Just past noon on 19 December 1961, freedom fighters Purushottam Kakodkar and Suresh Kanekar called at the house of their nationalist colleague Ronald Coutinho of Borda, Margao. Coutinho's hospitable wife served them a quick lunch. She was the cousin of India's future Army Chief, General SF Rodrigues. Coutinho was an original Margaoite, of the eleventh vangor (loosely, clan) of the ganvkari/comunidade of Margao.
The three started in Coutinho's car for Vasco da Gama. Trudging behind a slow-moving convoy of Indian Army trucks, it took them about eight hours to get there by about 8 pm. They would be the only freedom fighters -- among the handful of Goans -- to eyewitness the formal surrender ceremony of Portuguese forces in India. Kanekar [later, Dr Suresh Kanekar] wrote about the ceremony in his 2011 book, Goa's Liberation and Thereafter: Chronicles of a Fragmented Life (Goa,1556, now out of print). In his words: "When we reached Vasco, it was about 8 p.m. Lt. Col. [Raghbir Bahadur] Nanda had reached Vasco ahead of us and was holding Vassalo e Silva in custody. When we learned about the arrest of the Portuguese governor-general, Purushottam [Kakodkar] told Brigadier Dhillon that he and I [Kanekar] had known Vassalo e Silva personally and requested permission for us to talk with him. Dhillon denied permission, but he said we could, if we wanted, attend the formal surrender ceremony that was going to take place in a short while. So we decided to wait. "We went back to where the surrender was to take place right out in the open. Dhillon was sitting in a jeep, while Nanda arranged to have the few cars including ours that were there placed in a semi-circle, with the headlights converging at where the governor-general would be surrendering to Dhillon. At about 8:45 p.m. Vassalo e Silva was brought to the spot along with his adjutant or chief of staff, probably named Andrade [Chief of Staff Lt Col Marques de Andrade], and made to wait while adjustments were being made to the cars and the lighting.... "All this while I was watching Vassalo e Silva very closely and I found his demeanour very dignified under the trying circumstances. He had allegedly (the allegation being of dubious veracity) fled from Panaji to the south with the intent of flying out from the Dabolim airport, but could not manage to do so because the airport had been rendered inoperative with pinpoint bombing of the airstrip by the Indian air force." [Those allegations doing the rounds in Goa at the time, authored no doubt by ignorant minds, were utter rubbish. One, Vassalo e Silva shifted to the south in accordance with the defence plan, Plano Sentinela, which fixed Mormugao as the last redoubt. As Commander-in-Chief, he had to be there, not in Panjim. Two, the Dabolim airport bombing with World War II vintage duds was unsatisfactory, necessitating a third bombing raid, Green 4, despite which two civilian aircraft took off midnight of 18/19 December 1961. Three, and most pertinently, even if Vassalo e Silva wished to escape leaving behind his wife in Goa, he could have easily done so in one of those two aircraft that he himself had permitted to take off.] "There was occasionally the hint of a wry smile on his otherwise impassive face, probably at the irony of the situation. He had to stand there with his companion for about half an hour, in between Indian soldiers who had been lined up on both sides. "When Brigadier Dhillon was told that the arrangements were completed, he came out of his jeep and stood facing the governor-general. Addressing the brigadier, Nanda announced that the governor-general of Goa, Daman and Diu was surrendering to him. At Nanda's order, Vassalo e Silva stepped forward, saluted Dhillon (Dhillon did not salute back, which surprised me especially as Vassalo e Silva was an army general, but then I have no expertise in military etiquette), and handed over the instrument of surrender to Dhillon, after which Dhillon went back to sit in his vehicle and Vassalo e Silva returned with his adjutant to the place of his confinement. Neither Dhillon nor Vassalo e Silva had uttered a single word during the brief ceremony. "...The ceremony had taken place at 9:15 p.m. on Tuesday, December 19, 1961, with very few people in attendance. I had looked at my watch at the conclusion of the ceremony" (Kanekar, 2011, Pages 147-149). Major General VK Singh also says that "...the Governor General of Goa, [Major] General Manuel Antonio Vassalo E' Silva was found at Alparquiros camp in Vasco da Gama and he formally surrendered in the capacity of Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces to Brigadier K.S. Dhillon, Commander 63 Infantry Brigade..." (History of the Corps of Signals, Volume III, Chapter 3). Though Brigadier Dhillon accepted surrender (at Vasco, on 19 December 1961, at 2115 hrs) from a Major General, a rank his senior, India's official account of the ops states that the formal surrender took place at Alpalqueiros Hill in Vasco da Gama at 2030 hrs on 19 December 1961 and that Major General KP Candeth accepted the unconditional surrender. 2030 hrs was the time recorded on the instrument of surrender, probably the time when Maj Gen Vassalo e Silva signed it. The instrument of surrender carried the signature of Brig Dhillon, not of Maj Gen KP Candeth. The two attesting witnesses were Lt Col RB Nanda, CO 4 Sikh LI (admittedly present in person) and Lt Col KS Chadha, CO 2 Bihar (whose unit, part of the same 63 Infantry Brigade, was ordered to halt some 5 kms. beyond Cortalim for some days and could have well been present). Major General KP Candeth could not have accepted the surrender for the simple reason that he was nowhere near Vasco da Gama when the formal ceremony took place. At the time the surrender ceremony occurred, Maj Gen Candeth was not even aware that Vasco da Gama was captured by 63 Infantry Brigade and that Brig KS Dhillon had accepted formal surrender. Maj Gen Candeth got to know of the capture and surrender only at 11 pm that day, on phone, as already seen from the History of the Corps of Signals, Volume III, Chapter 3. Maj Gen KP Candeth did not even know of, much less accept, the surrender "at 2030 hrs on 19 December 1961" as claimed in the Defence Ministry's official account of the ops. No photograph exists of the formal surrender ceremony. Dr. Suresh Kanekar tells us that "[CO 4 Sikh LI, Lt Col RB] Nanda had found a photographer to take the picture of the ceremony, but the photographer did not have a flash for his camera. Nanda instructed the photographer that he was to take the photograph at the signal that Nanda would give him" (Kanekar, 2011, Page 147). But something went wrong at the last moment and no photograph exists of the ceremony. -- Excerpted from revised text of the book, Patriotism In Action: Goans in India's Defence Services by Valmiki Faleiro, first published in 2010 by Goa,1556 (ISBN: 978-93-80739-06-9). Revised edition awaits publication. Photos (not included in this text): 1.Instrument of Surrender, original in Portuguese (courtesy: Shrikant Y Ramani, Operation Vijay, 2008, Page 178) 2.Instrument of Surrender (translated) stating that it was accepted by Maj Gen KP Candeth (courtesy: bharatuntoldstory.wordpress.com) 3.Instrument of Surrender (copy of 1 above, but without the title Instrumento de Rendição, with a typo in the first word, a different state emblem placed differently, bearing a totally differing signature of Vassalo e Silva, with a translation below and the superimposition Order of Battle), but which shows, at left of translation, that Brig KS Dhillon ;Accepted' the surrender, as was displayed at HQ 2STC, Panjim, Goa (courtesy: Gomantak Times, online: https://www.gomantaktimes.com/my-goa/art-culture/world-portuguese-language-day-these-3-portuguese-inscriptions-document-important-changes-in-the-course-of-goas-history ) *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*- Join a discussion on Goa-related issues by posting your comments on this or other issues via email to goa...@goanet.org See archives at http://lists.goanet.org/pipermail/goanet-goanet.org/ *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-