By Soter D'Souza
The
Catholic Church in Goa is being systematically maligned through videos and
unfounded and slanderous comments circulating on social media platforms and in
a section of the print and electronic media. The Church may attempt to console
itself with the fact that any struggle for social justice is bound to draw
reactions from the exploitative and oppressive forces. But this cannot become a justification for the
casual approach adopted by the Church in its community interventions for
promoting social justice. There is a fair section within the Catholic community
who are disturbed and perplexed over the lack of prudence, discernment and
participatory approach adopted by the Church leadership in what appears to be
an aligning with the government or certain social movements under the guise of
preserving Goan identity. There are attempts to shame and blackmail Catholics
into coming on the streets by taunting those who turn their backs on such
‘tiatrs’ which oppose Government at Azad Maidan or Lohia Maidan as being anti-Goan
or less Christian. It must be remembered that when questions less palatable to
public opinion get asked by fellow Goans, it may be precisely out of fidelity
to the Goan cause and the same convictions as of those agitating on the streets
involving the human dignity and common good. Sometimes not collaborating in
such shady endeavours could also be an intervention in itself.
No
reasoning Goan will deny the facts that Goa is being destroyed by unscientific
and unregulated development and that a vibrant social movement is the need of
the hour to stem this rot. But such a crisis cannot become the grounds for knee
jerk reactions and adhocism in response. Considering the timing of such
malicious propaganda against the Church one may tend to assume that it is
necessarily the work of some minister or political party which is at the
receiving end of this PDA and RP controversy. Some of this propaganda has been
circulated by a bunch of activists since 2011 and thereafter to humiliate the
Archbishop and project the Church in bad light over some land deals. Some of
these activists now seek support from the very same Church for their public
shows on PDAs and RP.
Catholics,
in particular, fail to sense the enemy lurking in the background of such
controversies and attempting to kill two birds in one stone. These anti-secular
forces exploit public protests to feather their political nest while standing
on the side-lines, and at the same time also use such occasions to further
division and disruption within the Catholic community. The issues and timing chosen
for public protests are so craftily designed, most often by projecting innocent
looking catholic faces in the foreground that the Church is damned either way,
if it supports or if it does not. So, while exploiting the PDA / RP
controversy to forward some political agenda of making certain politicians
unpopular, there is also a simultaneous move to damage the image of the Church
with false accusations and ascribing false motives. This malicious information
being thrown in the ring every time there is a standoff between the church and those
in government is not new. Some of these masterminds may now cleverly present
themselves as new, innocent and shy faces in the struggle against the PDAs and
RP 2021.
The
double message sought to be given by those behind a recent Margao rally, on
whether the Church is or is not supporting the movement, was rather
mischievous. It is most unfortunate that the Church has given this impression
of being some sort of a contractor’s bureau which helps boost numbers at public
rallies, when actually the social teachings of the Church point out that its
priority ought to be about “initiating long term processes rather than
occupying spaces for obtaining immediate results and quick short-term gains”
with such events that revolve around populist issues which are trending and
viral. The Church has a duty to ensure that any social action it supports
respects human dignity and other values which it stands for. It cannot allow
chauvinism to take over, wherein politicians and anyone in authority or in opposition
become the target for abuse and defamation. The Church is not a political
party, an NGO or a Trade Union to encourage such uncivilised rhetoric used to
entertain the crowds and whip up emotions. In fact, Pope Francis in one of his
Apostolic exhortations cautions the community that “going out to others
in order to reach the fringes of humanity does not mean rushing out aimlessly
into the world.” By exposing
its members to so claimed ‘Change Agents’ who are double faced, both pro-Church
when convenient and anti-Church minutes later, the Church has only invited more
trouble for itself with fundamentalist forces using the shoulders of
unsuspecting catholic laity to take pot shots at the institution. The Catholic
Church in Goa is not a stranger to some leaders from other faiths sharing secular
platforms to Save Goa at one time and the very next moment also sharing
communal platforms and accusing the Church of an agenda to blackmail
governments and control Goa’s politics. The question which needs to be asked is,
why are the movements to Save Goa or to oppose the government policies
detrimental to the welfare of the Goan people predominantly restricted to the
talukas of Bardez, Tiswadi and Salcete? Goans need to remind themselves that
the Goa State comprises of twelve talukas.
The
Catholic community in Goa needs to realise that the present times are
politically challenging and will require far more caution and prudence while
carrying out its spiritual responsibility in promoting social justice for all.
Its attitude of ‘good will’ and ‘in good faith’ can no longer be applied
indiscriminately and carelessly. Similarly, the fascination with terms such as
‘scrap’ and ‘frozen’ which are trendy in modern urban consumer jargon cannot
become the basis to scrap PDAs and freeze RPs endlessly. Those living in
Panchayat areas should not expect to enjoy both the worlds, urban development
models and village status at the same time. Leaving the Town and Country
Planning law flexible for politicians in government to introduce and remove
PDAs in villages as per their political and economic desires is not helping the
Goan cause. Similarly, advocating for a Regional Plan with people’s
participation without revising and updating the TCP law and its planning
structures to comply with the seventy-third and seventy-fourth constitution
amendments will remedy nothing. And most of all putting the public on a
pedestal of victimhood and solely projecting the politicians as villains in the
destruction of Goa is not conducive to social reformation. To put it bluntly, this
devastation called development is a collaborative enterprise of unscrupulous
politicians along with greedy and selfish Goans who have one face on the street
and quite another at home. And like all the previous public protests of the
past, the present hullabaloo over the PDAs and the RP-2021 can also be expected
to get scrapped or frozen midway without any logical conclusion; no sooner the
desired political agenda is served.
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