Thaindian News

Panaji, June 18 (IANS) Scores of freedom fighters, litterateurs and retired bureaucrats held a protest against the “anti-people” policies of the Goa government here Saturday even as the state celebrated the 65th anniversary of its Revolution Day.

The freedom fighters and the intelligentsia were protesting against the Congress-led coalition government’s recent decision to allow grants to schools teaching in the English language, among other issues.

“This is the worst government Goa has ever had. The decisions are completely anti- people. And the decision favouring English is the last nail in the coffin of Goa’s identity,” noted writer and Sahitya Akademi award winner Pundalik Naik said, before he was detained by the police for ‘breach of peace’.

Naik was one of the 70-odd writers, intellectuals and bureaucrats and minor children who were detained by the police for protesting outside the venue where Chief Minister Digambar Kamat was delivering his Revolutionary Day speech.

Arvind Bhatikar, a former IAS officer and a civil society activist, said the occasion was loaded with irony because members of civil society were picked up by the police for peacefully protesting on a day when the spirit of revolution is honoured in the state.

“It is a shame on the Congress government which is trying to quell peaceful protests. This government is hell bent on destroying the identity of Goa by promoting English and weakening regional languages,” Bhatikar said.

Freedom fighters also boycotted the official function in Panaji, claiming that the government had lost the right to honour freedom fighters who had fought for the freedom of the state.

“We have displaced the Portuguese, but the Kamat-led government is full of Portuguese raiders, who are Indian by accident. Shame on this government,” spokesperson for the All Goa Freedom Fighter’s Association Nagesh Karmali told reporters, even as they were surrounded by armed CISF personnel, while protesting outside the venue.

Kamat, who spoke of honouring the sacrifices of the freedom fighters for the cause of Goa’s freedom struggle in his official speech, later refused to comment on the protests and arrest of the state intelligentsia outside the area, where the official function was held.

June 18 is celebrated annually in Goa as the day when veteran freedom fighter Ram Manohar Lohia gave the clarion call for independence from Portuguese rule in 1946.