East Indians plan Sunday rally to demand land back

Mumbai: Bandra’s air will rent with passionate cries of East Indians shouting slogans like “Parat kara, parat kara, zaaga zamini parat kara (Our lands have been misused, give us back our lands)” at their annual rally this Sunday. Not to be confused with those from the East of India, this community consists of the original Catholic inhabitants of Mumbai, named to demonstrate their allegiance to the East India Company and differentiate themselves from Goan and Mangalorean Christians who were seen as Portuguese subjects.The East Indians have been holding a rally to come together and highlight the grievances of this sons-of-soil community for the last five years.
Of their many requests in their memorandum, addressed separately to the central and state government, the priority is demarcation of their gaothans. “Many of our gaothans have been termed as slums and the Slum Rehabilitation Authority could get in and start redeveloping the place. We don’t want that to happen, we want our gaothans to maintain the same heritage look. We want to maintain our culture,” said Alphi D’Souza, CEO, Mobai Gaothan Panchayat (MGP).
Other items on the agenda include simplification of the OBC certification process and repair permission for gaothans, lower tax for gaothan homes, regularization of holy crosses in East Indian gaothans, an East Indian corporator to be nominated to represent the city, and housing and job reservations for the community. “Slum-dwellers get houses in place of their slums after a 10-20 year period but gaothan people don’t get anything,” said D’Souza, who also demanded an East Indian Bhavan, despite the growing lack of space in the city. “We are hoping against hope to get some place from the land our ancestors had given to the government for redevelopment. A lot of that land remains undeveloped and we’re trying to ask that back from the owners or to at least give the community something,” D’Souza said.
The rally will begin at Bandra’s Mount Mary, passing via Shah Rukh Khan and Salman Khan’s houses, through Bandstand and ending at St Stanislaus School, with an assembly and speeches by social activists from the community. “It’s apolitical. We don’t invite politicians to speak, though they come there to make their presence felt,” explained D’Souza. Still, the rallies have not effected much change but D’Souza conceded that awareness has grown.
Some, it would seem, are growing impatient. In a recent editorial for ‘Gaothan Voice’, a bi-monthly bulletin of the MGP, it asks, “A community which has been a silent and peaceful one all this time but the authorities seem to test our level of patience... so is our system waiting for the East Indian community to react violently?” It added, “The so-called parties which promote the voice of the Marathi manoos and even go the extra mile stating ‘Mee Mumbaikar‘ have forgotten the real Mobaikar, the East Indian community.”