My aim is not to whitewash the record of VdG but to point to what might amount to a selective use of facts here. The Miri pilgrims' massacre has been thoroughly documented and was undeniably brutal. But Vasco da Gama wasn't a lone, aberrant 'butcher' and this ignores the complex geopolitical realities of his times (the 16th century).
Extreme violence in the Indian Ocean was practised by the Portuguese. Not just that; it was also carried out by the Mamluks (enslaved soldiers turned rulers), Venetians, Ottomans, the Zamorin's forces and the Red Sea corsairs (in this context, corsairs refers to raiders backed by a specific state) who routinely targeted merchant convoys. They destroyed ships and enslaved prisoners. This of course does not justify VdG's acts; but it can be a response to attempts to show him as guilty of individual cruelty. In that era, economic blockades and religious legitimacy were accepted games in warfare. To say Portuguese public memory 'ignores the devastation' might not quite be accurate. Even since Gaspar Correia, João de Barros and Damião de Góis (16th/17th centuries), Gama's violent actions have been written about with blunt detail. Modern Portuguese scholarship continues that trend. For instance, Malyn Newitt, Luis Filipe Thomas and Fernand Braudel, not to speak of Sanjay Subrahmanyam (incidentally the brother of the politician-minister justifying Modi's action throughout the globe as his foreign minister today, though this might not be relevant to this debate). To claim that Gama is celebrated while his atrocities are "forgotten" is to confuse public commemoration with scholarly assessment. Men of those times get celebrated for their military achievements, they are not being judged for their moral standards. For instance, the current-day successors of the Ottomans celebrate the Turkish cartographer-admiral-navigator-corsair Piri Reis without endorsing Ottoman slave-taking of some other century. Shivaji is honoured without celebrating the sack of Surat. Public memory may be short, but this is not necessarily evidence of national denial. Gama's voyages have been seen as technically and strategically transformative. At the same time, his actions (including state-directed brutality) deserve full scrutiny. But there is a difference between historical explanation and moral outrage. We cannot overlook the political-religious-commercial systems of violence which operated in the 16th century. Or use these to justify intolerance in the 21st century. Let's also not overlook the roles of the Zamorin of Calicut and the Malabar naval system (relying heavily on Mappila corsairs, who often blurred the line between piracy and state-sanctioned warfare); the Bahamani Sultanate (known for mass enslavement during wars); the Vijayanagar Empire (scorched-earth campaigns against Bahamani territories and rebel areas; forced resettlement of population and destruction of agriculture resources to weaken the Deccan sultanates), among others. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Goa-Research-Net" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/goa-research-net/3e2f4b0a-1b38-491a-a35c-857be34b046fn%40googlegroups.com.
