That my Goa was under the colonialism of Portugal is a sure fact and it needed liberation from Portugal is also a sure fact. But why India interfered in Goan affairs? Why India poked its dirty nose in Goa shamelessly when India has no business to do so? Which Goan representatives officially appointed by the Goans requested Nehru and his Congress Government to annex Goa by using mighty military force against Portuguese troops in Goa and call it a liberation? Morarjee Desai once told Goans in Bombay that “you yourselves alone have to fight your battle with Portuguese in Goa to liberate your own Goa”.
Goa is our land independent of India and not attached to India and as such India had no business to enter into Goa with its mighty military force and evict Portuguese from Goan soil in the name of liberation. To liberate Goa from Portuguese colonialism was the job of Goans and we Goans knew how to fight for our freedom without the involvement of India. The freedom movement for Goa by the Goans was gaining strong momentum in Goa and Governador Vassalo e Silva who was the last Portuguez Governor of Goa and who was a core democrat and anti-Salazar regime was open for discussion on this topic. He once even requested patriotic minded Goans to come and talk with him on this topic.
We Goans were capable to force the Portuguese leave from Goa peacefully without any outside military intervention and if it was not for the sudden jump of Indian troops into Goa, Goans would have got their liberation and independence peacefully, may be not in 1961 but little later on. We Goans were ready to wait little later because we already waited for 451 years without any problem. But the Nehru Government of India destroyed our plans of obtaining full independence for Goa from the Portuguez.
My elder brother was working for Goa Police but earlier he spent a few years in Bombay, by being in Bombay he has seen how corrupt and dirty life in India. On 18th December 1961 early in the morning when we saw the Indian military convoy with Tanks and Jeeps moving on to our roads going to Aguada, he was very dejected and remarked saying thus “Goem atam moula raj zatelem” (ani xekim zalench). With that statement he went to sleep, very deep sleep and got up only on the next day. So much he was dejected to see Goa going into the hands of Indian Mowalis. He was anti-Portuguese because he noticed how Portuguese Pakles were doing discriminations against Goans who were working along with him as technicians in the Workshop at Panjim. But he was never a pro-India but surely pro-independent Goa.
When I was young my grandmother used to tell me stories in the form of folktales which were told to her by her grandmother, before going to sleep and in one such story she said thus “zannai mure baba, vhoddlea khaddache bhaile chor Goyam etelet amchem Goem chorpak, ami tenkam daumddaunk zai”. And when I saw on the road in the military Jeeps on 18th early in the morning there were Sardarjis only visible who looked to me like Devils as I was seeing such fearful men for the first time in my life.
What the predictions of my brother and Granny? She died in 1959 while my brother is by the grace of God alive and very much sad to see the state of affairs of our once golden Goa.
To be concluded......
A. Veronica Fernandes,
Kuwait.
