Proposed new airport at Mopa deepens the North-South Goa divide

For those thinking of packing their bags and moving to Goa the big question is Which Goa are you going to move to Just like in the city with south and north Mumbai eastern and western suburbs there is a north and south Goa too The divide is not just geographical there are other intangible aspects to thisThe houses in north and south Goa The architecture talks eloquently about the cultureThere are ageold differences which hitech innovations like the Internet and mobile phone cannot bridge There are only two districts in Goa the smallest state in India mdash north and south Goa Add some politicians to this equation and it adds up to one yawning divideThe Portuguese era Margao city municipality buildingIn the airA proposed new international airport at Mopa in extreme north Goa has further strained this divide with people from south Goa arguing that it would finish off the tourism industry now the main industry in the state in the south because tourists would not want to travel too far to the resortsThe fortresslike church of Our Lady of the Rosary in Navelim in the south of Margao lThe present airport at Dabolim in central Goa is conveniently located for both north and south The problem with it though is that it has the navy This means civilian flights are limited Even though a new larger airport terminal was started last year it will be unable to handle the growing air traffic in the futureManohar Parrikar PicBipin Kokate andLaxmikant ParsekarWhile some in the south seethe others in the northern tip of Goa in Pernem taluka where Mopa is located can hardly wait for the new airport because they think it would open up fresh opportunities in largely backward and undeveloped areas Many real estate speculators have already bought land in expectation of a big boom in tourism in the coastal areas located there and housing in the interiorsThe cauldron bubblesNow add a bit of religious chauvinism and this is a cauldron waiting to explode Salcete the biggest taluka in the south is Catholic dominated while Pernem is predominantly Hindu Salcete activists are most vocal against the Mopa airportThe loudest amongst these is an organization called lsquoGoans For Dabolim Onlyrsquo headed by a Catholic priest Fr Eremito Rebello Although the Goa government has already acquired land for the new airport the project has been mired in controversy with environmentalists and other activists opposed to it on various groundsIt has polarised Goan society like perhaps nothing else pitching the north against the south though there are other voices trying to make themselves heard One of these is of veteran builder and hotelier Victor Albuquerque A north Goa resident he owns luxury hotels both in the south and north beachbelt and says he is optimistic that instead of being divisive the airport at Mopa will in fact benefit all of GoaThere is no need to view it from the northsouth prism ldquoMopa can benefit all provided there is an efficient network of highways Goa can have better connectivity through fast trains and better highways We need a better international airport because the airport is the first touch point when a tourist arrives at a destinationrdquo he saysThe current travel time from the airport at Dabolim in central Goa to resorts in the north Goa beachbelt of CalanguteCandolim the hub of tourism is approximately one hour It is the same for those who travel to the southern beachbelt of MoborCavelossim which has a high concentration of luxury resorts but it takes an hour more to travel to the extreme southern end of Goa to Canacona The reason why the northern Pernem taluka has lagged in the tourism sweepstakes is because of its distance to the present airportThese are fearsSeveral tourism stakeholders in south Goa fear that once the airport at Mopa becomes operational Dabolim airport will be closed for civilian flights There are undercurrents though like Catholics in the south feel Mopa is being pushed through to kill tourism down south and it will affect them adversely economically Although there is frenetic activity to widen NH17 there are major bottlenecks which will inevitably slow down trafficThe past problemsIn the old days though the northsouth divide in Goa was essentially over the way Konkani the official language of Goa and the lsquomother tonguersquo of most was spoken North Goans have their own Konkani and find the Konkani spoken down south weird and viceversaHindu Konkani is markedly different from Catholic Konkani too With distances being cut short in modern times there have been a large number of northsouth HinduCatholic marriages and things have become a little mixedThere is also the eastwest divide with NH17 which runs in the middle of the state from the northern to the southern border for around 100 kms cutting the state into two halves The west is relatively more prosperous and the western coastal belt is where the tourism boom happenedComparatively the east is still largely agrarian and underdeveloped with many of the eastern areas part of the Western Ghats forming wildlife sanctuaries The east is also where the mining boom and bust happened Until it was shut down over alleged scams more than three years ago the industry was the biggest iron exporter in the countryThe mining industry has left much of eastern Goa ravaged beyond redemption but also created copious wealth Inevitably this northsouth eastwest divide has also shaped Goarsquos political and cultural landscape Between 1988 and 2007 Goa had 12 Chief Ministers with the government of the day being regularly toppled because of the differences The western areas largely formed what are known as the lsquoOld Conquestrsquo areas during the Portuguese eraAt one point more than 90 per cent of the population was Catholic Then sometime in the late eighteenth century new areas like Pernem Sattari etc came under Portuguese rule and the Hindu population increased tremendously After Goarsquos liberation in 1961 the Catholic population has steadily declined and now forms less than 30 per cent It is still a significant minority and a big factor when it comes to winning electionsPolitical winds blowIn the last assembly election in 2012 BJP leader Manohar Parrikar now the Union Defence Minister managed to forge a strategic partnership with some prominent southern Catholic leaders and riding on the peoplersquos disillusionment with the Congress emerged victorious with a clear majority of 21 in the 40 seat assemblySalcete taluka voted for a large number of Catholic independent candidates who entered into a coalition government with the BJP Parrikarrsquos strategy was to take the Catholics along giving a body blow to the CongressAll that though is unraveling with the proposed Mopa airport Parrikar himself has moved on to New Delhi and the new Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar represents Mandrem one of the two seats from Pernem taluka He is determined to have Mopa Not going ahead would be political harakiri for himA twist arrivesBut there is also the possibility that Mopa might never become a reality because another international airport is currently being built at Chipi in Sindhudurg district of southern Maharashtra barely 50 km away from GoaWork is on in full swing on the runways Two international airports in such close proximity to each other may not be viable say experts So was Mopa just a political ploy to divide the north and south Possibly but itrsquos only a symptom of the overall divide in GoaGlenn Mascarenhas was born and brought up in Margao city the commercial capital of the south His parents are both from north Goa and migrated to the south because of work He says ldquoIrsquom a south Goan though I have parental influence of the North of courseThe south is where Goan Catholic culture is still very strong Most important movements to safeguard Goan culture were all won with support from the south The Opinion Poll a referendum held in 1967 which voted against merger with Maharashtra the Konkani movement the movement against SEZs Special Economic Zones if allowed they would have radically changed the demographic profile of Goa all were won with support from the southrdquo he says proudlyMapping tourismTourism also evolved differently in south and north Goa probably because the northerners in Bardez taluka home to the famous beaches of CalanguteBaga Candolim and Anjuna were perhaps more hospitable back in the mid1960s when the first tourists the hippies landed on Goan shoresIn fact they first landed in Colva the queen of south Goan beaches in Salcete but the people there were apparently incensed with their partying and liberal ways the early hippies were notorious for sunbathing nude They then ended up in CalanguteAnjunaldquoThe south people are more aggressive more impatientrdquo says a local echoing the commonly held view in Goa that the northerners are more liberal ldquoExcept in the extreme south in Palolem tourism has not swept aside everything as has happened in the north which is now full of outsiders who have taken over most of the businesses In the south the people are still holding on to their land and businessesrdquoConsequently much of the Catholicdominated Salcete coastline has retained a bit of that Goan Catholic flavour in the form of stately houses which give Goa its unique lsquoLatinorsquo atmosphere In contrast the CandolimCalangute beachbelt mdash the most visited areas in Goa has lost much of that oldworld charm which was the reason why it first became so popular with touristsGoa seems a house divided but thatrsquos for locals in the know For the casual visitor it is Goarsquos geographical divide north to south that one crosses on a visit to the sunny state They are largely unaware of the undercurrents What do they say about ignorance is bliss