ANTI-VIEW: AGCCSJA and Jos: Guilty?

By Frederick Noronha

Guilty. That's what Goa's Fourth Estate has held M.K.Jos, the
AGCCSJA, Prof Ave Cleto Afonso and his wife. The charge: driving
Dhempe College lecturer Naguexa Naique to suicide, following a
campaign that led to delays in his pension dues being paid to him.

Then, has campaigning gone amuck in Goa?

Reading newspaper versions, one would think this was so. After
all, weren't these individuals and the organisation hounding an
educationist? Someone, who, as the argument goes, is only a small
fry in the entire issue?

But life is not so simple. Who is M.K.Jos, and what is the
AGCCSJA all about? As charges fly thick and fast, readers out
there must be wondering what's behind this organisation that has
been campaigning vociferously on the sidelines, even if often
denied the headlines.

Small-town Panjim businessman originally from Kerala, M.K.Jos
settled in Goa in the 'sixties. Talk to him on any local subject,
and he is likely to have stories to narrate. Gossip and inside-
stories about the rich and the famous, the bold and the
beautiful. His acerbic pen is as much feared by his enemies, as
is his monumental powers to sniff-out and recall information.

When the Right to Information Act was passed a couple of years
ago, Jos was one of the few who took to it like a fish to water.
At this point, his knowledge of company law and business
procedure came in good stead. He managed, to some extent, to plug
loopholes in the law by working out various strategies that would
otherwise allow erring bureaucrats, or those with something to
hide, to deny access to information. Till date, few have been
successful in using this law effectively and consistently.

"But what's the point in getting out the information if
newspapers simply won't publish it?" complains septuagenarian
Jos, in despair. He was referring to an unofficial ban that
editors in Goa had placed on his name. All letters or press notes
from him were taboo for awhile, after the campaigner who made Goa
his home had some nasty showdowns with editors and senior
journalists. (Mediapersons meanwhile blame his vitriolic "style"
of writing for that, or his occasional use of unacceptable
sexual-innundoes while taking on someone he intensely dislikes.)

Jos's style is piquant. Like in the Naique case, he is sometimes
known to issue grandiloquently-termed "show cause notices" to
individuals who he sees as being involved in wrongdoing. In some
cases, he attributes his findings to a 'Special Investigation
Team', a label which uncannily resembles that of some of the
country's top probing agencies.

After facing roadblocks in getting published in the local press,
he launched a small, irregular journal called Goa Scene. This
tabloid managed to break some significant stories. But it told
them in such a roundabout manner that it was perhaps difficult
for the average reader to understand what was the point involved.

Nonetheless, to this now-controversial campaigner goes the credit
of unearthing some shocking scams relating to the Goa Board of
SSC and HSSC Education. For instance, he stumbled on how the Goa
Board was simply pushing up students, to claim good results in
SSC results. "Earlier, I was shocked to find that one in every
three students was being passed with condonation marks. Now, it's
even worse. One in every two-and-half students is being passed
this way," says he.

Like him or not, Jos also managed to claim the scalp the former
Goa Board chairman, Ulhas B. Dhuri, an illegal occupant in the
post. Dhuri might have been occupying that post with political
blessings. He occupied a top and sensitive educational posting in
the state for which he clearly did not have the requisite
qualifications. Perhaps not coincidentally, Dhuri was also
related by marriage to the then Congress(I) minister of state for
education.

In this case too, the style used was classic Jos.

It meant sending a letter to Dhuri, asking him: "Does your
qualifications meet the prescribed requirement for appointment to
the post of Chairman of the GBSHSE? ... If not, are you not an
imposter?" In this letter, Dhuri was "given" ten days' time to
"give us satisfaction that you have the requisite
qualifications... or remove yourself".

Dhuri's resignation on February 21, 1997 became the top story on
Page One in the next day's edition of the Gomantak Times.
"Education Secretary Vivek Rae has admitted the lapse on the part
of the government in appointing Ulhas Dhuri as chairman of (the)
Goa Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education, when he
did not posses the required qualifications for the post," the
paper reported. Rae was quoted by the newspaper as saying that
Dhuri had been appointed by then chief minister Pratapsing Rane
and that "the department had merely executed the order".

For some reason, Jos has pursued suspected wrong-doing in the
Education Department with far more determination. "We consider
Education as a vital area for quality upgradation of human
resources," he argues.  Some of the senior officials who have
faced the fire of his acerbic pen include Sushma Bumb, Celsa
Pinto, Diago D'Costa, Meera Deo, Neela Kerkar, Sudha Lawande,
Zahira Pabani, and A.K.Bidkar, amongst others.

A tireless believer in getting justice out of the system, Jos
puts in letter after letter citing what he believes to be
specific violations of the statute.

But educationists are not the only ones to face his fire. In the
past, Jos also turned his pen against those who wield the pen
daily: journalists. His modus operandi is simple yet savage at
the same time. Write a letter to the journalist or individual
concerned. Put on record all possible embarassing and
investigated facts. Send copies of this letter to the peer group
of the person concerned, and all his colleagues.

Jos has himself put in scores of Right to Information petitions
and, like him or not, has been quite successful in getting out
information bureaucrats would sit on it like a gold mine. He has
infact inspired a circle of others, showing them how this law
could be creatively used -- or misused, as his critics would say
-- to empower campaigners.

Other issues which he has raised include more important ones like
questionable practices which lead to quaint results. In recent
years, Goa has been seen a phenomenon where the most influential
kids in town also emerge with flying colours in board exams.
Jos's belief is that if corruption has seeped into every sphere
of public life, then public exams cannot be free from
contamination.

As his style of campaigning would have it, Jos has irritated some
rather powerful people in the state. His policy is diametrically
opposite to that who believes in being 'been-shatru' (without
opponents). Everyone, or almost everyone who matters, has been
his target. Khalap for his Mapusa Urban Coop Bank affairs, Mauvin
Godinho, ex-CM Luizinho Faleiro, Narvekar for the alleged
irrigation scam, the Education Department, Jindal of Meta Strips.  
Even one-time friend while in Opposition, Manohar Parrikar, has
been at Jos's verbal receiving end of late.

Jos was also well-known for his campaigns on the Konkan Railway
issue, at a time when the AGCCSJA also had a link with some
prominent churchmen. This link has since been downplayed or
dissolved, as each side probably finds itself a liability for the
other -- the church unable to withstand the pressures that
campaigning of the style of Jos expectedly generates.

On taking up an issue, Jos goes for it with a near obsession. In
the Naguexa Naique, trips were also undertaken to Ponda to
unearth birth-certificates. This is seen by some as undue
harassment, and what better chance to settle scores than to point
to the suicide -- a tragic development by any count?

He is also perhaps one of the few "editors" of a tiny journal in
the country to face action before the Press Council, on a
complaint from the editor of a mainstream journal.

When the Goa government recently tried to surreptitiously get
village panchayats to secede authority over industrial estates in
their area, Jos jumped into up the campaign. "We have got a
number of objections from affected panchayats. Jos and his group
were behind the group," said one Industries Department official.

Also placed in the dock for the Naguexa Naique case is Prof Ave
Cleto Afonso and his wife, Maria ILD Menezes. Prof Afonso has
been a well-known figure in campaign circles. For years, he is
known for having stood up for students ridiculed for unionising
themselves, for the victims of tourism, and generally for the
underdog. To those who know him, the charge might come as a
surprise. Even if his blunt style of speaking can lose him
friends, Afonso is known for sticking out his neck for a cause he
believes in. As irony would have it, Afonso has a few years to
retirement himself.

Guilty or not guilty? Time will tell...

Frederick Noronha fred@vsnl.com  Ph 27 14 90 or 27 86 83