CONTRIBUTION OF PRIESTS & CHRISTIANS IN GOA'S FREEDOM MOVEMENT.

From 18^th December 1961 till the end of that month, in Candolim the atmosphere was tense, on 18^th itself at dawn the Indian Military invaders of Goa consisting of Tanks, Jeeps and other Military vehicles started moving on the main road going to Aguada to capture the strongly manned Portuguese citadel. Early in the morning my father was going to adjust the flow of water to our Paddy field.  He was wearing a sleeveless Banyan and a “Cheddi” up to his knees.  Suddenly, one top ranking Military personnel from the front Military vehicle spotted my father standing in our field 50 metres away from our house and stopped the movement of the Military vehicles, called my father thinking he was a “Paklo” because my father was fair.

When my father told the purpose of his being in the field, the Indian Military personnel asked my father “why you are wearing a Banyan?  For this. my father replied saying “I am a poor man”. Then the Military man replied saying “We know Portuguese has intentionally kept you Goans as poor.  But now, henceforth, you people will not remain poor any longer. We will drive the Portuguese out, make you rich and hand over your Goa into your own hands”.

Hearing these good tidings, my father came home smiling and all excited, saying Nehru Zindabad and Salazar Murdabad while this same father of mine a few minutes earlier while going to our field was saying just the opposite, that is Zalazar Zindabad and Nehru Murdabad.  It looked he was drugged by the invaders to bring about such a dramatic change in him.  However, to his regret, within a few days he repented for the change in his thinking because first disgraceful act Indian invaders did was to commit rapes though not in bigger scale but unbearable scale as per Goan standard.

During that week, in the evenings, Novenas “Salve” were going on in our Church to celebrate the feast of Nossa Senhora de Esperanca”,  on the last Sunday of the December month, as per the tradition.  Pe. Nicholau Noronha was the Pe. Vigar of our Church and being a man of wisdom he suspended for a few days evening Novenas to prevent raping of our female Church goers because during that period there was continuous flow of Indian Military personnel on the main road.  Though Pe. Nicholau Noronha distrusted Indian Military yet he welcomed the ouster of Portuguese rule from Goa and as an evidence of this he at Candolim Tinto somewhere on 23^rd of that month gave a small speech praising the invaders for getting rid of colonial rule and concluded saying “Now we in Goa will have democracy and freedom to express our views freely under the new government”.  Earlier, when he was writing for Portuguese Daily “A Vida”, his views on freedom were suppressed and banned by the order of the “Censors”.

Hearing his speech, some of the Hindus at the Tinto were surprised to know how a Christian Priest can be a  supporter of Jai Hind Raj? These Hindus were third class illiterates because they thought Jai Hind means Jai Hindu Raj and hence Goa under Bharati rule will be a Hindu Raj.  However, these stupid idiotic minded Hindus never knew the first Goans to raise their voice against Portuguese rule in Goa were Christian Priests under the banner of Pinto’s Revolt from Candolim Pintos Vaddo. Incidentally they were caught, arrested and publicly hanged in Panjim by the Portuguese government of Goa then.  At one place, history says that even French Revolution was planned after the Pinto’s Revolution.  Even Abe Faria the Priest son of Candolim Pintos Vaddo was a part of Pinto’s Revolt since the distance between his house and that of Pintos is just a few metres.

Christians and Priests from Goa played a very important role to free Goa from foreign domination.  Dr. Francisco Luis Gomes, a renowned Portuguese Parliamentarian  from Navelim, Salcette, Goa,  raised the issue of Goa’s freedom right inside European soil.  But all the intellectually bankrupt Hindus mainly from my village were not aware of this fact and  precisely for this reason they were dubbing Goan  Chrsitians as pro-Portuguese.  So much so, on 19^th  and 20^th of that month of December 1961, under the leadership of one fanatic Hindu, Balkrishna, some stupid Hindus were firing fire crackers in front of the local Christians and their houses near the Tinto. One Shamba Xett was even abusing Saint Francis Xavier by saying “Now where is your Goencho Saib gone” as if He is from Portugal.  Somebody was giving bad words to St. Anton.  

During this period in my village in Candolim in particular and in Goa in general,  there was fear into the minds and hearts of many Christias whom many Hindus treated as enemies of Indian Raj.  But in reality what role Goan Christians played for the ouster of colonial raj from Goa none others have played.  But our misfortune was that  during that particular period especially,  our Church leaders have failed to open their mouths loudly to silence the wrong opinion created of Christians.  Many times we as Christian community failed miserably because of our weak leadership based in Panjim at Altinho.

 

A. Veronica Fernandes,

Candolim, Goa.

Tel: 7507394349.

LUIZINHO FALEIRO BEWARE OF OLDGUARDS & DEFEATED CANDIDATES.

On Monday 22^nd of this month, I was invited by Luizinho Faleiro to give him a company for the Lunch at Hotel Mandovi in Panjim.  Luizinho and me known to each other from the time of language agitation when I took very active part from Kuwait in this movement.  Because I was fasting, I only had a fresh Orange Juice while he and other colleagues of him went ahead with their meals.  Many of those who were with Luizinho on the dining table were new Congressmen compared to me since I enrolled myself as a member of Congress while I was still a student, by paying Rs. 5/-  When I joined Congress, the Congress culture in Goa was service to the society and precisely because of this Congress Party jumped from outside the Legislature to inside and ruled in Goa for such a long period.

 

However, due to greed for illicit money, illicit  sex and brute political power, almost all the elected Congressmen bypassed the motto “Service to the Society” and got trapped on the wrong side in the last election where people like me disgusted with their ugly unCongress performance, kicked them out in the election foray.

 

The defeat for Congress in the last election was so  deep that to come back to the surface again, not one Luizinho Faleiro as Congress president but even with one hundred Luizinho Faleiros will not be able to revive the grand  old party which otherwise had fantastic record.  As he spoke to me on the dining table for about 45 minutes, he had lofty plans to revive the party prospects and he looked very serious but all these plans to be operational and successful, the induction of new and young faces will not be sufficient enough. He relies on new faces and young blood on the revival of Congress.

It is a good idea to bring the freshers into the forefront but they must be told to behave well in a disciplined manner purely in Congress culture and tradition and not to aspire for election tickets within a night. We have seen how yesterday’s youth Congress leader by becoming a hero within a night is turned into a most corrupt politician in Goa.  He not only sucked Congress in Goa but he even sucked the entire politics in Goa purely in the corrupt ways he learnt from corrupt Indian politics while he was a novitiate in corrupt youth Congress.   In view of this Luizinho Faleiro must be very careful with the new faces that generally speaking are having high political ambitions to grab political power by any means for the purpose of making fast money thru loot and thus  shamelessly live the life of Maharajas. Looting is not genuine Congress culture, it is the culture of the “Chors”.

Then I told Luiznho Faleiro that it will be next to impossible for him to revive the party with the presence of corrupt oldguards who were mainly responsible for the Congress debacle in the last election.  Is it possible for him to throw them out even though they rightly deserve it for anti-party activities?  Will Luizinho Faleiro take such a stringent action? Or the presence of his predecessor is imperative again to take hard decisions?  One thing is certain, unless severe disciplinary action is taken against all the erring Congressmen though most of them are artificial Congressmen, people like me will never support corrupt Congress candidates. On the contrary we will oppose such corrupt candidates.  Supporting Congress with all the corrupt Congressmen is like promoting corruption in an unCongress manner. Though Luizinho Faleiro is in a state of dilemma which may lead him into the Hamletic influence yet he must be bold enough to jump into Julius Caesarian citadel and say “I went, I saw and I conquered”.

 

The next topic I raised with him was the fate of Defeated Congress candidates who I strongly feel should not be given the tickets again to contest the forthcoming election.  They are now become like worms meant to feast on the dead bodies.  It is these corrupt candidates who did major damage to the Congress in the last election because of their arrogance, pride, dadagiri, goondagiri and Hitlerism.  While they were MLA’s they acted with the common folks especially in their own constituencies, like Portuguese time Bhattkars treating  others as their humiliated Mundkars.  Many of them were sadistic and revengeful and their victims were only the poor Goans. All these defeated candidates were rejected by their voters because people hated them for their revengeful nature as it happened below my nose.  Congress leaders in my constituency thought they are feudal lords to act with the people the way they deem it fit. Luiznho Faleiro must give them good lesson on how to deal with the people because our Congress leaders are not having genuine Congress culture of uprightness, lowliness, humility and simple life.  The current Congress culture is the culture of Maharajas which should be stopped right now if Luizinho Faleiro wants success in his new assignment.

 

A. Veronica Fernandes,

Candolim, Goa.

Tel: 7507394349.

 

FOOT-BALL - FC GOA - ISL TOURNAMENT.

It was a loud noise all over the stadium at Fatorda in support of FC Goa soccer team in the second leg semifinal of ISL tourney, the degrees of this noise was almost hundred percent and it looked Goa would easily carry the day but the moment the otherwise star of the team and of course of the tournament the Brazilian Andre Santos kicked the penalty over the bar, there was a total silence in the stadium in a mournful manner. With this penalty kick the chances of Goa  reached to zero level. 

When I was recruited by the then mighty Sesa Goa soccer team in mid sixties, I was still a school student studying at the then mighty Arpora school.  One evening the big man of Sesa Goa, Mr. Conzen a German national came to my place and  incidentally at that particular time there was also the presence  of Dr. Gustavo Monteiro the then President of Goa Football Association at my place.  While in the conversation with Dr. Monteiro on the topic of soccer, Mr. Conzen told Dr. Monteiro with a tinge of pride that “his soccer team that year will perform very well because Sesa Goa got the services of one Patiala qualified coach”. For this, Dr.Monteiro replied thus, of course, sarcastically,  “Mr. Conzen, there is no soccer coach in India and Patiala is not competent to produce genuine soccer coaches.  If you want to develop the standard of Sesa's soccer team, then you must hire a soccer coach for your team directly from Germany, however third rate he may be in Germany.

The standard of this edition of ISL tournament was really fantastic and extremely high compared to the existing Indian standard.  The major reason for this high standard was not only the presence of 6 foreign experienced players in each team but due to the presence of foreign coaches for each team.  It was these experienced soccer coaches who moulded the players according to their advanced methods.  Among  all the participating teams, FG Goa I can rightly select as the best organized team that dished out really a good brand of soccer with short accurate passing as if pushing the ball into the narrow tunnel. In late fifties such a high standard was dished out by the youthful Goan team,  Academecia FC coached by the great priest Fr. Chico Monteiro. Two players of that dream team  Dr. Mazarello a Goan and Czar a Mestiso were heroes of that great team.  Mr. Cyril the Dempo soccer team coach in early seventies also produced the then Dempo squad of the current type of FC Goa.

The credit for the 360 degrees change in FC Goa must surely go to its legendary Brazilian Coach Zico though it looked in the beginning that Zico is unfit to coach FC Goa appropriately due to a few defeats FC Goa suffered in the beginning.  The approach of Goan boys for the ball was forceful, the body feinting was as good as of any Eurpean team players, sudden changing of the direction of the movement of the ball from one side to the other was as similar as Brazilian and above all the teamwork with perfect combination was superb.

Zico’s coaching gave FC Goa a Brazilian flavour for this reason FC Goa’s standard remained higher than of other teams even though Santos’ missed penalty against Kolkotta in the second leg semi-final was the matter of concern.  However, for that matter even Zico during his peak form in 1986 World Cup missed the crucial penalty kick. Today Gulf Arabs have made tremendous improvement in the field of soccer only by employing Brazilian coaching system.

Though the FC Goa had perfection in many areas yet it lacked firepower in Portuguese Eusebian or German Gerd Muellerian style.  This was the weakness ingrained in Brazilian soccer even during Zico’s time when he played for Brazil in the World Cups in 1982 and 1986 coached by the great soccer coach Tele Santana who insisted Brazilian forwards to exchange passes even in the goalmouth area.

 Secondly, Santos was a weak link especially in FC Goa attack because he was given a hero worship by the other players and with this in mind he tried to control the whole game on his shoulders and in the bargain he flopped at so many times.  Next time FC Goa must induct at least 2 Santoses in its rank, if not three just  as in 1970 World Cup Brazilian squad created not one but three Peles in Tostao, Rivelino and Jairzinho besides original Pele who was much relieved of his normal pressure. 

The standard of Refereeing was very poor and inaccurate; some of them were suffering from inferiority complex especially the Asians who easily got intimidated by the non-Indian players when confronted verbally.  It was due to the wrong judgement of the Referee that Pinheiro of FC Goa was red carded and again FC Goa was denied an otherwise sure penalty when Santos was clearly fouled in the Box at Fatorda. 

To conclude, the organizers of this tournament first time showed their guts and wisdom in investing so much in this tournament resulting in enormous dividends not only for the benefit of soccer development in India but also for the benefit of players, sponsors and  fans.  If this trend is carried forward, in the near future, in popularity and money, ISL will conquer IPL in India. Thru this tournament it was proved beyond any doubt that there is plenty of following all over India for the attractive brand of soccer which could be easily enhanced by recruiting some of the current top players from Europe and South America instead of those who crossed their prime because there is plenty of money in stock with all who  are involved in ISL.

In this inaugural edition of ISL we saw not only glamorous soccer but also glamorous Bollywood Stars associated with Cricket celebrities and top business houses patronizing this edition.  This combination can easily make India a real powerhouse in the world.  It looks now the Sleeping Giant is awakened.

In the end, I congratulate Athletico de Kolkata a traditional soccer giant for winning the inaugural ISL tourney.

A. Veronica Fernandes,
Candolim, Goa.
Tel: 7507394349.