By Claude Alvares
Every year, Norma and I visit Sirigao to pay our respects to Devi Lairai and to seek her blessings to remove any obstacles in the villagers’ efforts to restore the ecology and environment of their village—ravaged by 50 years of mining.
This year, we also went to mourn the deaths of several devotees in the unfortunate stampede that took place in the early hours of the second day. We were given mogra garlands; the mogra flower is the most beloved offering to Devi Lairai.
Norma has stood by the villagers of Sirigao in their fight for justice. She has appeared before the High Court to ensure that mining companies were compelled to pay Rs. 4 crores for the recovery of paddy fields in two Khazars. She also ensured that mining trucks would no longer pass through the village and that an ore unloading unit was shut down. But the road to repair will take decades to cover. Norma is now representing the villagers again, this time to fight for the cancellation of new mining leases recently granted in the village.
The Goa government’s hypocrisy in professing devotion to Devi Lairai is starkly evident in its actions. It included the Devi Lairai temple and the entire settlement of Sirigao within the mining leases handed over to Vedanta, Bandekar, and Salgaoncar Shipping (formerly Chougules). These entities, between them, have enriched themselves by over Rs. 1,000 crore from the mineral wealth of Sirigao. In the process, they devastated the village’s ecology.
Today, the entire production system of the village has collapsed. Productive lands have either been destroyed or removed from village control. From over 400 cows, only one remains. All that is left is the physical settlement, stripped of any ties to livelihood or local production.
The Chief Minister visited Sirigao to offer condolences for the deaths of seven devotees—lives lost due to his administration’s negligence. But his crime runs further and deeper: as Minister for Mines, he condemned Sirigao and forsook Devi Lairai when he approved the mining leases that handed over the entire village to private corporations.
That these companies had already left the village damaged beyond repair did not matter.
They have now been given the green light to extract whatever ore is left—for another 50 years.
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