GOA

GOA Located on the South Konkan coast of western India, approximately 250 miles (402 km) south of Mumbai, Goa is bounded by Maharashtra in the north, Karnataka in the east and south, and the Arabian Sea on the west. Before it attained statehood on 30 May 1987, Goa was a union territory. Its area of 1,429 square miles (population 1,343,998; 2001 census) makes it the smallest of the twenty-eight states of the Indian union. In 2003 it was judged the richest state in India by the magazine India Today, and had the highest rate of literacy at 82.3 percent. It is one of the most popular tourist destinations for domestic as well as international tourists. Despite intensive exploitation of iron and manganese ore as well as general industrialization since 1961, the state has retained its famed natural beauty, thanks to successive environmentally conscious governments.

A former Portuguese colony for 450 years, acquired by Afonso de Albuquerque in 1510, Goa was made the capital of the Estado da India periodically under a viceroy or a governor-general with authority over all Portuguese possessions from Sofala in East Africa to Macao off China. Goa was also dubbed "Rome of the Orient" because it was the headquarters of the papal ecclesiastical enterprise in the East, where the "incorrupt body" of St. Francis Xavier has been kept since 1553. Goa saw new peaks of prosperity under the Portuguese, at least until 1580, as a substantial slice of the profits from their extensive spice trade poured into the city of Old Goa, enabling the government to build impressive office buildings and churches, mostly following Iberian architectural style. In 1759, compelled by persistent outbreak of plague in Old Goa, the administration was moved to Nova Goa (New Goa), also called Panaji. Before Portuguese rule, Goa formed part of the adjoining kingdoms in Maharashtra and Karnataka. It had earlier formed the southern part of the Mauryan province of Aparanta, later coming under its feudatory chief, the Bhoja family, and still later under the Silaharas, Kadambas, and Chalukyans of Badami. From 1312 to 1370 it came under Delhi's Muslim sultanate. Later, Vijayanagar acquired it and developed it as its principal port of entry for Arabian horses. In 1489 Goa came under the Bahamani kingdom, and after the latter split into five separate entities, under the Adil Shahi rulers of Bijapur.

The Portuguese acquired Goa in two stages: Velhas Conquistas (Old Conquests) consisting of Tiswadi (thirty villages), Bardez, Mormugao, and Salsete, all acquired in the sixteenth century; and the Novas Conquistats (New Conquests), made in the eighteenth century, comprising Pernem, Sanguem, Quepem, Ponda, Sattari, Bicholim, and Canacona. The rigors of the Inquisition in the Old Conquests account for the overwhelming majority there of Catholic converts, while later tolerance is reflected in the overwhelming majority of Hindus and their temples in the New Conquests. By the end of Portuguese rule in 1961, Goa's population was 60.8 percent Hindu and 36.1 percent Catholic; the rest were Muslims, Luso-Indians, and others, with no Portuguese settlers despite their 450 year rule.

Goa's prosperity declined along with the erosion of Portuguese power from the late sixteenth century. Beginning in the nineteenth century, large numbers of Goans, particularly Catholics from poor families, sought employment as butlers in affluent British households, as waiters and cooks in expensive urban restaurants and hill stations, and in diverse jobs on oceangoing vessels. Both Hindus and Catholics migrated for educational and employment opportunities—about 150,000, or over one-fourth of the entire Goan population, to British India, over 100,000 to Mumbai, and several thousand more to Portuguese and British East Africa.

In 1946, on the eve of India's independence, with the discovery of iron and manganese ore, Goa became both fiscally solvent and a source of valuable foreign exchange to Portugal. Even the small portion of foreign exchange made available in Goa was enough to import many luxury items. Goans "could wear a hundred watches on each arm," and smuggling increased across the porous border to the rest of India. With no income tax or sales tax to pay, business in Goa boomed. Despite such sudden economic betterment, the colonial government faced growing opposition, supported by the large numbers of émigrés. The National Congress of Goa, established by Tristao Braganza da Cunha, a Goan Catholic, in 1930, spearheaded the movement for independence. Expecting the Portuguese to leave the moment the British would quit the subcontinent, leaders of the Indian independence movement had paid no attention to Goa, whose population was, according to official Portuguese statistics, 98.7 percent Indian, the rest being transitory Portuguese officials and army personnel. In 1951 Portugal decreed that Goa and all other Portuguese colonies were "overseas provinces" entitled to North Atlantic Treaty Organization's protection. The Indian government's pleas for negotiations with Portugal on the same lines as France with regard to its Indian colonies fell on deaf ears. Instead, further curbs on freedoms were instituted, including the strictest censorship. Evading such tight controls instituted by a dictatorial regime, Goans offered satyagraha, or nonviolent resistance, courting arrest. Such prominent professionals as Dr. T. B. Cunha, Telo Mascarenhas, Dr. Pundalik Gaitonde, Dr. Rama Hegde, Advocate Gopal Mayekar, and others were sentenced to ten- to fifteen-year prison terms and were deported to Portugal and Angola. Hundreds were detained for indefinite period in Goan jails. Unarmed Indians, including Goans who attempted to cross into Goa as nonviolent Gandhian satyagrahis in 1954 and 1955, were shot down in cold blood. The irresistible force of the spirit of free India was met by the obstinacy of Portuguese premier Antonio de Oliveira Salazar, who refused to acknowledge the "winds of change" sweeping the European empires from Africa and Asia. Failing moral and diplomatic approaches, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru finally turned to a military solution. "Operation Goa," lasting thirty-six hours, began with the bombing and disabling of the only Portuguese frigate, SS Afonso de Albuquerque. Indian troops marched in from three directions, taking Goa with hardly any resistance from Portuguese forces, welcomed warmly by the overwhelming majority of Goans on 19 December 1961.

D. R. SarDesai

See alsoAlbuquerque, Afonso de ; Gama, Vasco da ; Portuguese in India

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bhandari, Romesh. Goa. New Delhi: Roli Books, 1999.

Cunha, Tristao B. Goa's Freedom Struggle. Mumbai: Antonio de Cruz, 1981.

De Souza, Teotonio R. Goa through the Ages. New Delhi: Concept Publishing, 1987.

Gaitonde, P. D. The Liberation of Goa. New Delhi: Oxford >University Press, 1987.

Priolkar, A. K. The Goa Inquisition: Being a Quartercentenary Commemoration Study of the Inquisition in India. Mumbai: Bombay University Press, 1961.

Rao, R. P. Portuguese Rule in Goa, 1510–1961. Mumbai: Asia Publishing House, 1963.

Shastri, B. S. Socio-Economic Aspects of Portuguese Colonialism in Goa, Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. Panaji: University Publishers, 1990.

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