Vol No CVIII No: 341

Saturday 6 December, 2008

o HER ALD o= = Never the Same Again?

 A BBC commentator was saying on 26 Novem-ber that Mumbai and Goa were two likely andexpected targets for the assault that took 

place in Mumbai with the tragic consequences that  will go down the history. A topic that dominatedGoanet the last week (and the debate over whichstill rages) was if 25 November was the Real Lib-eration day of Goa. That day marked the conquest of Goa by Afonso de Albuquerque in 1510. A Macau-based Goan, who usually signs himself as B C, didnot hesitate to pronounce somewhat morbidly onthe Mumbai tragedy as follows: All those coun-tries involved in anti-Portuguese colonialism end-ed in misery. Given the right conditions, these arethe types of creature with deep-seated angeragainst some sections of the society who wouldmake good candidates for jihadis or crusaders. If not yet prepared to enter personally into violentaction, their voiced sentiments and other forms of indirect support can make them fall prey to thegrowing internationalisation of the terrorist out-fits and their success.

The Goanet discussion about 25 November can-not be dismissed lightly. It marks the date when aband of highly motivated adventurers, fundedand trained in a distant foreign country, roving inthe Indian Ocean for nearly a decade, with Anjedi-

 va as their base of operations, and secretly assist-ed by some local elements, took over Goa by as-sault, after having failed in a first attempt somemonths earlier. The history of Goa would never bethe same again. Goa was captured for being a stra-tegic outpost on the mid-west coast of India, andbecame the military headquarters and the finan-cial capital of the Portuguese eastern empire. Thisevent had all the hallmarks of what happened inMumbai last week, excepting the fa ct that the

 young adventurers had now to face a mammothdefence structure of an organised state. In 1508the foreign bands had attacked the port of Dabholthat was an important trading outlet of Bijapur. In1510 the defence structure of Adil Shah of Bijapurand his local governor Malik Yusuf Gurji in Goacrumbled beneath the onslaught of Albuquerquesmen, even before Timojas promised assistancecould arrive!

The attack was well planned, because we haverecorded information that the bar of Goa had beenfathomed in advance. Indias sea front was its

100 Years Ago

Relax FAR for small plotsOrlando S A Da Silva, Carmona

 As per the Regional plan 2021, mega housingproject means built-up area (FAR) of 20000 sq mand above. This means land use area of 50000sq m. This definition of the Town and Country Planning Board smacks of ulterior motives. Con-sidering Goas size I am of the firm opinion that this definition is drafted by those responsibleonly keeping in mind the interest of the build-ers lobby and the high stakes at hand for thepoliticians and the bureaucrats.

Even an area of 4000 square meters is too biga area considering Goas size. I would also sug-gest that a new category in FAR allocation in vil-lages be also introduced to encourage subdivi-sion of big properties into smaller plots of 300sq n or less, meant solely for the benefit of res-ident of Goan origin by giving higher FAR, evenup to 70%. This will help us to preserve the scarceland for the future requirement and at the same

6 December 1908

Gokhale sounds alarmMr Gopal Krishna Gokhale in one of hisspeeches at the New Reform Club stated that the situation in India was extremely serious.

Imperial jubilee in Vienna Vienna is being lit like never before from the1st of the current month, in commemorationof the Imperial Jubilee.

Reichstag debateThe Liberals and the Radicals met at the Re-ichstag in a grand Constitutional debate overthe ministerial responsibilities in connection

 with the recent interviews and speeches of the Kaiser.

Germans ambushedThe natives of Cameroon ambushed a Ger-man patrol on reconnaissance. Out of the 19men in the patrol, nine were killed while 10

 were injured.

 weakness, and the Mumbai tragedy proved onceagain that its sea coast remains vulnerable despitethe technological advances and resources availableto the modern Indian state. Incidentally, K M Pan-ikkar, the author of the celebrated  Asia and West-ern Dominance, in a separate study entitled Indiaand the Indian Ocean (1945) discussed the vitalimportance of controlling the ocean for a country like India. He predicted rightly that the IndianOcean will be one of the major problems of thefuture. He made a strong plea for strengtheningthe countrys naval capacity. He would add today:its intelligence-gathering skills. Afonso de Albuquerque described his feat in a

letter to his master, King Manuel of Portugal, ingruesome detail: Our Lord helped us to do this

 job better than we had planned or expected. Over300 Turks died, and till Benastery and Gandauly theroads were strewn with dead bodies and others wholay wounded and dying. Several died while tryingto cross the river with their horses. I had the city put to fire and sword. During four days our men

made the city bleed. No moor was given a chanceto escape alive. They were driven into mosques

 which were then set ablaze. I ordered that the landcultivators and the Brahmins should not be killed.Nearly six thousand moors, men and women, werekilled.No burial place or houses belonging toMuslims were left standing. Anyone now caught isfried alive.

The bravery of these few Portuguese had beentested with a thunderous victory against the com-bined naval forces of the Turks and the IndianMuslims at Diu in 1509. Curiously, the world sce-nario of international relations was not very differ-ent from what we are seeing today. Instead of thePresident Bush, his axis of evil and his global waragainst terrorism as represented by Al Qaeda, inthe early sixteenth century it was King Manuel of Portugal who mounted a global war against theMuslims, from Africa till the Southeast Asian wa-ters. As revealed by recent historical research, KingManuel regarded himself as Gods predestined to

 wage a war that would dislodge the Muslims from

the Holy Land after weakening their power that wassustained by their trade control of the Indian Oceanregion. Instead of the war for the oil of the MiddleEast in our times, the prize in view then was thespices of India.

In the spate of writings and me dia comments inthe wake of the 26 November Mumbai attacks, it issuggested that not all assailants were from outsideand that perhaps some got away after pa rticipatingin the carnage at some points. There are also someother issues raised and that call for serious reflec-tion: whose India is represented by some of theicons chosen for attack? For those who have calledthis the 9/11 of India, the two hotels and NarimanHouse may be equivalent to the American twin tow-ers, but many millions of Indians doubt if those iconsmean anything at all for the overwhelming numberof Indians. A Tamil writer is quoted in some forumsas describing them as the icons of the financiersand swindlers of India. There was hardly any mediacoverage of the unknown citizens of India moweddown at the CST railway terminus or several uniden-tified wounded in the hospitals. Just as the above criticism comes from a south

Indian writer, a Malabar-based Muslim Zain al-Din wrote Tuhfat-al-Mujahidin(Gift to the Holy Warri-ors) in Arabic and addressed to the Mappilas at theclose of the sixteenth century, analysing the changebrought about by the arrival of the Portuguese inthe Indian waters. He proclaimed the legality andthe duty of all Muslims to wage jihad against them.The conquest of Goa figures in this account, pre-served in several British archives and first publishedonly in the mid-nineteenth century. It probably cir-culated earlier in the madrasas in manuscript form.When will we know what all is being written today and circulated among one hundred and a quartermillion Indian Muslims who find themselves mar-ginalised in the Indian national system? What hasbeen the protection they experienced during therecent Gujarat riots? Why have only some Muslimsbeen selected for capital punishment for attackingtemples and churches, while Hindu fundamentalist groups that have perpetrated similar acts continueunpunished? When similar situations continue un-checked, it is but natural that no amount of security measures will be sufficient to protect and safeguardthe icons of success of the prosperous few millionIndians.

Pg8OPINION       H       E       R       A       L       D

www.oheraldo.in

There are chilling parallels between Mumbai after 26 /11 and Goa after 25/11, from which we should take some lessons, says TEOTONIO R DE SOUZA

Give Me A Decent Burial! By Adelmo Fernandes

 Letters to the Editor

Letter of the Daytime help each Goan to have a house of his own.

Building corruption Jyoti Xhetgaonkar, Morjim

The greed of our municipal councillors, townplanners and other government servants hasconverted Mapusa city into a garbage bin. Hillsare destroyed. Roads have become congested.There is no proper parking place.

Everyone wants to make money. Approvedplans suddenly becomes illegal plans. The build-ing comes up just the way the builder wants it to. The vendor is treated as a second-class citi-zen with all powers and glory g iven to the build-er. Even steep slopes are used for constructionand no one is bothered about the danger.

The buyer has to go from pillar to post to get the records transferred to his name in the mu-nicipality. The buyers are made to dance to thetunes of government servants.

The government should also find out how many people have just bought flats/ shops/offic-es and are not using them, and how many of them are government employees. This will bringto the surface the corruption. Many government servants have become agents and are gettingcommission in land deals in Goa, and many areselling Communidade lands too.

Labelling Kashmiris S W Moosvi, Baga

In his article Is Goa prepeare d to counter terrorin Herald(1 Dec) Juino De Souza says that a filmdirector Ashok Pandit claims that Goa is a volca-no that will explode in time to come, and that alarge number of Kashmiri Muslims are flockinghere under the garb of selling carpets but actu-ally to start terrorist activity in Goa.

These remarks of Ashok Pandit are totally baseless and condemnable. The issue of Kash-miri Pandits having quit Kashmir in the early 90son the directions of then Governor of J&K Jag-mohan may be what is prompting Mr Pandit tomake such allegations.

There are clear reports that Kashmiri Muslimsin Goa are not involved in any kind of anti-na-tional activities. Our bio-datas are monitoredhere and also sent to our native places for veri-fication every year, where they have beenchecked by the various investigating agenciesas per proceedures.

So please dont blame us. Let us live and earnour livelihood in peace, as is our fundamentalright as citizens of India. We are born in India and

 we will die as Indians.

Amateurish response S Kamat, Alto Betim

The manner in which our government is dealing with the aftermath of the Mumbai terror attack investigations and taking it up with Pakistan is

 very amateurish and incredibly stupid. Sabre-rattling always begets an equivalent responselike we have now seen from Pakistan.

If destabilising the relations between Indiaand Pakistan was one of the objectives of theterror attack, the organisers of the mayhem have

succeeded in that to a large me asure. Terroristsare terrorists and Pakistanis themselves are fac-ing similar problems with them in their land.Moreover in Pakistan the present Presidentsfamily has been the victim of an attack where his

 wife Benazir Bhutto was assassinated. Thus what  we should have done was to take the evidence we have in this case in a coherent and structuredform and seek the assistance of the Pakistangovernment.

Zardari has called the terrorists stateless per-sons and therefore, presented with proper evi-dence, he should have had no problems in hand-ing over these persons to the Indian authorities.Instead. we have taken the position of askingfor some 20 wanted persons including DawoodIbrahim on suspicion of terrorist activities which

Pakistan was sure to refuse.

Pale imitationRamdas Naik, by email

The heat and dust of the Pale bypoll is settlingdown, and as it does one would see the matur-ing of Vishwajeet Rane. After his election, the

 Junior Rane was part of petty cabals that nearly pulled down the Kamat government. Now wis-dom seems to have prevailed and, much to eve -ryones surprise, Vishwajeet threw his weight behind the Congress nominee.

Leadership requires rising above pique and working with others for a common cause, and Vishwajeet showed he has those qualities. If the Junior Rane wants to emulate his statesman fa-ther, then his role in Pale has been a step in theright direction. As Health Minister, he has shownexemplary work in starting the 108 Responsesystem and ensuring the GMC equipment works.Now one regularly sees ambulances even fromas far as Vengurla coming to the GMC, and thismore than anything else attests to Vishwajeet Ranes coming of age as a politician.

Show more sensitivity Jose Maria Miranda, Margao

It is very distressing to observe that suicidecases, particularly among the youth in Goa, are

 very much on the rise. It is time that the govern-ment takes a very serious note of this calamity that is afflicting Goans, especially the young, andestablishes and gives wide publicity to counsel-ling centres to deal with this grave problem.

The Catholic Church, social organisations andexperts in the field of counseling would do agreat service to the society as a whole and tofamilies in particular if they could assist in thistask of helping those in despair. Families tooshould not shy away from taking the help of counsellors to assist their dear ones when they are affected by symptoms that could eventually lead them to take the extreme step. It may alsobe advisable for the Press to show more sensi-tivity towards the families of suicide victims, by not publishing the names of the deceased, as ina small place like Goa this stigma would only addto the immense trauma and pain that the con-cerned families have to undergo. We have hadtoo many cases where the Press has disclosedthe names of those committing suicide.

PRIMEIRO DIARIO NAS COLONIAS PORTUGEZAS

Printed and published by Vinayak Pai Bir for and on behalf of Herald Publications Pvt Ltd. Printed at Herald Publicati ons Pvt Ltd, Plot No: L-135, Phase II, Verna Industrial Estate, Verna, Salcete, Goa. Published at PO Box 160, Rua Sao Tome, Panjim, Goa - 403001. Editor-in-chief: Mr R F Fernandes.Editor:Ashwin Tombat (Responsible under PRB Act). Regd Office: St Tome Road, Panjim, Goa. Tel: 2224202, 2228083, Fax: 2222475 (all Editorial); 2230535, Fax: 2225622 (Advertising);Margao: 2737689. Mumbai Office: 16-A, Bell Building, 2nd Floor, 19 Sir PM Road, Fort, Mumbai - 400001 (Tel: 22840702/22844908). RNI No: 43667/83. HOWTO CONTACT US: mail@herald-goa.com  — For press notes, general queries. junior-youth@herald-goa.com — Junior Herald. heraldmirror@herald-goa.com— Sunday Mirror. reporters@herald-goa.com — For Reporters. business@herald-goa.com — For Business news. editor@herald-goa.com— For Letters to the Editor.sports@herald-goa.com— For Sports news. advt@herald-goa.com— For Advertisements. 2day@herald-goa.com — For Herald 2day

Ihave been in the news for far too long and for all the wrong

reasons. People produce me in their homes every day. Every household produces a substantial portion of me, and later

they disown me. They throw me out through the window,quite literally, into the neighbours compound.

The general feeling is that I am not wanted by anyone.Rightly so. I raise a stink, I am an eyesore and I occupy a lot of space. The only ones I have for company are stray dogs, stray cattle, pigs, rats and the like. Crows and vultures hover aboveme. They feast on me, they have their belly-full. I do not mindbeing devoured by the animals but what gets me off is theapathy of the humans who produce me.

I want to die. As a matter of fact I am not supposed to livefor long. I am to disappear as fast as possible. The only thingI cry for is a decent burial. Though there is a home for me forthat short time that I exist in the world (they call it the bin)people rarely keep me there. These people, who do not seemto have a heart, scatter me all over the place. And whensickness and disease strikes, they put the blame on me. They point fingers at me. I am made the scapegoat.

Poor me! I do not want to be the cause of all the misery and

suffering of the people. That is the reason why I beg for adecent burial. Destroy me as soon as I am born. I do not want to live a moment longer.

But all my cries seem to fall on deaf ears. People allow meto survive in the world for more time than is necessary. Ibegin to rot. Nobody wants me in their locality. So they takeme to a neighbouring village. This cause chaos and confusion.The big cities feel that the right place to dump me is the

  villages. I grow by the day. From a molehill I become a moun-tain, a mountain of trouble for the local villagers.

People say I emit an unbearable stench as I rot in the rainand the sun. My entire body emits a foul smell. But then that is the law of nature. Any living thing which dies will emit afoul smell unless disposed off in a proper manner. I am dead.I am just an inanimate object.

My presence has brought people to loggerheads. People,civic bodies and even the government are all at their wits endon how to handle me. There are protest marches and mor-chas. Even schoolchildren have come out on the streets inprotest. Incidentally I have the potential of bringing an elect-ed government down. But then it is not my nature to indulge

in the toppling game.The government should make a concerted effort to deal

  with me. Several NGOs have raised their voices. I have caught the attention of an entire generation. I have become front-page news. People see me on the news channels practically every day. I am in the spotlight.

But then being in the limelight, like the media-savvy politi-cians, is not my cup of tea. I want to die a lonely death.People do not realise that I am more useful when dead than

 when I am alive. After my death I help plants grow into bigand strong trees. What is required is a little help from thepeople to convert me to something useful. But then peopleonly want to let me rot in the open. Some even go to theextent of setting me on fire. I am more dangerous when left unattended. I once again make a solemn appeal to the civicbodies to destroy me before I become potentially dangerousby spreading disease.

They call me by various names. I am called trash, dirt, and,more commonly, garbage. The world has passed through theIce Age and the Stone Age. People say that in Goa now weare in the Age of Garbage.

Words of Wisdom

Only posts, no checks Irineu Gonsalves, Verna

Herald must be complimented for bringing to the fore the sorry state of security across the state,even after the recent terrorist attacks in Mumbai. It may have surprised the IGP Kishan Kumar,

 who acted swiftly after the tip-off, but it has not startled us one bit. Police collecting money fromincoming vehicles is not something new: it has been going on for years. Inspector Nelson Albu-querque, who has been placed under suspension, should be able to spill more beans.

Permit me to tell the IGP that aggressive interference with the police system by extraneoussources, with tacit support from the politicians, encourages the police to believe that their careeradvancement does not depend on merit but can be secured by currying favour with politicians.This leads to the neglect of professional performance, and sets the system on the downwardslope. People in Goa are worried about terrorist attacks and the police seem least bothered. At this hour the police should have concentrated on surveillance.

The people of Goa de mand an explanation from the Chief Minister, the Home Minister and theChief Secretary as to what has happened to their utterances that security would be beefed upacross the state. Patradevi and Naibaug are just two checkposts. The same corr uption and laxity is prevailing across the state. The booty collected at the checkposts and other places, includingthe rampant extortion on the streets, reaches to the top level. A police force which first succumbs to pressure and becomes the handmaiden of the ruling

party soon starts indulging in excesses o n its own, even without any political direction, becauseof a general feeling of assurance of protection from its political masters in recognition of theirloyalty. Why shouldnt the rogue officials who are out to make a fast buck be taught a bitterlesson by resorting to surprise checks as was recently done by the IGP?

Our state should have a State Security Commission. Every action taken or omitted by the policeis likely to be questioned by the Commission whose members will also have access to all records

 with the police and act as an effective check against arbitrary, high-handed action. This arrange-ment will best serve the public interest.

The police are servile to people with political influence. But they can be cruel to ordinary man.Needless to say, the nexus between the politicians and the police is the root cause of all evils.

ConfuciusConfucius was a Chinese thinker and socialphilosopher, whose teachings and philoso-phy have deeply influenced Chinese, Kore-an, Japanese, and Vietnamese thought andlife. His philosophy emphasized personal andgovernmental morality, correctness of socialrelationships, justice and sincerity. These

 values gained prominence in China over oth-er doctrines, such as Legalism or Taoismduring the Han Dynasty (206 BC-220 AD).Confucius thoughts have been developedinto a system of philosophy known as Con-fucianism. It was introduced to Europe by the

 Jesuit Matteo Ricci, who was the first to Lat-inise the name as Confucius.

The Anaclets of Confucius

The Master said, Let the will be set on thepath of duty.Let every attainment in what is good befirmly grasped.Let perfect virtue be accorded with.Let relaxation and enjoyment be found inthe polite arts.

The Master said, I do not open up the truthto one who is not eager to get knowledge,nor help out any one who is not anxious toexplain himself. When I have presented onecorner of a subject to any one, and he cannot from it learn the other three, I do not repeat my lesson.The Master said, With coarse rice to eat,

 with water to drink, and my bended arm f ora pillow;-I have still joy i n the midst of thesethings. Riches and honors acquired by un-righteousness, are to me as a floating cloud.

(Anaclets, Book 7)

Tongue in Cheek 

Picture Source:  Saturnino Monteiro, Batalhas e Combates da Marinha Portuguesa , Vol. I, Lisboa,Sá da Costa Editora, 1989, p. 209

Ye old stable door

Its an old cliché; bolting the stable d oor after the horseshave run away. But our authorities continue to do just that.It is in the immediate aftermath of any terrorist attack that 

policemen start checking on hotels, catching fishing trawlers,cracking down on overstaying foreigners, putting restrictionson night markets, tightening security at airports, etc, etc, etc.

In most cases, by this time, any offenders are already faraway. All that the police succeed in doing by tightening upsecurity is gather abuse from people for harassment and, thanksto certain dishonest elements in their ranks, for corruption.

It must be realised that in dealing with terrorists, the forcesof law and order are always at a comparative disadvantage. Theterrorists have to get everything right just once. The cops, onthe other hand, have to get it right every time; even a singleslip up is enough for the former to succeed.

It must be realised that there are limits to security measures.Checking every commuter on Mumbais local trains which carry 25 lakh people in each direction each day is next toimpossible. It would cause huge disruptions and serve little orno purpose.

 At times like these, when the memory of a terrible tragedy isstill fresh in peoples minds, the police should use theopportunity to improve their human intelligence network.Gaining collaborators in various fields is the best protectionagainst terrorists.

Having fishermen and leisure sailors who promptly r eport onsuspicious vessels or missing trawlers will yield better resultsthan a dozen coast guard patrol vessels prowling the sea. Havingordinary people promptly report on suspicious happenings intheir areas will make it very difficult for terrorists toanonymously rent apartments and merge with the localpopulation.

Rather than relying just on random tip-offs from the generalpopulation, which mostly end in wild goose chases rather thanreliable intelligence, policemen can give a modicum of inf ormaltraining to volunteer informers, so that they know what to look out for, and dont raise too many false alarms. This is the kindof informer network that makes policing precise and effective.It is this that gives police forces that are recognised as the best in the world a decisive edge.

The other thing to do is to have a widespread surveillancesystem; a closed-circuit television (CCTV) camera system at every public facility. The country that has deployed this to great effect is the United Kingdom. It has over five million CCTV cameras nationwide; that means about one camera for every 12citizens in the country!

It may seem like the nightmare described in George Orwells1984 has come true, and that big brother is now watchingeveryone everywhere, but the system has served the UK well.Within 24 hours after the London Underground Railway bombings, detectives had descriptions of the culprits, couldtrace the exact route they took and had laid bare the flesh andbones of the plot, thanks to the network of CCTV cameras at every train station, bus stop, bank, large shopping centres,traffic intersections, etc.

In Mumbai, too, CCTV cameras installed inside the CSTrailway terminus got clear footage of the terrorists as they  went about their shooting spree and later, cameras mountedoutside the station captured images of them moving out from the station into the lane leading to the Cama Hospital.They may not have prevented the violence, but at least they can tell us who did it and exactly how it was done.

It is pointless trying to put into effect security measuresthat require a large part of the police force to be divertedfrom their regular duties. This wil l mean that thesemeasures are purely temporary, and cannot be sustained f orlong; creating a false sense of security. It would be so muchbetter if the force took advantage of the opportunity thrownup by the attack to bui ld new intel l igence assets on a voluntary basis. Random security checks have a questionable value even at present, and little or no utility in the long term. A network of informers, on the other hand, will serve theforce well in the months and years to come.