-east and east is another complex issue. At one point, the BJP under Manohar Parrikar claimed credit for its stoppage. But as this halt continued for long years, the party felt the pinch, as its supporters lived in those very areas.
Konkan Railway was even curiouser. While one section (of coastal Goa, who happened to be Catholic in significant part) felt threatened by the project, others went on to offer their support to it. Somewhere in dusty archives, one would surely find photographs of the then main Opposition party, the MGP, going to places like Divar, lending their support to the engineering building their project.
In the case of the Konkan Railway issue, there was another issue at play here. Congress politicians were divided on either side of the tracks. When the leadership was replaced, and politicians like the late Dr Wilfred de Souza ascended to power, the issue died down.
The issue isn't whether the fears over the KRC came out true or not. There are genuine questions to be raised about the promises made -- speed of trains, number of trains on the route, economic viability of the project, when it would be merged back into the Indian Railways network, the whole BOOT or Build-Own-Operate-Transfer concept and more. Rather, the main question that comes up is how Goa treats its environmental issues. Or even how our small State gets polarised over the same.
But the Mhadei issue is among the most unusual of the lot. Prominent politicians (from Nirmala Sawant downwards) have been raising it for so long now. Everyone, cutting across parties, claims they are on the same side of the fence. That they are convinced that this is going to hit Goa hard.
Yet, nothing has worked in sorting out this challenge.
If the fears have not been over-exaggerated, then why has Goa been unable to take forward its case? Does it reflect the fact that Goa continues to be a divided State (politically, communally, interest-wise) and that anyone can play on these divisions? Or that our State is too small and ineffectual, meaning it is unable to safeguard its own long-term interests and wilts before every challenge?
It takes years and decades before the impact can be seen or felt. Even then, we mostly follow our biases on matters like these. Those who are convinced that nothing is wrong, will see only the positives. Others will see the issue from the other end.
At one stage, this columnist thought of looking at how newspapers in Goa responded editorially to environmental issues arising here. That was an educative experience. It would suffice to say that, if you don't feel the pinch, you are unlikely to show much empathy to anyone opposing "development".
Clearly, Goa needs to better understand and articulate its issues. As I have argued elsewhere, we cannot depend on our political players. Their main vision is how to come out on top five years after the previous election. Goa will have to define, understand and champion its own interests.
