Book: GOA 1961
Author: Valmiki Faleiro
Publisher: Penguin
Pages: 408
Price: Rs 699
Goa 1961
A punchline in the Epilogue which very well explains the position of Goa in modern India is credited to “A journo-humourist [who] wondered if he had his geography wrong: all this time he thought Goa was within India…But it was the other way round; India was in Goa, or so it appeared during my recent visit there.”
Age of Discovery
Goa was liberated in December 1961, after 451 years of Portuguese “domination”.
We read that when Babur, who founded the Mughal Empire arrived in India in 1526, there were six Muslim kingdoms and one Hindu state. These were the Deccan Sultanates and the Vijayanagara Empire. Estado da Índia, as Goa was known should surely be included as a Christian state that existed in the subcontinent at the time of the First Battle of Panipat.
Although Portugal was a relatively small state, they get the credit for the first, tentative but bold peek around the Cape of Good Hope by Bartolomeo Dias in 1488. Subsequently Vasco da Gama made his historic trip (1497-1499) around the horn of Africa, and up the Indian Ocean to the Western coast of India. He weighed anchor at Kappad, a small village 19 km north of Calicut (now Kozhikode).
The Portuguese discovery of the sea route to India cut into the monopoly of Arab and Ottoman traders and established Portugal as a wealthy trading nation soon to be followed by other European hopefuls.
The End of Colonialism
The Second World War sounded the death knell of colonialism. Soon after the Great War, India gained her Independence and was self-consciously positioning herself on the world stage. India’s Prime Minister Nehru was committed to Non-Violence and would have been happy if the Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Salazar had agreed to negotiate an honourable exit from Goa.
India’s Defence Minister V.K.Krishna Menon, is introduced by the author as an “high energy hawk” and “the principal backstage actor in the 1961 Operation Vijay”. His irascibility and bristling personality produced policy approaches which were at variance from those of his Prime Minister
“While Nehru continued to reiterate that India would not use force, his defence minister, Krishna Menon, with G.K. Handoo of the Central Reserve Police, B.N. Mullik of the Intelligence Bureau, and Lt Gen. Brij Mohan Kaul, Chief of Staff at army HQ, actively planned to take Goa by force behind Nehru’s back.”
Gandhi had declared unambiguously, “… In free India, Goa cannot be allowed to exist as a separate entity in opposition to the laws of the Free State.”
The book assumes the pace of a fast-paced thriller with the introduction of PIDE (Polícia Internacional e de Defesa do Estado, Goa’s dreaded Secret Services Police) and its notorious torturer, Casimiro Monteiro.
The brooding, obdurate character of Antonio Salazar, loyal to Portuguese glory acts as an impediment on what should have been a smooth ride to freedom.
Suspense is built around the question, would Nehru “continue talking to a deaf dictator, or would he take the option of abandoning his long-professed policy for settling international disputes by non-violent means and expose himself to the charge of hypocrisy?”
Valmiki Faleiro
The author has a background in journalism which shows up in the meticulous reporting style with references and skilful organisation and use of evidence. Claims are presented as assertions which are supported with dates, place and names of participants present. Faleiro has been fair to the main contenders, the Indian Government, Armed Forces; the Portuguese dispensation, both in Lisbon and in Panjim; also, to the Goan Catholics, Goan Hindus and those Goans who left India to seek a livelihood in Portugal.
The author has included a nugget referring to a proposal from the Nizam of the land-locked state of Hyderabad, which needed a seaport. It is reported that the Nizam used the ₹438 crore Jacob diamond to back an offer which was spurned by the Portuguese.
The Plot
The main plot of the book is the build-up to war, the military action and the surrender of the Goan Governor General, against the orders of Antonio Salazar, who wanted Goa to “fight to the last man and the last round.”
Maj. Gen. Vassalo e Silva, an “all-time most popular governor-general of Goa” was faced with the “Hobson’s choice” to either “obey Lisbon’s orders and destroy his men and Goa (Lisbon had sent him cyanide) or defy the orders and save his men and Goa.”
This predicament resembles a similar contemporary situation in Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre’s 1965 book, “Is Paris Burning?” Those who have seen the film starring French, American and German actors would remember the last scene where a maniacal voice comes out of a telephone handset, repeatedly asking, “Is Paris Burning”?
Salazar is cited as having said, Não deixe pedra sobre pedra (Don’t leave stone on stone, destroy everything).
In a secret radio message on 17 December 1961, “Salazar further ordered the complete destruction of all traces of Portuguese civilization in Goa—major towns, centuries-old heritage buildings and ancient churches—so that nothing fell into the hands of India.”
The Governor-General is quoted as saying, “I cannot destroy the evidence of our greatness in the Orient . . .Destruction of Goa is a useless sacrifice (sacrifício inútil)”.
“Salazar told his Parliament on 3 January 1962 (not verbatim):
"What Goa means to Portugal cannot be measured by the smallness of its territory but by the greatness of the history of which it forms part, and the nobility of the mission that took the Portuguese there in the first place."
Although at this point the reader is horrified at the diabolical intent of Salazar, the author quickly adds for even measure, “For all his failings, Salazar was scrupulously honest, a man of impeccable personal integrity… —the one thing none could accuse him of was personal corruption. His integrity was legendary.”
The reader can discover for herself or himself how this climacteric situation was resolved.
Valmiki has reported the loot and rape that followed the arrival of Indian forces in the main cities of Goa graphically, and these accounts will haunt the professional reputation of the Indian army, from the land of Ahimsa or Non-Violence for decades to come.
The Trigger
The “Anjediva Island incident” which took place on 17 November 1961 could well be considered the “trigger” that initiated the hostilities in the liberation drama. A Portuguese corporal fired at a British Indian passenger ship SS Sabarmati from Anjediva Island in Portuguese-Goan territorial waters. This incident and a few others, “suspectedly orchestrated” were attributed to “Defence Minister Krishna Menon’s creative deviousness”.
On 1 December 1961, Indian frigates were put on linear patrol 13 km off the coast of Goa. Other naval warships were placed on operational standby alert.
“India mobilized a relatively large military force—land, sea and air—to physically oust a minuscule and ill-armed Portuguese military presence from Goa, Daman and Diu.”
This disproportionate mobilisation could have benefited Goa by surrendering “without a fight, avoiding a tragedy—for themselves and for Goans who, caught in the crossfire, would be counted as collateral victims.”
“At the stroke of midnight of 17/18 December, India’s military might crossed the international borders with ‘a mighty thunder of guns’ (as described by India) and rolled into Goa, Daman and Diu in a three-pronged attack.”
Operation Vijay
On 18th December 1961, the radio center at Bambolim was destroyed “in ten minutes” and the Dabolim runway was bombarded in a series of raids. Despite exaggerated intelligence, there was not a single defence aircraft at Dabolim.
The Portuguese warship Albuquerque fought valiantly till it ran out of ordinance. The capitulation of the Albuquerque marked the end of Portuguese India.
Operation Vijay cost twenty-two lives on the Indian side and seventeen lives on the Portuguese side.
Endgame
The rest of the book is a post-script which discusses the role of Goan Catholics, and the role of a Christian minority in Goa. They ate beef and pork and had become ‘untouchable’ to the Goan Hindu”. Goan Catholics retained their Hindu caste system, “steeped in Indian traditions”.
Goans migrated to various states of India and the rest of the world.
Only a tiny proportion wanted the status quo in which Portugal would continue to rule over Goa.
By the Eighties, India’s politicians learnt to price themselves in the political market, so that by 1985, an Anti-Defection Act had to be introduced to check such brazen violation of democratic values.
As if testing their wings after years of restricted political freedom in a state that resembled an absolute monarchy, the Goans learnt the art of floor crossing to create unstable governments.
“Few would know that Goa, India’s smallest state, had eight chief ministers between the years 1990 and 1994 and thirteen in the last decade of the twentieth century. Between 1990 and 2005, Goa had eighteen governments in fifteen years—including three interspersed tenures of president’s rule. Goa taught the rest of India how to circumvent the law against floor-crossing.”
From a mortal fear of the law during the harsh colonial regime, the Goan had now graduated to meddling with it.
