Opinion Goa needs a special constitutional amendment for environmental survival

One will find a crucial part of this constitutional story in the work of the Constituent Assembly’s Joint Report of the Excluded and Partially Excluded Areas (Other Than Assam) and the North-East Frontier (Assam) Tribal and Excluded Areas Sub-Committee, which was chaired by Gopinath Bordoloi and A. V. Thakkar. This report laid down the intellectual and institutional foundations of dealing with India’s asymmetric federalism.

It notes that areas with diverse geography, livelihoods, and distinctive customs require certain safeguards necessary for sustainable development in order to prevent land alienation and cultural erosion. It also notes that exposing such regions abruptly to market forces and uniform administration may cause irreversible harm, especially with respect to the land, which is the mainstay of economic life.

It had thus proposed an integrated governance model, combining land protections, recognition of customary law, community control over natural resources, local councils with legislative powers, mandatory consultation before applying general laws, separate budgeting, central financial support and periodic reviews. Many such recommendations were incorporated into the Draft Constitution of 1948 and ultimately found a place in the Fifth and Sixth Schedules.

Article 371 and its variants carried forward this spirit of an integrative governance. These provisions demonstrate how the Constitution envisions itself to adapt when geography, culture, demography and economic realities intersect.

Parliament has repeatedly translated this reasoning into practice. Each major special provision responded to a concrete governance challenge that ordinary law could not resolve. Be it Article 371A for Nagaland, which followed the 16-point agreement to protect customary law and land ownership; Article 371F for Sikkim, which sought to preserve its legal and cultural systems after accession; Mizoram’s Article 371G, which flowed from the Mizoram Peace Accord to aid governance; or Andhra Pradesh’s Article 371D, which addressed deep regional imbalances after sustained social mobilisation, among other cases.

In each case, asymmetry created the opportunity to build an instrument of stability.

The Bombay High Court, in a ruling, had described Goa as “an extraordinary State”, a land where sky, sea and earth meet, whose greatest asset is its environment and ecology, and whose cultural influence on India has been wholly disproportionate to its size. This uniqueness has placed Goa at a delicate constitutional crossroads.

Rapid development, intensified migration and unsustainable practices have begun to test the limits of what its ecological systems and cultural institutions can absorb without permanent loss. This impacts not just its heritage, but also its Comunidade land systems, which in turn impacts Goan traditional livelihoods and biodiversity, which are the foundations of its social equilibrium.

This has led many citizens and environmental groups to seek judicial protection in pursuit of sustainable development. Judicial interventions have underscored a simple principle that governance can only proceed based on conditions that make Goa viable.

It is that very principle which has continued to shape Goa’s place within the Union. In 1967, Goans decisively rejected merger with Maharashtra through the opinion poll. This referendum reflected Goan affirmation of its cultural and political distinctiveness within the Union.

Statehood in 1987 under then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi recognised this identity, yet the accompanying constitutional provision, Article 371I, addressed only the size of its Legislative Assembly. With the passage of time and given Goa’s current realities, this provision now merits reconsideration.

As India’s smallest State by area, with its complex water systems, sensitive coastal and forest ecologies, and a cultural landscape shaped by language, faith and community, land-use decisions in Goa are necessarily of great consequence. It is this concentration of value that explains why civic discourse and legislative debate in Goa have consistently returned to the question of whether existing governance tools are sufficiently equipped to guide sustainable development with foresight.

A federal way forward lies in recognising that more needs to be done to preserve sustainability in regions like Goa. Multilateral assessments consistently caution that regions where economic activity is closely tied to ecological systems incur disproportionate long-term costs when cumulative impacts are ignored. The International Union for Conservation of Nature identifies India’s west coast as highly vulnerable to stress, erosion and biodiversity loss, while UNESCO underscores the need for anticipatory, coordinated governance in ecologically exposed regions.

These global insights are already evident in Goa. Seasonal water stress persists despite high rainfall, driven by aquifer depletion and land conversion. Tourist inflows several times the resident population place sustained pressure on housing, transport and civic infrastructure. Once wetlands, khazans, plateaus or aquifers are compromised, recovery is slow and often incomplete. Crucially, these challenges cannot be addressed through environmental regulation alone, because they are inseparable from housing patterns, livelihoods, language, cultural institutions and demographic change.

This is where a federal model, which should embed sustainability as a defined governance responsibility, becomes essential. A model that envisages a permanent, consultative institutional mechanism tasked with cumulative assessment, public participation, periodic planning and coordination across Union and state functionaries.

Such an approach strengthens federalism, making development predictable and legitimate. In doing so, it consciously returns to the constitutional wisdom that recognised the need for integrative safeguards for regions with distinctive geography, livelihoods and institutions that could not be governed through uniform law alone. A constitutional amendment presently before Parliament seeks to give institutional form to this idea by strengthening Goa’s special provisions under the federal fold.

Whether or not it is ultimately adopted, it shines the spotlight on a question that India can no longer defer: as 2030 approaches, what sustainable governance models allow for the unique needs of states before irreversible loss?

Viriato Fernandes is Member of Parliament, Lok Sabha (South Goa) and was awarded Operation Vijay Star and Operation Vijay Medal for his contributions during the 1999 Kargil War. Pramit Lahiri is a Senior Associate at a policy consulting firm, and a former LAMP Fellow