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NEW BOOK: 'PATRIOTISM IN ACTION: Goans in Indias Defence Services'
With Foreword by Gen SF Rodrigues, PVSM, VSM, ADC (retd)
former Chief of Indian Army Staff
and Governor, Punjab & Administrator, Chandigarh UT
For copies of this book see footer of this message
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The Saraswats who Invented Goa
I put it on record in my autobiographical introduction to Goa to Me
(1994) that as a child, till five or six years of age, I would only
sleep in my grandma’s lap, listening to her tales that had a fascination
for me. Among them were the stories of Addtulem and Biddtulem, two
Saraswat mavxeo (aunties). The former built a house of wax and the
latter a house of cow dung. These building materials rhymed well as
mennachem and xennachem, but I do not remember having heard a complete
story ever, and hence, how those structures fared when monsoon rains
struck them! After the exhaustion of a day’s pranks it was too difficult
to keep awake to listen to the tales till their very end. Besides, I
knew there was nothing to lose because my grandma would start telling
the story all over again the following night.
My grandpa Lam Jaku introduced me to real-life stories and would tell me
how he often left the Portuguese revenue officers baffled during the
triennial rice-field auctionings in the village. His presence with his
expertise in field measuring techniques was a must for his village
co-ganvkars, who never trusted the government-backed intruders, who were
prone to dupe them on such occasions.
Mind you, the intruders were not unknown outsiders, but village elites
that held government jobs in the district municipality or as henchmen of
the village regedor. A controversial book entitled The Invention of Goa
(A Invenção de Goa in its original Portuguese version) seeks to explain
the pragmatism of such elites that helped the consolidation of the
Portuguese colonial rule. It is not an earth-shaking revelation because
no foreign ruler has ever ruled long without the help of the insiders.
The beauty of the new-found democracy is that we rule ourselves and
often exploit our people with the help of the outsiders!
It is an Invention dedicated to aunties Carmita and Manuela, resident of
Salcete, prominent as cradle of the native elites in colonial service,
thanks to the spiritual assistance of the Jesuits and bamboozling by
Inquisitors. We were told in a debate on Goa Research Net cyberforum
that the study was inspired by Aristotelian rhetoric, even if the term
Invention may be derived from the Latin invenire, meaning to find.
Things that were found since ages by the natives get discovered and
invented by the clever Europeans, and their orientalist and
neo-orientalist disciples.
Even though Lusoleaks are not yet a new offshoot of the beleaguered
Wikileaks, I came to know of a niecey (sic) leak circulating: It advised
the aunties in Goa to avoid reading my Herald column. It would save them
from headaches and depressions. A sound piece of advice that made the
Portuguese Invention of Goa possible some 500 years ago and during
centuries that followed.
The brilliant Invention of Goa in question, points out precisely to the
Goan native elites that were pampered by the Portuguese colonial regime
after they had been battered into submission as ‘willing’ collaborators.
With their collaboration Goa could continue to be re-invented till Thy
Kingdom come, had it not been for the non-elites that protested with
their feet into waves of emigrants into the neighbouring Indian regions,
building up pressure that would ultimately lead to satyagraha movement
and to the Operation Vijay.
Contrary to what some pro-colonialists continue to glibly represent as
invasion, the conquest of Goa and its integration into India was deftly
conducted with the help of about half a dozen high-ranking Goan
commissioned officers from the three branches of the Indian armed
forces, chosen for their strategic experience and ability to relate to
the Portuguese colonial administration and its native collaborators in
their native or adopted lingo.
Thanks to Valmiki Faleiro, a brilliant investigative journalist, we can
now identify each of those Goan officers, Catholics and Hindus, who
served the nation. Three of them had their names assigned to Goan roads:
Air V/Mshl Erlic W Pinto in Dabolim, Lt Col Sylvester M D’Souza in
Sangolda, and Wg Cdr Clarence J D’Lima in Socorro. We get to know that
nearly 70 per cent of these military officers were from the Saraswat
Brahmin caste, mostly from Bardez, and with lesser number from Salcete.
I am itching to lay my hands on Valmiki Faleiro’s just released
Patriotism in Action. I was lucky in the meantime to interview the
author by internet and to get answers to my many queries.
He tells in the Prologue that he was provoked to write the book, partly
to respond to taunts that described Goan Catholics as “unpatriotic and
anti-national,” and as such deserved to be deported to Portugal.
This book responds not just to taunts of the fundamentalist Hindu
politicians, but also to the politically naïve neo-orientalist rhetoric,
disguised as brilliant piece of research.
As we close the year 2010 and enter 2011, we can cherish what Goa has
gained from 450 years of Portuguese colonial legacy and its positive
imprint upon Goa’s identity.
We cannot forget that all life implies a constant resistance to forces
of death. There is no healthy growth in democratic politics without an
effective opposition. Fifty years of liberation have woken the Goans
sufficiently to the risks and challenges of democracy.
Nothing comes free, and costliest of it all is Freedom. If 450 years of
colonial rule have not taught that to us, may God save us from worse
kind of Inventions!
Knowing how inquisitive aunties can be, the lusophone tias in
particular, they are likely to follow Oscar Wilde, who admittedly did
not resist only to temptations, and continue looking out for my
‘Historical Explorations’ into the pre and post-Portuguese Inventions of
Goa.
Otherwise, they could be sorry to miss knowing that their ancestor
Saraswats first invented Goa with the assistance of Parashurama, and in
1961 re-invented Goa as Catholic Saraswats in Indian military garb,
short-circuiting a chimeric Portuguese Plano Sentinela at Vasco da Gama,
with Afonso de Albuquerque in attendance: A dim finale for a grand
overture by those pioneers of Portuguese Discoveries / Inventions.
http://oheraldo.in/newscategory/Opinions/14
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NEW BOOK: 'PATRIOTISM IN ACTION: Goans in Indias Defence Services'
Copies now available at:
GOA: Literati (2277740), Other India (2263306), Broadway (6647038),
Mandovi (2427904), Noel DSilva & Associates (9823120454 / 9096781714),
Confidant / Golden Heart Emp (2732450), David & Co (2730326),
Vardaan (9527463684) SERV / RETD Def Offrs in Goa: O/o Sainik Co-op Hse
Bldg Sty, Def Col, Porvorim (2417288)
MUMBAI: David & Co (22019010)
PUNE: Manneys (26131683), Popular (25678327)
BENGALURU: Narayan (22865800)
DELHI: Ritana (24617278)
ONLINE (worldwide delivery): http://www.ritanabooks.com,
http://goa1556.goa-india.org
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