--- On Fri, 10/10/08, Goanet News <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> From: Goanet News <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Subject: [Goanet] The Printed Word: 1961, an (almost) official look at Goa's
> story
> To: "Goa's premiere mailing list, estb. 1994!" <goanet@lists.goanet.org>,
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Received: Friday, 10 October, 2008, 11:48 PM
> 1961, an (almost) official look at Goa's story
>
> It's time Goa undertook
> some realistic and
> unemotional views of
> its recent past, writes
> Frederick FN Noronha,
> in a review of some
> recent books on the region.
...
> Nearly five decades after 1961, we are still struggling to
> understand
> a military, political and de-colonisation experience in
> context.
...
> Other chapters focus at the "provocation" from
> Angediv, the Portuguese
> plans for the "defense" of the "Estado
> Portugues da India" (sic), and
> quite elaborate details of the military operations.
>
Folks,
The past is past, and nothing, sweet or sour, will bring back the past.
However, we need to understand that Goa's freedom was not won, nor was India's
for that matter. I won't talk about the latter, but suffice to say, the
British could no longer trust their well-trained WWII British-Indian armed
forces to do their bidding, nor were there enough British officers to go
around, and British-India was a large country (just finished watching a
documentary on Bose & Hitler, which adds credence to what I've just said).
Goa's freedom was not won - Goans are a conquered people. Once again. "India's
use of Force in Goa" by Arthur Rubinoff (available in India at Purana books)
indicates views from a number of entities, including Communist Russia (a load
of exagerated allegations from my point of view).
It appears that the October 1961 Afro-Indian seminar turned into "an attack on
India's Goa policy", which commenced the whole invasion process. Nehru then
talked of "cases of torture and a wave of terror" in Goa. Then came, of course,
Nehru's visit to the US, presumably to "obtain assurances of support in the
event of military action".
"What followed was an intense but often inaccurate and self-contradictory press
campaign designed to make it appear as though Portugal was giving India
provocation for an attack. In reality, this clumsy endeavour served to
discredit the Indian position... It was reported in the daily [Indian] press
that Goa was an armed camp of 12,000 troops, where roads were mined and bridges
guarded. In addition, the preposterous claim was advanced that Radio Goa
threatened to bomb Indian cities. Indeed, it was even asserted ... that the
Portuguese troops raided a village inside the Indian border.".
The book states that the magazine "Link" also published an imaginative story so
as to rouse up people on the Indian side, such as "... mass-arrests, flogging
and locking up of people unable to comply with army orders". The reality, was
of course to seek an excuse to take action in Goa. The book further states
that "From what they [international journalists] saw, the journalists painted a
far different picture than the one presented by the Indian Government".
Sir Walter Crocker, the then Australian ambassador to India, in his book "Nehru
- A Contemporary's Estimate", writes "Certain foreign newspapers of standing,
like New York Times, the Baltimore Sun, the Daily Telegraph, and the Times,
happened to have their correspondents, responsible and trained observers, in
Goa at this time ... What struck them all were the lies - 'fantastic lies' was
the term used to me by two of them - about the internal situation in Goa being
poured out over the Indian radio and in the Indian press prior to and during
the invasion. Some of the correspondents doubted if there were any volunteers
[supposed to be between 15,000-20,000 volunteers and Goa commandoes at Belgaum
ready to invade Goa] at Belgaum at all. One thought there might have been a
handful there, mostly clerks and minor political types brought down from Bombay
and dressed up for the occasion, for photographic propaganda purposes." ...
"Most of the Indian newspapers
did their best to glorify the invasion, including spreading misinformation
about the Portuguese, such as that they had carried out a 'scorched earth
policy'. Indian journalists in fact were not allowed into Goa for nearly a week
after the invasion.".
Carrying on with Rubinoff's book, "... The Portuguese defenders ... numbered
less that 3500 that had been stationed in Goa two years before. Those that
remained were under no illusions. They constituted a force only large enough
to put down an internal uprising, and there was no evidence of such a
rebellion."
"Similarly, evidence in Goa contradicted charges of an imposed curfew, just as
it refuted the projected military build-up. In order to assure they would not
be responsible for any military contact, the Portuguese forces withdrew from
four strategic border positions. Furthermore, they were told not to fire first,
but only to defend themselves.".
This particular order is also mentioned in Leo Lawrence's book, "Nehru seizes
Goa", "He [Krishna Menon] had already ordered his troops to advance into the
two hundred yards of Goa territory vacated by the Portuguese troops under the
orders of Gen. Vassalo e Silva, who on his side, was observing to the letter
the instructions sent to him from Lisbon not to reply to Indian acts of
provocation but rather to withdraw to a distance from the Indian troops in
order the more easily to prevent all occasion for anything that might be
construed as a provocation."
Regarding the Sabarmati incident and the death of a fisherman, Sir Walter
Crocker has this to say: "In the last week of Novermber 1961 the Indian press,
on information supplied by Government, reported an incident of what was
officially described in headlines as 'Portuguese firing on an Indian passenger
ship'. (It later turned out, though this was reported in only a few papers,
that the 'passenger ship' was a 'country craft' sailing boat of yawl size, and
that this was in Portuguese territorial waters apparently flouting warning
signals.) This was followed by what was played up, on Government prodding, as
another 'Portuguese firing incident', this time an Indian fishing boat. This
incident was blown up enough to awaken the ever acute nationalistic
sensibilities in India. It was not revealed that the boat was poaching in
Portuguese waters. Some missions at Delhi believed (but as far as I know
produced no evidence for their belief) that the boat had been
sent there by the Indian authorities as an 'agent provocateur'. Next came a
series of reports, blown up more and more, about what were described, again in
headlines, as 'Portuguese attacks on Indian villages'. The information was
highly coloured, but also highly vague; ..."
It is based on books such as these, besides a whole collection of international
news reports before and after the invasion, that I do not place much weight on
books by Indian authors. Besides, gloating by the armed forces on Bharat
Rakshak and other publications of the Indian Armed Services is enough to
indicate what this was - an invasion, e.g. "this was India's first chance to
use bombers in action", etc. In fact, Vikrant had just been commissioned into
the Navy, and the Navy had to prove its efficacy. But prove what? 3 modern
frigates plus an aircraft carrier against a slow-loading ancient cruiser? Looks
like an attack by three teenage louts against an old man, overseen by a
bouncer, if you get my drift.
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