austraLasia 758
INDIA: GOAN SDB RALLIES VILLAGERS AND PROMOTES ECOLOGY
"..we reject everything that encourages deprivation, injustice and violence" (C.33)
SULCONA-RIVONA (GOA): 23rd November '03 -- Salesian Brother Philip Neri D'Souza, of the Don Bosco Agro-Ed Complex, Sulcona-Rivona, has rallied local villagers in joint action with local agriculturist Venketash Prabhudesai and a village Women's Group lobbying aginst the Mining Company and other vested interests responsible for destruction of their environment and more particularly their livelihood.
The circumstances are not new: a beautiful, unspoiled area, a river and its floodplains serving as the lifeblood of a populated rural community, versus lucrative commercial interests (in this case ferro-manganese mining) with state government support. It is an old story - and yet a new one. This is not the first time in the Goan hinterland that mining has caused destruction and suffering. In the Columba region, water tanks have been silted in and an entire village (Tolem) obliterated. Now Rivona faces the same fate.
What is new in this version of the story is the action taken by both Brother Philip and villagers, with Brother Philip and Venketash Prabhudesai leading the charge. In a well-documented story of civic action, broadly reported in The Indian Express Sunday edition but detailed in a series of other documents, it is clear that protests to prevent what is now the case - diverted course of natural water and silting up of streams and channels - began back in 1991. But the past three years have seen the most concerted civic action. A washing plant, ironically termed a 'Beneficiation Plant', is causing much of the problem by drawing clean natural water from the once pristine Kushawati River then discharging waste and dumping reject material nearby. It was built and operated without due permissionand with what the villagers consider to be criminal neglect. Their demands to know what permissions were given, why High Court decisions were not followed, have been met with deceit and even physical threats.
This is the situation that Brother Philip Neri found himself in as a member of the Salesian Community. Fr. Chrys D'Cunha, Economer of the community, had written a letter to authorities in June 2001, complaining of polluted drinking water for their 350 students. Promises and a visit or two ensued, but permissions were given for further works (the so-called 'beneficiation' plant) which worsened the situation for all villagers and farmers.
Brother Philip's particular contribution has been to start a movement for the preservation of the natural beauty and ecology of the immediate area. This shines out for anyone who understands the Salesian emphasis on the environment we live in as well as the role we have in cooperating with anyone who is working to improve human dignity. This is obviously well understood by the locals whose terms of high praise for the Salesian include 'saviour' and 'embodiment of virtue and holiness'.
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