21. Excuse to Attack Valmiki Faleiro valmi...@gmail.com
Towards end-August 1961, India decided to use force to evict the Portuguese from Goa, Daman and Diu. In early October 1961, the Indian Army’s Southern Command began preparing a war plan. By 10 November 1961, the war plan was ready. Only niceties remained for the Government of India to order the armed forces to mobilise. A suitable excuse to attack had to be either found or fabricated -- and India's Defence Minister was a resourceful wizard at the latter. The 15 August 1955 slaughter of satyagrahis had spent squandered. On one side of the line of contention was a dictator from a small and impoverished nation on the western extremity of Europe who believed, until about this time, that Nehru would never invade Goa. On the other was the prime minister of the world's largest democracy -- a large and once the world’s most prosperous but now impoverished nation that produced the concept of ahimsa or non-violence towards all living creatures. One who saw himself as a world pacifist, but was willing, at the urging of his Defence Minister, to throw everything overboard for the expediency of domestic general elections. Defence Minister Krishna Menon declared at the United Nations in New York on 6 November 1961, "My country has at no time abjured the use of force in international affairs... India will not hesitate to use force if provoked" (Andrew Jon Rotter, Comrades at Odds: The United States and India, 1947-1964, Cornell University Press, 2000, Page 185). A 'provocation' -- the key word -- had to be found, or, as said, fabricated. Midday 17 November 1961, the Bombay Steam Navigation Company's 1949 Belfast-built Indian passenger ship SS Sabarmati (a Screw Steamer of 3715 DWT), navigating from north to south, was headed to take a halt at Karwar en route to Cochin, just south of the Defence Minister's hometown. Portuguese corporal Fernando Carvalho Ferreira fired at the ship from atop the Anjediva Island -- a fact not reported to the superiors in Goa. Following initial denials, Lisbon admitted the incident after a local inquiry, but said the ship sailed too close to Anjediva in Portuguese-Goan territorial waters and failed to respond to internationally accepted SOP for identification of ships. The corporal said he only fired a warning shot at the civilian vessel, after which she sped off. India described it as "tension exploded" and used the incident to precipitate military action. (This relatively minor incident, suspectedly orchestrated, used as the causa proxima or closest cause for a casus belli or event that justifies war -- the invasion of Goa -- would blemish the legitimate anti-colonial cause championed by Nehru on the world stage. Several countries led by the USA that were opposed to colonialism and friendly to India viewed India's freeing of Goa’s colonial yoke as an act of naked aggression followed three months later by an unilateral and unceremonious annexation. It must be said, however, that few nations regretted the outcome. Expectedly, Red China was against "imperialist colonialism" but ridiculed Nehru for choosing to take on "the world's tiniest imperialist country".) On the night intervening 24/25 November 1961, a group of fishermen from Karwar repeatedly approached Anjediva from different directions between 10 pm to 2 am in about 20 boats. Portuguese defenders, placed on alert for possible enemy attempts to disembark an assault party in the wake of the SS Sabarmati episode, fired three shots toward the boats. Atmaram Kochrekar, an alleged smuggler, died the following day from gunshot injuries. The Portuguese claimed Kochrekar was found smuggling and was shot dead by Indian police. "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 endeavor served to discredit the Indian position..." (Rubinoff, 1971, Page 85). Wrote the renowned Indian editor-author DR Mankekar in The Goa Action: "One explanation as to why the Government [of India] would sponsor such a campaign of obvious pretense, places the blame on the Defense Minister who directed it..." (Bombay: Popular Book Depot, 1962, Page 22). It was plainly implausible that a minuscule Portuguese force (actually an apology of 3,300 mainly raw recruits, soldiers only in name and uniform, and hopelessly ill-equipped) would deliberately provoke a gigantic, better-armed and far superior neighbour. Twenty-five lakh Indian soldiers, fighting in practically every theatre of World War II, had demonstrated that they were among the best and bravest in the world. The tell-tale signature of Defence Minister Krishna Menon's creative deviousness was writ large over the SS Sabarmati and Karwar fishermen episodes and the press campaign unleashed from New Delhi. This was the same Krishna Menon who, on 27 August 1954, had waxed eloquent in the Rajya Sabha on the need to resolve the Goa issue peacefully but, in the face of impending elections had turned into the greatest votary of the use of military force. Major General DK Palit, the Director of Military Operations at Army HQ at the time, later wrote, "I am not certain how much... reported about Goa was true intelligence and how much tendentious fabrication. It is even possible that the whole scheme was cooked up between Krishna Menon, Bijji Kaul [Lieutenant General Brij Mohan Kaul, the man promoted out of turn and made Chief of General Staff at Army HQ] and the Intelligence Bureau to make out a feasible casus belli" (Palit, Musings & Memories, Vol II, 2004, Page 420). India deployed two naval vessels -- destroyer INS Rajput and anti-submarine corvette INS Kirpan -- at Karwar from 28 November 1961 "to protect fishermen". The following day, 29 November 1961, the Government of India issued definitive instructions to the armed forces (as we shall see next week). On 30 November 1961, the Indian Navy launched Op Chutney putting frigates INS Betwa and INS Beas on linear patrol seven nautical miles (13 kms) off Goa from 1 December 1961. Other naval warships were placed on operational standby alert. -- 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. *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*- 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/ *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-