In 1961 in the month of December
a few days prior to 19th, when it was confirmed that on 17th
of that month Indian Millitary has already crossed into Goa, some
anti-Christian, anti-Brahmin and anti-Bhattkar elements with the excuse that
they are pro-Bharat came to attack with
Guns, Revolvers and Sticks, some prominent Christian Brahmin Bhattkars saying
that they were the “Chamchas” of Portuguese government in Goa. In my village
these so called anti-Portuguese and pro-Bharat
goondas and criminals some of whom were shamelessly
supplying their wives to the “Aguadche Pakle” as commercial commodity, in the
name of pro-Bharat and anti-Portuguese, attacked the residence of Dr. Gustavo
Monteiro when they fired innumerable gun shots at the door of Dr. Monteiro’s
house in dark evening. Luckily, with the
miraculous power of our Lady of “Remed Saibinn” whose Chapel dedicated to Her is
situated in the compound of Dr. Monteiro, at that very particular moment Dr.
Monteiro closed the Door and thus the fired shots hit the door. His elder son Dr. Jose Monteiro still kept
the door intact indicating the mark of the bullets hitting the door. Who were these goons?? They were all locals
who earlier enjoyed Dr. Monteiro’s largesse and help even to earn their daily
bread.
Then on the next day in the broad
day light, again some of the local goons headed by one local driver came to the
then famous school of Goa, St. Joseph’s High School Arpora- the first English
High School of Goa, to shoot dead its Principal Monsg. Philipe Neri Menondonca
popularly known as Fr. Mendonca with the excuse that he was the pro-Portuguese who
in fact used his clout with the Portuguese government of Goa to help Goan
education system linked to Indian system thru Poona SSC Board. When the driver
of Fr. Mendonca sensed the tragedy falling on his boss, he without anybody
noticing him made Fr. Mendonca to slip thru the back door where he put him in
the car and drove him to an undisclosed location which according to one source
was the Bastora Convent. And thus the most faithful driver of Fr. Mendonca
saved the life of the great educationist of Goa. Such servants are rarity
nowadays, in fact they are examples of past century since in this century there
is no sincerity nor faithfulness. Because of his pro-Portuguese leaning some of
the fanatic Hindus who were thinking that they will be kings in Goa now and who
were wrongly under the impression that Hind means Hindu as religious entity, they
linked Hindu as religion with the word
Hind which has nothing to do with the Hindu as a religion and thus wanted to
kill Fr. Mendonca. In fact the word Hind
comes from the word Indus the name of the great Indian River “Indus” and those
people living on the banks of this river were called Hindus.
Coming back to Fr. Mendonaca,
incidentally Fr. Mendonca much to the chagrin of his Hindu fanatic opponenets a
few of them came to kill him, was selected by the government of India to be the
first recipient of President Gold Medal for being the best educationist of
Goa. Not only this, when he met the
great president of India, the great intellectual Dr. Radakrishnan who was so
deeply impressed upon Fr. Mendonca that to quench his thirst of the important
information on Goa, the President kept Fr. Mendonca as his especial guest for 4
more extra days in Delhi to discuss with Fr. Mendonca certain matters on Goa
during the Portuguese rule. Moreover,
Dr. Radskridhnan also invited Fr. Mendonca back to Delhi after 3 months for a
few days for discussing again on Goa but details of the same were not divulged
to us. This is the greatness of this principal of my Alma Mater where I studied
my school education till I finished my SSC
by spending best of my life there where I blossomed not only as a good
student and smart human being but also as the king of athletics in Goa being the
fastest runner of Goa, Individual Champion of Goa, one of the best all time athletes
of Goa, one of the best foot-ballers of Goa and the best all round student of
my school.
That the goons whose plan was to
liquidate the Bhattkarshahi in Goa was intriguing to me especially when they
started attacking the Bhattkarshai only from the Christian community as if
there was no Bamon Bhattkarshai among Hindus and as if they were totally
innocent from committing breach against the Mundkarshai. That many of the
Bhattkars were responsible for committing the worst type of harassment against
the Mundkars and in some cases treating their Munddkars as slaves is a true fact. In fact according to “Xemaincheo
Kannio” during those old days, when the daughter of the Munddkar was getting
married, it was imperative for her to go to sleep with the Bhattkar on the eve
of her marriage. And for this the Munddkars should not hold the Portuguese
government responsible. Munddkarshai was
a Goan community and not the Portuguese and as such being Goans they should be
treated well by their own Goan community members, the Bhattkarshai. Instead of
releasing their anger and reprimanding the culprit Bhattkars the lower strata
of the Goans mainly the Munddkars and the low grade Hindus who were eager to
make Goa a Hindu Raj, they started to show their anger on Christians as a whole
and Portuguese government for propagating Christian religion. Because of the
closeness of Bamon Bhsttkarshai with the Portuguese in Goa, the Portuguese
received bad name for them in Goa and many times the Bamon Bhattkarshai used
their closeness with Portuguese government as an excuse to suppress and harass
their Munddkars, though Portuguese were innocent. The good image of Portuguese got corroded
because of the many Goan Bamonn Bhattkars mainly the Christians who treated
very cruelly their Munddkars and hence the Munddkars and lower strata of the
Goans started going against the Portuguese.
That the Portuguese had to leave
from Goa was the sure fact but they should have left Goa gracefully by handing
over the CUSTODY of Goa into the hands of Goans only instead of allowing
Nehru’s India to invade Goa and merge it with the most corrupt country India
ruled by the worst corrupt leaders in the whole world. If it was not for the maltreatment of the
Munddkars by many of the disgraceful Bamon Bhattkars the entire Goan community
would defend the Portuguese rule in Goa from the approximate 38 thousands
military personnel sent by the Bharat Serkar to grab Goa and convert the Goans
as slaves of Bharat.
Many of the Bamonn Bhattkars were
responsible to dehumanize the great part of Goans from the lower strata of the
society including the poor Munddkars was the true fact and from the athmosphere
appearing all around Goa then was looking like the Munddkar class of Goans will
revolt against the Bhattkar class thereby to maime them physically and own
their land and property for them. It looked like Bolshevik type of revolution
is coming to Goa where Czarits were butchered by the commoners. But instead my
beloved Goa was splitted between Hindus
and Christians with the wrong notion that all Christians were the Chamchas of
Portugal. In fact I was not, not my
family members though we are strong Christians and being so we never enjoyed
any special benefits from the Portuguese regime in Goa, so too our other
innumerable Christians like us who belonged to the Mundkarial class. After the ouster of Portuguese from Goa some
sort of revolution was expected to raise the standard of lower class of Goans
but instead hatred has been spread against Christians which is still persisting
and will not simply die down.
In fact I never thought some of
our Hindu brothers who were so close to us had so much of revenge against
Christians even though we both together suffered the persecution of Bhattkars. In
my village ours was the only house and family having strong bond between us and
Hindus but even here we noticed some sort of disparity. Instead of joining
together to create an ideological confrontation with the Bhattkars these Hindu
brothers of ours deserted us saying “you were pro-Portugues”. These were the same third grade Hindus who
were mocking at St. Francis Xavier by saying “Khuim assa re tumcho Forsulo
atam” and to St. Anton by saying “Atam tumcho Antulo khuim nidlo re?”.
From 20th of that December till
one full week some hoi polloi Hindus brain washed by their communal mentors who
were responsible for fomenting anti-Christian feelings among the lower strata
of Hindus saying their financial and social standards were kept low by the
Christians, in big open Lorries with heavy musical instruments were sent all over Bardez to spread the
hatred against Christians and to give an impression that Goa is now belonged to
Hindus and Christians will have to live as second class citizens of Goa
otherwise “get out from Goa and go to Portugal” as if we are the products of
Pakle. These Lorries were passing thru our roads near my house and our neighbour
Shivram Chopddenkar whose ancestral house is in Chopddem was the leader of this
tamasha in one Lorry. Being so close to us and working for us in our fields as
a Zotkar and taking loan from my mother when he needed money, even he indicated
his communal bias to us. These
hoi-polloi Hindus including Shivram were promised financial remuneration for
doing this job of shouting slogans against Portugal, Christians, Bamonn
Bhattkars and in support of Bharat. In
this way the lower class of Hindus were filled with anger and revenge against Christians.
As far as I know the
anti-Bhattkar revolution came only in Siolim Guddem where the big Bhattkar
Lube was threatened by his Munddkars saying if you enter in Guddem we will
break your legs. Fearing them Lube abstained from entering Guddem leaving his
properties into the hands of Munddkars who enjoyed this facility for some time
till reconciliation took place.
A.Veronica Fernandes.
