Plundered ruins

Photo : Soter D'Souza

A side view of a part of the ruined walls of Serula Communidade's 'Chavdi' demolished by mindless locals to prepare a stage for a marathi drama.

Glimpses of a dying Serula Communidade

Photo: Soter D'Souza

The ravaged ruins of the 'Chavdi' a meeting place of the Serula Communidade gaunkars at Maina, Socorro.

Serula Our Land - Plundered and raped

Serula Our Land!

Plundered and raped by greedy politicians, bureaucrats and their agents

Our once powerful Communidade of Serula that governed three and half villages, viz Socorro, Salvador do mundo, Penha de Franca and part of Pomburpa, was the largest institution of traditional governance in Bardez taluka of Goa. Being one of the richest communidade in terms of land holdings and revenue, the assets of Serula Communidade became the target of hungry and greedy politicians, bureaucrats and their agents. The non-goan and goan IAS officers deputed to Goa provided the foundation for the plunder by faciltitating illegal amendments to the Code of Communidades to cause benefit not only to themsleves but the political parties, government servants and charitable institutions by exempting them from land auction. Till such time it was only the 'gaonkar' who could be allotted land without auction. It was in and around 1991,during the tenure of the former Chief minister of Goa Ravi Naik and the local MLA of Aldona Constituency Mr. Ratnakar Chopdekar, that the plunder of Serula Comunidade was intensified. Even before that the government and the local MLAs encouraged land encroachments by migrants and grabbed land by making use of the land acquisition proceedings.

Taking the opportunity of in-fighting between the gaonkars of the communidade the government illegally installed a care-taker committee of persons who were not gaonkars and from then on the powerful and mighty institution was mercilessly plundered of it's land and finances. The patronage of the ruling Congress party to the fraudulently imposed office-bearers helped in the cover up of the wide spread corruption. The new Porvorim stands on the land belonging to Serula Communidade majority of which has been cornered by migrants from various neighbouring states of India.

The Serula Gaonkars Action Front was launched in 1991 and being part of those opposing the illegal imposition of the committee, false criminal chapter cases were registered against us in conjunction with corrupt police officials who also had their eye on the land. Thereafter, the enthusiam among the gaonkars slumped as some gaonkars who connived with the plunderers for their personal benefit. Even then stray efforts to challenge the plunder were initiated by some of us goankars from time to time. It was in the year 2000, after several complaints of corruption, the then BJP government ordered the Communidade Administrator of North Zone to conduct an inspection and it was found that money to the tune of 2 crores was unaccounted. The managing committee was suspended and show-caused. A glimpse for saving the communidade emerged but a section of the half-gaonkars became ambitious and scuttled the initiative by raising demands for prime posts on the committee. From then on the Communidade of Serula has never seen any movement for revival and the institution is almost driven to a point of no return. The shares have been allotted to non-goans to create vote-banks and secure plots while the revenue has been looted by indiscriminate allottment of contracts for development of raods and other infrastructure.

The Portuguese may have been driven away but they have got replaced by neo-colonialists -the goan and non-goan land mafia - and Goa's rich heritage of the Communidade system has been repeatedly under attack for nothing else than its precious land resources.The only remaining land on a beautiful and serene plateau of Socorro and Salvador do mundo villages is being grabbed by the Goa IT Development Corporation for setting up an IT Park in collusion with the local MLA who is the chairman of the corporation.

But we refuse to give up hope. We firmly believe that the souls of our ancestors shall never allow these plunderers and their agents to rest.

Truth shall triumph! Justice shall prevail! The guilty will be punished!