Why the noise?
An age old war enters a new phase as Anjuna battles for peace (and quiet), an ecological head scratcher and a former Goa chief secretary's faux pas in this week's edition
It’s a new month, and just like that, the “most wonderful time of the year” is right upon us. For us here in Goa and Goans everywhere in the world, that means the feast of St. Francis Xavier, the feast of the Immaculate Conception, celebrated in Panjim and Margao, as well as Liberation Day on December 19, and of course Christmas and New Year.
Why the noise?
For the people of Anjuna, however, it’s a season of dread. And going by what happened at the Anjuna gram sabha last week, the battle lines have been drawn.
Things took an ugly turn when during the Anjuna gram sabha held last Sunday, local activist Dr. Inacio Fernandes was clobbered by Gajanan Tilve and others when he was moving a resolution against noise pollution in the village by loud music parties that run late into the night.
The incident
If you have seen the videos, you will have noticed that there was an argument between Inacio and Carlos, a restaurant owner, over an incident that happened presumably earlier in the week.
Gajanan Tilve, a former member of the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha and who Michael Lobo confessed was “his man,” rushed in and swung at Dr. Inacio before policemen and others swarmed in to separate the two.
This attack was not spontaneous. In fact, if you see the main characters in Sunday’s gram sabha confrontation and compare them with the main characters in this confrontation between Michael Lobo and Manoj Parab (remember him?) from February this year, you will notice an evident overlap. It may be a different match, but one side has retained the same team from nine months ago.
It is no surprise then that Tilve had no hesitation in hitting out (literally, not figuratively) at Dr. Inacio, knowing fully well that he enjoyed the backing of the powers that be and nothing would happen to him. In remarks made before the media later that day, Tilve went on to justify his attack and said that what he did was an “outburst” on behalf of the people of Anjuna against their fellow villagers who have been fighting against noise pollution for the last several years.
True to form, the Anjuna police inspector, Suraj Gawas, when asked about the lack of penal action against Tilve, quipped something on the lines of, "An arrest is not mandatory in all cases.” Which is fine and is an argument I am willing to buy, because, after all, there are entire judgements, including those of the Supreme Court, that dictate when a police officer can and cannot make an arrest.
But then what’s good for the goose is good for the gander.
If Nubert Fernandes, an activist who is battling against mega projects in Camurlim, a village that falls on the other side of Siolim, can be arrested for allegedly assaulting a deputy sarpanch during a gram sabha, why is the same yardstick not being applied to Gajanan Tilve? Tells you everything you need to know about the “balance of convenience” as it is applied by the police in today’s Goa.
On to the larger issue then...
How big is the noise problem?
Very little of what is happening in Anjuna today is really new. If you read my report from more than ten years ago, you will realise that other than an exponential increase in the number of establishments blaring loud music, the issue has really remained unchanged over the years. Lavino Rebello (RIP) is no more with us, but the battles he fought ten years ago continue to resonate today.
The fight by the people of Anjuna today is only the latest battle in an ongoing war that, quite frankly, dates back even earlier to 2007, when the High Court set up citizens committees to tackle loud music after petitioners alleged that the police were reluctant to act.
In fact, it wasn’t too long ago when Siolim MLA Delilah Lobo, herself quite reluctantly, it would seem, led a delegation of villagers from Siolim constituency to complain to the police inspector about failure to crack down on noise pollution (don’t miss the last few minutes of the video when an intrepid resident questions the MLA about music emanating from her own restaurant beyond 10 p.m.).
Shouldn’t those complaining about how ‘activism’ is ruining tourism have raised their voices when the MLA herself led a delegation to the police inspector in charge of Anjuna police station to complain about noise pollution?
What the law says
According to the Noise Pollution (Regulation and Control) Rules, 2000, a “loud speaker or a public address system shall not be used at night (between 10:00 pm and 6:00 am) except in closed premises for communication within, e.g., auditoria, conference rooms, community halls, and banquet halls, while on 15 days in a year during a cultural or religious festive occasion the time limit is extended up to 12 midnight.
There are two things that stand out from the rules. First is the ban on the use of loudspeakers in open premises between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m., irrespective of the zone one is located in, and secondly, a person may, if, at any time of the day, the noise level exceeds the ambient noise standards by 10 dB (ambient) or more given in the corresponding columns against any area or zone, make a complaint to the authority” seeking action against the violator.
The standards are as below:
What also stands out is how impractical these standards are to implement. For example, a normal conversation between two people is between 50 and 60 decibels. The sound of your AC, washing machine, etc. That’s about 75-80 dB. Your Bluetooth speaker? That can be as loud as 95 decibels. Then there’s the case that it’s an offence only if the violation is 10 dB above the ‘standard’, which in itself indicates that it’s more of a guideline and less of a hard and fast rule.
Then there’s the argument about where the meter should be placed to record “ambient” sound levels. Should it be inside the venue, along the boundary of the venue, or outside the venue close to the residents’ houses?
It’s no wonder then that when and if the authorities act, only crackdown on the 10 p.m. loudspeaker ban. Will the High Court’s latest decision to keep a live sound level screen at the Anjuna police station make a difference? I hardly think so.
Will it kill tourism?
One of the biggest arguments that the party proponents make is that the activists are trying to kill tourism—an argument that has been replied to by Dr. Inacio himself, but more than that sounds eerily similar to the one that was being made in favour of mining at the time the mining ban was imposed back in 2012—that it threatens livelihoods.
Firstly, none of this is new. If you read my aforementioned piece from 2013, you will have noticed how the ‘tea ladies’ argument was one that was made back then too—that the killing of the party scene will kill their livelihood. Are they suggesting the law be ignored when it comes to Anjuna-Vagator in the name of tourism and livelihoods?
But more importantly, as this edit in The Goan last week argued, none of these protests can change the law or take away the 10 p.m. loudspeaker ban. Either you fall in line with it or do something else like selling fish in a fish market or something—which, ironically, can get as loud as 130 decibels during peak hours. Perhaps our class teacher was on to something.
“I signed 700 files that month.”
Former Goa Chief Secretary Puneet Kumar Goel, who was transferred from Goa following an uproar after he signed on a file approving the change of zone for a plot of land containing a bungalow that he would later go on to buy.
The bungalow was built on the plot of land that was zoned as a paddy field, raising questions about its legality.
The approval was challenged before the Bombay High Court at Goa, and the Chief Secretary has filed his response, which has to be seen to be believed.
In his response, the Chief Secretary has claimed he has done no wrong—even went on to say that approving the conversion of the bungalow was only one among 700 files he signed that month. What does this even mean? That the state’s top bureaucrat is ‘blindly’ signing files without any application of mind?
And that too, those files that result in lakhs of square meters of green zones—including paddy fields, no development slope, and orchard lands being opened up for settlement?
Are we wrong to expect better?
Utorda leads the way?
In south Goa, in the once sleepy village of Utorda, 26-year-old Anthea Pereira has earned the distinction of being the youngest woman sarpanch in Goa.
Pereira is not your usual run-of-the-mill grassroots politician. According to this report by Karsten Miranda, her grandmother Lilia Pereira was Goa’s first woman sarpanch between 1968 and 1973, while her father Aleixo, a hotelier, is also an ardent activist for the cause of CRZ violations by large hotels and private shacks along the south Goa beach belt.
Anthea has big shoes to fill, especially since the Goa she is living in is not the same laidback, peaceful Goa from back then—it's a time when the big players are out to grab whatever little is left of Goa—wishing her the very best for her tenure.
Ecologically insensitive
A team from the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests was down in Goa this week—on the request of the state government, which has sought the removal of 21 villages from the 104 villages provisionally identified as Ecologically Sensitive Areas (ESAs) for falling within the biologically diverse Western Ghats. While it’s not yet clear which are the 21 villages that are sought to be removed, what I do know is that at least two villages—Loliem and Poinguinim—are both on the right side of history when it comes to demanding that they be retained instead of removed from the list.
What’s the fuss about?
First, a bit of history. Back in 2010 (when governments at least pretended to care about problems and set up committees to tackle them), the Union Government appointed a High-Level Working Group to study the ecology, environmental integrity, and holistic development of the Western Ghats, headed by professor Madhav Gadgil, to harmonise environmental and biodiversity protection with the needs and aspirations of local and indigenous people... focus on sustainable development and the environmental integrity of the region, suggesting steps and a way forward to prevent further degradation of the fragile ecology of the Western Ghats.”.
The group known as the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel (WGEEP), which included Goan professor Dr. Ligia Noronha (the present UN Assistant Secretary-General and Head of UNEP), submitted its report to the Ministry on 15th April, 2013, which identified approximately 37 percent of the Western Ghats as ecologically sensitive, which covers an area of 59,940 square kilometres, and recommended the prohibition or regulation of activities that have maximum interventionist and destructive impacts on ecosystems.
When (and if) finally notified, the following activities will be prohibited in the ESAs: mining, quarrying and sand mining, thermal power plants, red category industries, and building construction of townships and area development projects, while there shall be “no restriction on repair, extension, or renovation of existing residential houses” and “no restriction in change in ownership of property.”
That’s it. There’s no restriction (only regulation) on hydropower projects, no restrictions on red and orange category industries, and no restrictions on agriculture, etc.
Quite frankly, given the narrow range of restrictions, one can make the case—as Claude Alvares did—that for all intents and purposes the entire state of Goa is an ESA. Think about it. Will the people of Goa allow a thermal power plant to be set up here? Do they really want townships and red-category industries?
Why then are certain villages demanding that they be removed from the classification? It would be easy to say that they are being misled by their local politicians, who have instilled a fear in them that if such classification is realised, they would need an NOC from the forest department even if they wanted to repair their houses, continue with agriculture, etc. None of which is, of course, based in fact, since the notification specifies no such restrictions.
Yet, the belief persists, in large part due to the previous experience with poorly designed environmental policies like that of the Forest Conservation Act and the CRZ notification.
That said, it remains to be seen what this latest endeavour will achieve. The ESA notification is now in its sixth draft, with none of the previous five having made it to the final stage, and the Goa Foundation’s challenge to the Union government’s reluctance remains pending before the Supreme Court. Will this time be any different?
And finally, I leave you with an art recommendation.
Fonseca, an Indic Lexicon
The Xavier Centre for Historical Research at Porvorim this week threw open its doors to an exhibition on a select collection of works by mid-20th century Goan painter Angelo da Fonseca curated by Dr. Savia Viegas, an academic, writer, artist, and curator.
Titled FONSECA: An Indic Lexicon, the exhibition, which will be open for three months, “seeks to display these unique works and familiarise Goan as well as foreign art lovers with the legacy of Fonseca, a young Goan artist set about painting Christian icons in new settings and colours in the tumultuous decades of the twentieth century amid two world wars and a sense of selfhood growing in the colonies of Asia and Africa.”
If art’s your thing, this is something you should really check out, especially if you can catch up with a guided walk-through. For more details, checkout: https://xchr.substack.com/ and sign up to receive updates.
That’s all I have for you this week. Hope you enjoyed reading this week’s edition of my newsletter as much as I did writing it. Make sure you interact, comment or write in, should you have something, anything to say.
As always, please share and help spread the word.
Wishing you a very happy feast of St Francis Xavier, in advance! Until next week, then. Tchau!
This episode has proved beyond doubt that micol lobo is behind the smoke screen in support of the noisy chaos that prevails in anjuna/assagao belt.
This title of this article itself puts forth a very important question .
Why the noise ?
This is a wonderful exhibit of Journalism .