Come February, and India’s perennial holiday destination, Goa, turns into one big festival, for it is ‘carnival time’. Giant, colourful floats take over the streets, with masqueraded parades and folk dances, cheer and festivities echoing throughout the state from Margao to Panjim. But the dark underbelly of carnival is witnessed by only a vulnerable few.
“They used to advertise women as sex objects with Goa being the land of ‘wine, women and song’. They would make women dress up in bikinis or short dresses on the floats. In the parade, cases of molestation of women were numerous,” Sabina Martins, 57, tells The Better India.
Sabina came together with diverse women from different fields to start Bailancho Saad in 1986. ‘Bailancho’ means women, and ‘Saad’ refers to an awakening call in Konkani.
At the time, besides the local Mahila Mandals, there were no organisations that would take up issues of sexual assault in the state.
Sabina threw herself into activism during her college days at Parvatibai Chowgule College, as a part of the ‘Progressive Students’ Union’, when there seemed to be an ever-increasing number of rapes and atrocities against women. She graduated in 1985, and with other activists she came together to form Bailancho Saad.
Today a school teacher with Sharada Mandir School, Sabina still spearheads their initiatives.
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Over 35 years, through morchas, write-ups and awareness campaigns, the women’s collective has brought about significant changes – such as an all-women police station at Panjim and eradicating the custom of disrobing deceased women.
Bailancho Saad volunteers
Starting with just 20 women who would stand with placards at rallies and hang posters along pavements, they ignited conversations about women’s issues. Being a non-funded organisation, they first met up at gardens and parks.
Besides fighting against the commercialisation of culture at the Goa carnival—which resulted in a desultory screening committee of the floats—Sabina also dissented the blatant promotion of alcohol in the state. An alcohol advertisement violating the law was later also taken up by advocate Norma Alvares, who is affiliated with the group, in the High Court.
In 1992, some women from Zuarvada approached the group about revoking a bar license being set up in Tivrem village.
Alcoholism, Sabina says, being a prime catalyst for violence against women, the group supported the women. After a long battle, which included trips to Government offices and demonstrations, they managed to get the bar’s license revoked and an assurance from the then Chief Minister that permission would never be given for a bar in that village.
The same year they invested in an office in Porvorim where the women still meet every Saturday at 3.30 pm.
But raising funds was another challenge for this autonomous organisation. Sabina says, “We had to work hard for every instalment. We held donation drives for the first instalment, then sold tickets at a film festival for the second, and also held an exhibition of sales of trinkets and products made by women.”
After a decade, in 2000, North Goa finally got an all-women police station thanks to the efforts of Bailancho Saad.
The report was presented to the Home Ministry and Chief Minister of the state, after which the police station was authorised to be set up in place of the old medical college in Panjim. “We had no furniture. So we used the mattresses of the hospital and their medicine trolleys and cleaned the floor ourselves,” says Sabina, who networked with All India Women Conference, Centre for Women’s studies and Madgaon-based Bailancho Ekvott.
By 2012, Sabina was made convener of Aam Aurat Aadmi Against Gambling (AAAAG) to take on the giant casinos that have surreptitiously usurped the waters and land of the state. “Casinos are a huge force that started from a tiny boat and are now taking over Goa, but we continue our dissent because the cases of violence against women have increased among other consequences,” she says.
