Valmiki Faleiro valmikifale...@gmail.com Left with hardly any peaceful options in the face of Portugal's protracted intransigence on the question of Goa, India clamped an 'Economic Blockade' on Goa, Daman and Diu by 1 August 1954. This was done after the Goan Catholic political leadership in Bombay prevailed upon Nehru for the measure, so that the Portuguese regime would buckle under pressure in Goa.
Economically, Goa's umbilical cord was attached to India rather than to Portugal. Goa's trade with Portugal was 7.67% while that with India was over 60%. Goa's exports to India consisted, chiefly, of betel nuts, coconuts and salt. Imports from India were of food grain, vegetable, fruit, soap, coal, textile, cotton thread, tea and tobacco. Only one-third of the currency circulating in Goa was Portuguese. Two-third was Indian. Attempts between 1942 and 1952 to flush out Indian currency failed. In 1951, remittances from Portugal to Goa were 4 million Rupees while from India to Goa were 68 million Rupees (Rubinoff, 1971, Pg 33). In 1951, telegram traffic between Goa and Portugal was 7,000 telegrams, while between Goa and India was 1,52,000. A large number of Goans (estimated at a third of Goa's then population of six lakh) established and made a living in India -- over one and half lakh of them in Bombay and the rest spread all over metropolitan India -- while corresponding numbers in Portugal were negligible. In 1954 alone, 23,616 Goans migrated to India (Rajya Sabha Debates, volume 10, column 1696, 2 September 1955) while the number of migrations to Portugal during the corresponding period, though not known, could at best be a few dozen. With the Economic Blockade, the flow of people and goods by road, rail and sea was stopped, communication lines cut, accounts held Goan residents in Indian banks frozen and money transfers from India to Goa suspended -- to induce the native population to rebel against the Portuguese. Nothing of the kind happened, even though poorer locals, especially from the Catholic segment, dependent on remittances from close relatives working in India's metros, were hit the hardest. Later in 1960, Goan freedom fighters Purushottam Kakodkar and Adv. Pandurang Mulgaokar met Nehru and asked for withdrawal of the sanctions that hurt locals, especially on remittances. Surgeon-freedom fighter Dr. P D Gaitonde said, "From the Goan point of view, this [the Economic Blockade] represented a sort of defeat; it meant that India was unable to solve the Goa problem diplomatically" (Gaitonde, The Liberation of Goa, 1987, Page 71). He coined the phrase "the tomb of Indian diplomacy". (On 17 February 1954, at a farewell dinner to Portuguese judge Semedo, the Goan advocate Santa Rita Colaço, a "great admirer of Salazar and of the Portuguese empire", in his speech said that Goa was Portuguese. Dr. Pundalik Dattatreya Gaitonde (1913-92), native of Palolem in Canacona, an eminent Portugal-trained government surgeon in Mapusa, loudly interrupted, "I protest!" The two words got him behind bars. He was deported to Portugal aboard the Índia and jailed for a year. He became a high-profile freedom fighter and 17 February was observed as 'Gaitonde Day'. His arrest and exile made India lodge a formal protest with the Portuguese legation in New Delhi and hardened Nehru's attitude towards Portugal. Following his release, Dr. Gaitonde represented Goa in the Indian Parliament.) TB Cunha rued, "The weakness and the indecision of the Indian Government has secured to the Portuguese Dictatorship an unexpected diplomatic triumph" (Salazar Faces Internal Dissention But His Goa Victory Saves Him, in Bombay-based Free Goa, edition of 25 May 1958, Volume 5, No. 14, Pages 1-2). As pressures of the blockade began to show, the Portuguese began imports... rice and vegetables from Pakistan, potatoes from the Netherlands, wine from Portugal, tea from Ceylon, cement from Japan, steel from Belgium. Goan Hindu traders imported Indian goods via Aden, Singapore and South Africa to blunt the effect of the Economic Blockade. Union Ministry of External Affairs and Bombay Police gathered intelligence on such Goan traders who colluded with the Portuguese. The documents are yet to be de-classified. Production of iron and manganese ore was stepped up from 1955. Mining was first sought to be developed in Goa in 1911. The Companhia das Minas e Ferro de Goa was started for this purpose. Extraction was manual, throughout, but with pressures of the Economic Blockade, mining was mechanised with foreign capital. More than 300 mining concessions were issued to just about anybody who asked for them. There was good demand for Goan mineral ore, especially from Japan (40%), West Germany (30%) and the USA (manganese ore). By end March 1961, Goa was annually exporting six million tonnes of ore, which, according to The Economic Weekly (Bombay) Vol. XIII Nos. 51 & 52 dated 23 December 1961, "compared very favourably with, perhaps equalled or exceeded the exports from India". Revenues zoomed from Rs.12 million to Rs.30 million. Goa found new prosperity. While the colonial regime egged on compliant mine owners to produce more and stymie the effects of the Economic Blockade, Goan freedom fighters of the underground/militant variety, including Goan Catholics, disrupted mining operations with attacks and blasts. (And Goan Catholics -- not the mine owners and not the traders who colluded with the Portuguese -- were, and still are, regarded as "anti-national"!) -- 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. (NEXT WEEK: What the Economic Blockade of Goa turned out to be) *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*- 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/ *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-