At the time of the
construction of Taj Hotel at Sinquerim falling under Candolim Panchayat, it was
agreed by the Taj Management to provide maximum number of jobs in the Hotel to
the locals and to the Goans as well. However, when Hotel started functioning,
it was brought to our notice that locals as well as Goans were ignored in
employment there though a few of them were appointed in the secondary and
tertiary jobs while outsiders and non Goans were employed in greater number and
also on important positions. This was somewhere in 1974. That means I was then
40 years younger with full of energy, knowledge, daringness and youth eager to
fight for justice for locals and Goans.
Since I was very active in local affairs, locals expected me to fight
for justice for them against Taj Management.
Alex Pinto from
Candolim Ximer was my friend having vast potentials to fight for justice,
joined me to wage a war against Taj Management for ignoring the locals in the
employment. Candolim Panchayat and the prominent bigwigs remained silent
because they got their quota from Taj and hence they decided to accept the
injustice meted out to the locals and to the Goans by the Taj management. However,
myself, Alex Pinto and very many like minded locals refused to accept this injustice to the locals. Alex
Pinto had vast influence in Goa and elsewhere and thru his contacts he got the
news that the big boss of Taj, JRD Tata is scheduled to pay his first visit to
Goa to see his Hotel at Sinquerim built on Candolim Communidade land; this was the first 5 Star Hotel of Goa. As an intelligent planner, Alex Pinto nicely
put his trap to catch Tata at the entrance of Sinquerim while on his way to Taj
Hotel and submit a Memorandum of our demands to him. Our main demand was employment
in greater number to locals and to Goans.
As planned, we both
stopped Tata’s Mercedes Car, greeted him with welcome to Goa and handed over to
him our Memorandum explaining to him our disappointment over injustice to the
locals. Knowing this, Tata felt very bad and showed his disappointment to his
Taj management asking to satisfy the locals first. Immediately then the Taj Management changed
its policy in favour of the locals including an offer for me to go to UK for
further studies in Hotel Management which I politely turned down. When this news started spreading far and
wide, many politicians and political parties started approaching me to join
them some even with an offer of election tickets but this too I declined politely.
If Taj Management had
not to change its policy in favour of locals, we devised one more strategy which
means to stop all the vehicles taking guests to the Taj and informing them not
to patronize Taj because Taj is anti – local.
Then we would print pamphlets to ask everyone not to patronize Taj Hotel
and distribute the same to all over Goa starting from the Airport, thru our
contacts. Then we would ask everyone to
give total non-cooperation to Taj and its non-Goan staff. Somebody suggested even to stone their
vehicles but we declined such methods.
Our other plan was to organize Rallies right up to the Taj and for this we thought of creating an army of like minded locals. In this fight we were firm to keep the local Panchayat out of our circle because members of Panchayat were cunning and as such we could not trust them. If you want to organize any strong movement then you must try to keep the politicians away because they have their own political and money making agenda for which sake they will at your movement cost pursue their own agenda.
Panchayat is the
nursery of corruption where most of the members of ruling faction make money thru
illicit means and because of this almost everywhere Panchayat members headed by
the Sarpanch amass wealth beyond one’s imagination. If one sees below and
around his nose, till yesterday a person coming from poverty stricken family
background suddenly today by joining Panchayat becomes crorepoti. This can be proved from the lifestyle they
live with Bunglows, posh cars, sophisticated wives and huge Bank Balance. How is
this possible? Only thru looting and on
top of it they move in society with their heads high of course shamelessly and
act like Saints in the Church even by receiving holy communion. And unfortunately, all the rascal Pe. Vigars
in their respective villages support them of course against Christian doctrine.
The greatest Devils are some of the Pe. Vigars.
In our locality we are
suffering from corrupt political leadership. Our so called leaders are not
static in their fight for justice, they are only interested in their own
personal goals and secondly because they are selfish the locals in general don’t trust them. They are not sincere to the cause of
justice. In every village there should
be a group of movement makers for the good of the villagers without involvement
of the politicians. If such groups exist with dedicated members, in every
village there would not be injustice to the villagers. Such groups are
imperative in the coastal belt where the leadership of some of our villages is
gone into the corrupt hands. Can in my
village first somebody come forward to Bell the Cat because upright villagers
have lost their faith in the current leaders and also in Panchayat to do justice
and real good? All those local politicians coming from Ladru-Pedru type of
background will amass looted wealth not only for them but
also for their children and grand children.
In view of what I wrote
above, it is very easy to handle the injustice done to the locals by the
non-Goan Hoteliers (as described in my previous article) who got no right to dictate terms to us and to act with us
as our landlords. The non-Goan Hotliers and their non-Goan employees are looting Goa.
Candolim.
