*From Constâncio Roque da Costa to Constâncio Roque da Costa (1822-1982): Elected representatives of Goa in the Parliament of Portugal* is the theme of an MPhil dissertation that will be defended by Susana Isabel Loureiro da Costa Pinho in the Universidade Lusófona, Lisboa, on 21 February 2005. The research has been conducted under the guidance of Prof. Teotonio R. de Souza Professor Narana Coissoró, a Portuguese MP of long-standing, will be one of the examiners. The other external referee and the main questioner will be the Anthropologist-Historian Cristiana Bastos, of the Institute of Social Sciences (University of Lisbon). She is presently conducting a major project on the contribution of the Goa Medical College and is very well acquainted with the socio-political scenario of Goa during the period studied in this MPhil dissertation. It is for the first time that the personalities and political performance of Goan MPs in the Portuguese Parliament have been scrutinized in depth, utilizing the diaries of the Portuguese National Assembly. While we knew the individual performance of some of those deputies, it is for the first time that we get a comparative picture. The study has selected some outstanding representatives from three different groups, covering the natives, the mestiços and the ethnic Portuguese. It can be concluded that in all three categories of MPs we come across those who performed extremely well to promote the interests of the territory and people they represented, while there are MPs in all three categories with a dismal record. Among the outstanding native MPs figure Constâncio Roque da Costa, Bernardo Peres da Silva, Antonio Caetano Pacheco, João Xavier de Sousa Trindade, Estevam Jeremias Mascarenhas, Bernardo Peres da Costa, Francisco Luís Gomes and Constâncio Roque da Costa. This selection is limited to the period that extends from the start of liberal politics in Portugal and elected representation, and stops short of the political mess that preceded the humiliation of Portugal by England over the African question and the subsequent proclamation of the Republic in 1910. If and when published this dissertation could provide an excellent contribution to our knowledge of socio-political history of Goa during a period that is comparatively recent, but yet little studied and little understood. There is documentation gallore, but also too many emotions alive and which have not helped a dispassionate research. To a researcher like Susana Pinho, coming now from a generation and a milieu that have no axes to grind, we can be grateful to what she has to contribute to our understanding of our past. Teotónio R. de Souza
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