Youths in Goa float secular group for countering Rama Sene

The Hindu

• ‘Goa does not need Sri Rama Sene’ is their slogan
• Buzz being created on social networking sites about this

 

Panaji, 19 Jun 2012: Youths in Goa are mobilising people to form “Ami Goykar” (AG), a new front to fight attempts by right-wing outfits such as the Sri Rama Sene, which recently announced its plans to enter Goa. Anwesha Singbal, a journalist along with other youths, spearheaded a campaign recently on the social networking sites saying “Goa does not need Rama Sene” and its fanaticism, was unanimously elected the convenor of AG.

 

Ms. Singbal said on Monday that the group would start spreading the message to unite all stakeholders against the communal forces. The group plans to hold a youth convention in the first week of July at Ramnathi, the venue of recent “Hindu convention” from where Sri Rama Sene chief Pramod Muthalik and other Hindu outfits made demands like “Hindu Rashtra”.

 

The AG plans to mobilise like-minded Goans from among the students, social organisations, tourism stakeholders, business organisations, and panchayats to pledge their support for preserving Goa’s unity in diversity.

 

The group has decided to meet Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar shortly demanding from him that the Government prevent Mr. Muthalik from coming to Goa as his earlier acts in Mangalore and other places had been targeted towards breaching the secular fabric of society. The previous Congress Government had announced a ban on Sri Ram Sene in Goa.

 

“Although every body has liberty by virtue of being in a democracy to form an organisation, our Constitution is strongly based on the concepts of secularism and hence it is the duty of the Chief Minister to ensure that he does not allow organisations with communal intents to set foot in our State,” said a spokesperson of the AG on Monday.

 

Mr. Parrikar is already on record that the Government would not allow anybody to breach communal amity and peace in Goa. But he had chosen not to name Sri Ram Sene despite provocative statements by Mr. Muthalik recently in Goa that Mr. Parrikar would be invited to inaugurate the Sri Ram Sene Goa unit in the next three months. Mr. Muthalik said that the sene would abide by the rule of law.

 

The AG has raised concerns over the reported statements of the sene against pubs and the western culture in Goa.

 

If the on-going debate on social networking sites was any guide, Goan youth by and large were unwilling to allow any elements to disrupt State’s unique communal amity, where blend of various cultures and people from all religions had lived in peace in the State for ages, say public spirited citizens.

 

At a meeting held at Margao on Sunday, concerned citizens flayed the BJP Government, headed by Mr. Parrikar, for its conspicuous silence on statements made from Ramnathi by Hindu groups last week to establish a Hindu Rashtra in India and Mr. Muthalik’s plan to open an unit of Sri Ram Sene in Goa.

 

The speakers at the meeting decided to call on the Chief Minister to request him to uphold his constitutional duty both on a legal and social platform to discourage such tendencies in Goa.

 

Mr. Prassana Timble, who has been nominated as a spokesman of AG, told presspersons after the meeting that “Goans are against organisations trying to take up the role of moral policing.”