By Mário Cabral e Sá
Six months from the day I am filing this column (19/06) it will be fifty years since the Portuguese were ousted from Goa, Daman and Diu by the Indian armed forces, liberated politically speaking, conquered in reality, and as settled, once and for all,
by the Supreme Court (the unanimous decision of a five judge constitutional bench presided C J Gangredgatkar) and argued by the advocate general of India, the brilliant S Y Gupte.
Goa was given no option to decide on its independence, as a sizeable portion of the population might have wished then and as many day-dreamers wish even now and as Nehru had promised before his sudden volte-face in October 1961 to satisfy Krishna Menon.
One thing for sure, the social ladder was turned upside down. Thus as a result the old elite largely an accomplice of the former regime even if by default (it lacked the courage to assert itself) faded away and was replaced by the new – the Alemaos, the Pachecos, the Monserrates, etc. Governance has been reduced to vote bank politics. Let it not be said that it is the corrupt that rule Goa, because they have been elected by those who want them there.
What is happening is the logical corollary of the kind of politics that prevails. Consider these cases:
Dr Luis Proto Barbosa, a good clinician, with a prosperous practice at Cansaulim and the surrounding villages, also a fairly big landlord. Bitten by the political bug, from blunder to blunder earns himself the disgrace of being the only speaker in India to be permanently disqualified by the Supreme Court.
Or take Churchill Alemao: almost illiterate, takes up a job in the scullery of an old and leaky cargo ship called Noorjahan, comes to the notice of IRS as a petty smuggler, is also used by IRS sleuths as an informer. One thing leading to another and he gets into politics. At the peak of the Konkani agitation becomes the right hand man of Dr Wilfred de Sousa and the "cumpar" of Luizinho Faleiro. Elected MLA, demolishes Pratapsing Rane’s Congress government, founds the Progressive Democratic Front (PDF), and become chief minister of Goa - even if for only 19 days - founds Save Goa Front, and, if nothing else, causes havoc in Congress strongholds. With the help of BJP, openly admitted by Manohar Parrikar no less, defeats Luizinho Faleiro the MLA for Navelim who had never lost an election since 1967.
After various tricks, which would put a trapeze artiste to shame, re enters the Congress, demands and gets the PWD portfolio, the cash cow of the government, and now dares anyone to take away his portfolio.
Do all these tricks diminish his popularity? No. On the contrary, he much admired by his followers!
Last week I presented to the reader the Mickky Pacheco I knew. The next day, Preetu Venugopal Nair came up in her paper (TOI, Goa) with some more juicy bits. In the 1980s he wore long hair, often tied in a ponytail, and had a cross dangling from his left ear robe. Clad in t-shirt and jeans, he would often be seen riding around the narrow lanes of Benaulim, where he was born and brought up, on a borrowed bike. Three decades later, the ponytail disappeared. The cross made way for number of gold chains and rings, his new-found riches, the bike made way for a Hummer.
When a child, his father, a daily wage earner, took him to a tailor friend requesting that he help his son earn a living. He had dropped out of school and had no job. The man, Minino Salvador, now 85-year-old, recalls that obedient initially the lad would listen to his orders. Mickky was then 16. His initial salary was Rs 12.15 a day. His worth has since increased manifolds. He is the proud owner of a fleet of high-end cars. "I never sell my cars, I give them away to my supporters", he was quoted as saying in an interview.
After his career as a tailor was cut short, Mickky made his way to Bahrain and then onwards to the US. He was now the widower of a rich US widow whose fortune he inherited. Along the way he started a recruitment agency with Sarah, who was later to become his wife. Former superintendent of police Alex Rasquinha, who was in-charge of South Goa when Mickky had started his recruitment agency recollects, "He was an ordinary guy working in the US when I met him in the late 1990s. He was involved in a motorcycle accident because of which he still limps."
A few years later, in the year 2002 to be exact, this man who was known by hardly a few, snatched away the Benaulim assembly seat from South Goa heavy weight Churchill Alemao. Within a few days, the first-time MLA was made minister in the Parrikar government.
Whatever the true story about Nadia and her brushing teeth with Ratol, the three-time MLA is still supported by hundreds of his followers, the most prominent being Nelly Rodrigues, a one-time protégé of Churchill Alemao.
Such then is politics Goa-style.
