Goa Elections : Looking beyond

 

--Leena Mehendale

 

 

 

When I received the letter from Election Commission informing that I was to go as one of the observers for the recently concluded Assembly elections in Goa, I did not expect it to be any different from my earlier experiences of elections, either in Maharashtra, Bihar, Orissa or Rajasthan. Elections are elections, so how will one be different from another! But I was mistaken in more than one ways.

 

 

 

This being my first ever visit to Goa, I kept telling myself that I should have an open mind about whatever I may see there. From the very first visible contact even before the Jet flight landed, Goa was an enchanting place, lush green and deep blue, a combination of trees and the ocean. And the people were also different. Almost total literacy, high levels of education, no begging, no child labour, highly empowered women, no gender discrimination, no abject poverty, no economic stratification of society, these were some instantly visible characteristics of the people.

 

 

 

Something must be said about the property rights of women in Goa before every thing else. Under the Portuguese rule of nearly 400 years, Goa had uniform civil code. This and other laws have continued here even after liberation in 1961. It is said that most of these laws had existed in Goa even before the Portugese came in and the credit of codifying them goes to the Portugese. Goans can be rightfully proud of these laws. Under the property rights, the girl child gets equal share in parent’s property just as her brother would get. After marriage, the properties of both the bride and bridegroom are merged and they get equal right over all the property. The official property registers are immediately modified so as to show the rights of both. This offers complete security to women against being driven out of her husband’s house. Dowry system is virtually absent, hence dowry deaths or other dowry related crimes are practically nil. There is no discrimination against the girl child, no cases of infanticide or foeticide.

 

 

 

Women could be seen in all types of public activity, riding scooters, roaming freely, managing shops, and even running a ‘bhelpuri thela’. The general crime rate in Goa is low and women do not have to worry much about their physical safety. The only black spot in this encouraging picture was the information that Goa has a worrisome rate of tourism prostitution and the problems associated with it.

 

 

 

As I proceeded with my touring as an election observer, the political profile started getting clearer and I could not help making comparison with the conditions in other states. As far as election related crimes or violence is concerned, Goa is to be rated as the state with lowest number of crimes. There was no threat of booth capturing, no voter intimidation, no ear –piercing loud- speakers. If, as election observers we pointed out to any campaigner that they were holding up traffic or causing some nuisance, they would immediately and politely withdraw. A meager two or three vehicles were captured for carrying sticks and soda water bottles whereas in some other states one would have expected them carrying swords, chains, rifles and even home-made bombs! And yet…….

 

 

 

Not muscle power but money power was the key. Major cities and newspapers were buzz with talks of allurement of influential voters with gifts and alcoholic drinks. Unlike in Assembly constituencies elsewhere in the country, the number of voters in a Goa constituency is only twenty thousand on an average. Voter turnout is around sixty five per cent. Thus anyone who can manage about seven thousand votes is in a comfortable, winning position. Stakes are high and not every voter needs to be paid. So the going rates were quite high. Women were to be coaxed with sarees. On the eve of polling, police held a couple of jeeps carrying sarees worth a few lakhs. Although this does not prove any thing and the police finally let the jeeps off, it shows the possibility.

 

 

 

This has baffled me a lot. We have always deplored that we had a large proportion of illiterate and poverty- struck voters, who were therefore amenable to the allurement of money and gifts. This argument does not hold for Goa. Then why?

 

 

 

The justification provided was that once elected, the candidates were going to make money through dubious methods. So what was wrong in sharing the loot? Not everyone, but those who accepted the gratification, had this argument. A friend implores me not to be so critical of Goans; after all, well to do people with fancy cars and mobiles have participated in looting vacant houses in Gujrat after Godhra incidence! Personally I feel that this is a very dangerous mentality. I also feel that all the programs such as karodpati and khelo India which are encouraging people for easy money are adding to this tendency of looting or sharing the loot.

 

 

 

Despite all this, majority of the voters had their independent opinion, and were serious about maintaining secrecy of vote. It was nice to see people queuing up even before eight in the morning to finish their voting early and be free to go back to daily routine.

 

 

 

The campaigning revolved round three issues, namely unemployment, good governance and defections. A large number of youth, apparently unemployed, took part in campaigning. It is my assessment that if the problem of unemployment is not solved, future elections in Goa will also have more physical violence as in other parts of the country. Election offered some temporary engagement to a lot of youth and one newspaper even commented sarcastically that there should be elections every year so that young people get some employment. What an unproductive waste this would be!

 

 

 

As for good governance, this has become the need of the day and future elections all over the country will have this as main issue. Yet no party has tried to define what do they mean by good governance.  Creating employment and supplying drinking water (and now electricity) are the only programs identified so far towards good governance. This, however is a topic for different occasion.

 

 

 

The present election process has given rise to two major problems.  One is corruption - coupled with muscle power, violence, intimidation (except in some parts as in Goa). Perhaps even bigger evil is the divisive tendencies that the election process is breeding. For the purpose of wooing the voter and winning, the candidates and parties are wrecking up issues of religion, caste, province, language etc. meant to create hatred and cleavages. Will good governance include tackling these?

 

Bringing good and principled people in politics has become necessary. Yet, how to do that without letting power corrupt them is the question. It is necessary that our systems and processes support the honest people and smoothen their tasks. Some supportive steps are being tried by the Election Commission. One, is to reduce the number of parties. Second, to publicize the property returns of the candidates for next ten years, and so on. The time has come for serious public debates on these issues.