The horrors of colonization, enslavement and dehumanization are over. Yet all of them seemed to have got a second life of their own in contemporary Goa and India. This may make us feel that the freedom that we gained from the colonizers is a lost dream. The colonizers are gone. But the oppression has not gone. Colonial relations have ended but the relations of coloniality have not ended. We seem to have replaced the imperialism of the colonizers with even more rapacious one unleased on us by our very own. This does not mean that colonization was a golden era. Our freedom from them had ignited great dreams for a prosperous and harmonious future. This is why with pain we may have to ask: are we converting Goa and our country in a land of lost dreams? Again, we have to qualify our position. To the elite Goans and Indians both Goa and India, continue to be a land of milk and honey.
But to several among us, it is quickly becoming a land of lost dreams because of the greed of only a few. Maybe we can ask: does our lost dream have a future? Is the future of our lost dreams lost forever? I do not think so. We can still dream even when we acutely feel that our future is being cancelled by the powers that be. Some of us seem to think that we have future outside Goa and India. This might explain why people leave Goa and India and migrate abroad in search of dreamful future. The challenge is to dream with courage in Goa and India against all odds. This is not easy but not impossible.
What is called development fails to touch most lives. It leaves them behind and goes ahead. As citizens some of us are fast becoming denizens forced to live on exile in our own place. Thankfully, some in Goa are unwilling to dance to the music of those who have put Goa on sale. Goa with its brand of play, pleasure and scenic beauty continues to bring scores of other Indians who are willing to pay high prices to our lands and other resources. Goa thus have become a dreamland for the non-Goan other while Goans appear to be going through a horrendous nightmare.
While the powers that be are euphoric about what is India achieving these days, it is the poor Indian who is facing the heat. The economic elite that forms the minority is eating up almost 75% of the GDP leaving the rest of Indians to survive on remaining 25%. Poverty is on an increase and there are no jobs to dream a future away from it. Our politicians who present a dreamland India have failed us when they saw power.
Both Goans and poor Indians seem to be lost in the translation of India into super developed country. The lost dream also means lost futures. Unfortunately, we are forced to live in the past. We do have a wounded past. This past is racked up from time to time by the right-wing politics. Unfortunately this politics that licks our past wounds inhibits our ability to dream a free and prosperous future. The past fault lines are used to drag our feet while our natural resources particularly our land is handed over to the highest bidder.
We have become a society who has lost future and hence is haunted by the past. Our ability to dream a future is disabled. This is why India as well as Goa is fast turning into a land of lost dreams. We need to recover our ability to dream again. We have the challenge to take our destiny in our hands. There is no messiah to come to open our cancelled future. We cannot allow any messianic arrest of our ability to dream. There is no messianic future to come. We have to come together to build our future. This is why we have to critically asses all the forces, institutions, ideologies etc., that are disabling our ability to dream. Though we are fast propelled towards lost dreams. India as well as Goa are not dreamless lands. The future belongs to those who courageously dream.
It is time that we look at the future with open eyes. It is time that we embrace inter-generational justice when it comes to land resources. We have all embraced a conservative stance to hand over our tradition, religion and culture to our next generation. While we are trapped into this mission, we have failed to conserve our land, rivers, hills and even human resources. We cannot simply allow the market to take charge of the same. The zeal with which we strive to conserve tradition, faith and culture, we have to also conserve our land, human and other natural resources for the generations to come. There are Indians and Goans to come. We are certainly not the last Indians and the Goans. We have this challenge to dream a future that is inclusive of these people to come. The dream is a lost dream. There is a future for a lost dream.
