Thank you Fr Victor Ferrao gor your scholarly article logically expl the Portuguese influence on Goas history. Thank you for your balanced article.
Marianne Furtado de Nazareth Dr Marianne de Nazareth Former Asst. Editor, The Deccan Herald, Freelance Environmental Journalist Fellow UNFCCC, UNEP, UNWater Editor Romantic Getaways https://www.bellaonline.com/ http://mariannedenazareth.blogspot.com/ On Mon, 26 Jan, 2026, 19:30 Vivek Pinto, <[email protected]> wrote: > > > By: Rev. Fr. (Dr.) Victor Ferrao [ Rev. (Dr.) Victor Ferrao holds a > Doctorate in Philosophy of Science with specialization in Science Religion > Dialogue from the Philosophy Department of Jnana-Deepa Vidyapeeth, Pune] > Published in: *Think Goa, Goans, Goaness* > Date: January 25, 2026 > Source: > https://www.jnanamrit.com/2026/01/25/deconstructing-nationalist-historiography-of-goa/ > > Goa’s history is frequently told through a dramatic arc: Portuguese > conquest in 1510 followed by four and a half centuries of colonial rule, > ending with integration into India in 1961. This dominant nationalist > narrative casts Goa as a long-suffering territory that was finally > “liberated” and returned to its rightful place within the Indian nation. > Yet this telling often resembles a spiritualist biography, an idealized, > almost hagiographic account that elevates heroic figures, celebrates a > supposed pre-colonial golden age, and frames the entire colonial period as > an unnatural interruption of an authentic Indian destiny. > > Such accounts reduce Goans to passive objects caught in a “dark history” > of foreign domination. They present the people of Goa less as historical > agents and more as victims caught in the waiting room of history awaiting > national redemption. This article argues for moving beyond these > nationalist meta-narratives—narratives heavily inflected with religious > meaning—and toward histories that recognize distributed agency: Goans as > active participants who made choices, collaborated, resisted, adapted, and > sometimes profited within the structures they inhabited. Victimhood > stories, while emotionally powerful, must be replaced by accounts that > accept collective responsibility for both the bright and shadowed aspects > of the past. > > The Nationalist Meta-Narrative as Spiritual Biography > > In many nationalist retellings, Goa itself becomes a spiritual entity—an > ancient land with deep civilizational roots that was temporarily alienated > from Bharat by an alien power. The Portuguese era is portrayed as a long > night of denationalization, cultural suppression, and religious coercion > from which Goa was ultimately rescued in 1961. Figures who advocated for > integration are frequently canonized as founding fathers of Goan > nationalism, their lives narrated almost as journeys of awakening and > sacrifice. > > This framing serves a clear teleological purpose: it makes the post-1961 > present appear as the natural and morally correct outcome of history. The > pre-Portuguese past is romanticized, often with strong Hindu civilizational > overtones, while the Indo-Portuguese centuries are flattened into a single > story of oppression and resistance. The result is a highly selective > biography of the territory rather than a social history of its people. > > This spiritualized narrative tends to erase the profound hybridity that > actually characterized Goan society. Over generations, Goans created > distinctive forms of language, architecture, cuisine, music, dress, and > religious practice that cannot be reduced to either “Indian” or > “Portuguese” labels. Yet nationalist historiography frequently downplays or > delegitimizes these syncretic realities in favor of an imagined purer > origin. > > Religion as the Hidden Engine of Nationalist History-writing > > A second major distortion arises from the entanglement of nationalist > history with religious identity politics—particularly the project of > constructing a continuity Hindu civilizational. In this lens, the > Portuguese period is remembered almost exclusively for conversions, the > destruction of temples, and the activities of the Inquisition. These were > undoubtedly violent and coercive episodes. However, the selective emphasis > on them often serves a contemporary political purpose: to position Goan > Catholics as people who must be “re-Hinduized” or at least reminded of > their supposed original civilizational belonging. > > This religious framing produces a stark binary: indigenous Hindu culture > versus alien Christian imposition. It marginalizes the lived experience of > Goan Catholics, who developed their own distinctive forms of Christianity > deeply rooted in local language, landscape, and social structures. It also > obscures the fact that caste hierarchies, landlordism, and exclusionary > practices persisted strongly across religious lines throughout the colonial > centuries and beyond. > > When history is written primarily to serve religious-nationalist > mobilization, it becomes difficult to acknowledge complexity: moments of > collaboration between Goan elites and colonial authorities, periods of > mutual cultural influence, or the active role played by some Goans in > sustaining colonial institutions for reasons of social mobility, economic > advantage, or simple survival. > > Distributed Agency: Goans as Historical Actors, Not Objects > > A more honest historiography begins by distributing historical agency > across Goan society rather than concentrating it in the hands of either > Portuguese rulers or later nationalist heroes. > > Goans were never merely passive recipients of colonial policy. Some > resisted openly through rebellions, petitions, and intellectual critique. > Others negotiated within the system—gaining education, entering the > professions, acquiring land titles, or rising within the church hierarchy. > Still others collaborated for reasons of pragmatism, ambition, or belief. > Lower-caste and Indigenous communities often developed their own survival > strategies, forms of everyday resistance, and alternative religious > expressions that official chronicles rarely recorded. > > Women, too, were historical actors whether as maintainers of household > economies, participants in market networks, quiet dissenters within > families, or, in later periods, active contributors to anti-colonial > organizations. Even the much-mythologized Goan diaspora did not simply flee > or passively await return; its members actively shaped transnational > networks of ideas, capital, and identity. > > Recognizing this distributed agency dismantles the comforting but > misleading image of a homogeneous, uniformly victimized population. It > replaces the passive object with the active subject. > > From Victimhood to Responsibility > > Victimhood narratives have emotional and political utility: they create > solidarity, justify claims for redress, and provide moral clarity. Yet they > also carry costs. When a society defines itself primarily through what was > done to it, it risks absolving itself of responsibility for what it did. > > In Goa’s case, responsibility includes uncomfortable truths: > > 1. Some Goans participated in the mechanisms of conversion and cultural > policing, whether for social advancement or under coercion. > 2. Upper-caste Hindus and Christians alike often collaborated in > maintaining exploitative agrarian structures.3. Communal tensions, caste > discrimination, and exclusionary practices were reproduced within Goan > society across religious lines. > 4. Internal hierarchies and inequalities were not solely imported; they > were also locally sustained and adapted. > > Accepting these shades does not cancel the real suffering inflicted by > colonial violence, conversion separation, cultural erasure campaigns, or > economic exploitation. It simply refuses to externalize every failing onto > an outside enemy. A mature historical consciousness holds both truths > simultaneously: the damage done to Goans and the damage done by Goans. > > Toward a Plural, Responsible Goan History > > Nationalist historiography, especially when cast in spiritual-biographical > form, offers comfort and coherence at the price of simplification and > exclusion. It flattens Goans into symbols rather than treating them as full > historical subjects. It often serves contemporary religious and political > projects more than it illuminates the past. > > Let humbly offer a richer approach: > > 1. Center the plurality of Goan voices and experiences rather than a > single teleological storyline.2. Cultural hybridity as a creative > achievement rather than a symptom of alienation. > Distribute agency across classes, castes, genders, religions, and regions. > 4. Replace narratives of pure victimhood with narratives of complex, > morally ambiguous agency. > 5. Accept collective responsibility for both the luminous and shadowed > parts of the Goan past. > > Only through such a reckoning can Goans claim full authorship of their > history not as objects of someone else’s dark chapter, but as co-authors of > a complicated, living story that continues to unfold. > > -- > 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/CAH3OY9zFzddpWa0NFXvLp5hDMioKhS-dgV_b2K0430g1BB_zmg%40mail.gmail.com > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/goa-research-net/CAH3OY9zFzddpWa0NFXvLp5hDMioKhS-dgV_b2K0430g1BB_zmg%40mail.gmail.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> > . > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Goa-Research-Net" group. 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