(Photo mine)
Goa
is home to many people, but what continues to strike me is the tendency of
discussions about Goa to focus on what Goa is to tourists. There are countless
articles (which I don’t care to link, and contribute any further clicks, to)
written by disgruntled tourists, who have tired of the place they previously
happily consumed, or their Goan supporters. Recently, a New York Times article has been making the rounds on social media
that laments the loss of the hippies at the expense of Indian tourists. The
article is almost exclusively focused on tourists and barely mentions that Goa
actually has inhabitants. When it does acknowledge that Goans exist, it paints them
as snobs who feel superior to the contemporary visitors to their land.
I
have heard many people in Goa lament this same shift in the tourism market over
the years: “We miss the good ol’ days when the hippies from Europe would come
here. They never interfered with the
locals.” What I find noteworthy is the latter part about interference. I have shared my
observations before
about what appears to me to be a lack of interest in interacting with the Goans
in Goa. As I have stated, Goa is so hospitable a place that the Goans will even
let you pretend that they are not
there. I think this erasure of locals is true of the tourism industry in
general, but given the apparent longing for some bygone era, I would prefer to
focus on the hippie–local relationship.
An
issue that several Goan scholars have raised is how Goa is used as a mere
setting for others’ pleasure.
This is not something that started after Indians began coming to Goa in droves.
I would argue that the hippies did not “interfere” with the locals because they
were least interested in whatever was happening beyond their own usage of the place.
Perhaps they made friendships with locals, but what drew them was the fact that
no one was “interfering” with them.
They could get high and swim naked without worrying about the
police or nosy neighbours stopping them from having the experience of their
choice. What, then, has Goa lost? People—including a new generation of hippies—continue
to visit and move to Goa to chill out and have a good time doing whatever they
please because they feel entitled to do so.
Why
does the focus always seem to be on the perspectives of everyone but the actual
stakeholders in Goa? I have been coming to Goa since 2001 and have never had
difficulty surrounding myself with Goans. Despite the changing demographics of
the state, you really do have to make a concerted effort to avoid Goans in Goa.
I have reached a point where I no longer want to read articles on Goa because,
either overtly or tacitly, most of them frame Goa as nothing more than a
commodity. Even the discourse on social media, contributed by Goans in Goa and
the Goan diaspora, tends to lean heavily towards the perspective of the
tourist. I want to hear about how coal is making people sick in Vasco, not
about how coal is bad for tourism; about how the garbage problems in the state
harm those who inhabit the state, not how garbage impacts tourists; about how
generations of Goans have had to emigrate due to lack of employment opportunities,
not about how Goans have abandoned their homes because … just because?
Yes,
like many coastal places, Goa is synonymous with tourism, but there is
something peculiar about how Goa has been marketed as a tourist destination.
Once the selling of second homes went full throttle, the character of some
villages began to change. Buildings and gated communities were being erected
because of this demand for investment properties, and the owners of those
properties, whether they ever set foot in those buildings or not, were
considered residents. This on-paper increase in the population was grounds for
further development including new
designations of villages and towns as towns and cities, respectively. The
rate at which Goa is being paved over currently, with flyovers and underpasses connecting
villages with NH-17 and village roads being widened from house to house on
either side, it seems to me that all this talk about how to make the tourism
industry appeal more to families and the rich is a waste of energy. The tourism
industry seems to have been a means to attract neo-Goans and urbanize this
small state to reshape it into one or several large cities. Goa’s ongoing
problems regarding electricity and water scarcity and lack of employment raise
questions about the feasibility of such plans, but that is another issue to
discuss. In any case, maybe this agenda appeals to Goans; if urbanization is
what they want, then who am I to criticize? But if the locals want to retain
what is left of the Goa they have always known, then the battle is for that,
not for branding Goa in innovative ways to entice more posh consumers to eat
away at it.
So,
instead of lamenting the loss of the hippie-tourists, perhaps we should be
lamenting the loss of Goa to corporate interests.
