Dear Gabriel,
You may check the archives of goanet of last two years for a discussion on the theme of Goa Day, that was celebrated in Portugal during years following Goa's liberation. I myself had raised the question asking for the names of those who represented Goa in the Portuguese parliament just before and even after 1961! Who could have elected those after 1961? Do you know of a lady Albuqurque from your village and who was one of those non-elected representatives? I do not know of any Hindus, even after the Republic of 1910, who occupied any place in the Portuguese parliament as representatives of Portuguese India. Narana Coissor� is a post.1974 phenomenon! There was no universal suffrage in the Portuguese elections till the end of Salazar regime. In largely rural Portugal till 1974, village folks had little direct participation in politics. To cite M. Filomena Monica�s *Os Costumes em Portugal* (1996) for Salazar "a country that had the courage to be poor was invincible"! The right to vote was limited to those who could read and write, and had to be owners of landed property (subject to land tax). Even among these only the heads of the families were entitled to vote in the local / regional elections. The electoral procedure including census was conducted by men loyal to the party of the dictator. Anyone who was known publicly to be opposed to state policies was excluded from voting. The local / regional administrations till the district / province levels were all systematically brought under centralized control from the time of the Constitution of 1933. The constitutional revisions of 1945 and 1951 made little substantial difference to this tendency. Elections continued to be a farce since 1933. Censorship and PIDE were set up to guarantee that no liberties would subvert the dictatorship. Representatives in the Parliament had little effective say in the running of the country. It is not surprising if Dr. Froilano de Melo, who ended his 1945-1949 term in the Portuguese parliament with a farewell speech wherein his every paragraph began with "I failed". He lamented that he was returning to his people with empty hands! He received a big applause for that! The colonies were run under the Colonial Act of 1930.Frustrated with the experience, he chose to exile himself to Brazil! Incidentally, his medical assitant in Goa earned more than him for being a white descendant ! It was Germano Correia, a doctor-anthropologist, who had developed the theory of the "racial purity" of the "descendentes" in Goa! Since you asked for a web link that could be useful to study the functioning of the Portuguese parliament, here follows an useful link and tool for research on the subject. It contains parliamentary debates since 1822 till more recent years. With rare exceptions, like Dr. Froilano de Melo, most of the other Goan representatives in the Portuguese parliament during the Estado Novo were dumb figures, not to call them boot-lickers of the regime. I wish their descendants stand up and come forward to prove the contrary with the support of any official records other than their family tales! http://debates.parlamento.pt/default.asp P.J. Peregrino da Costa�s *A expans�o do go�s pelo mundo* (Goa 1950) is a useful source to trace the Goans who occupied political, military and other positions in Portugal and elsewhere in the world. I do not know what you mean by Courts. Are you meaning "cortes" (equivalent to Portuguese parliament of sorts ?) or are you referring to judicial courts? In this latter sense, there were quite a few Goan Christians, and also a couple of Hindus, who occupied positions even in the Portuguese supreme court. Presently there is Bernardo Cola�o (from Ribandar) as *Procurador Geral Adjunto (Ministerio Publico)* of the Supreme Court of Portugal. As for Goans in the regional assemblies, there was one Abel Fernandes, who held power in the Evora muncipality during three decades till a couple of years back. He belonged to the Communist party. I do not know of any other who left a mark. With kind regards Teotonio R. de Souza ------------------------------------------- From: Gabriel de Figueiredo <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: [Goanet]New research on * Goan MP's in the Portuguese Parliament* To: [email protected] Reply-To: [email protected] Teo, could you please confirm then that: 1. Goa had representation in the Portuguese Courts and later, the Parliament (including that of Salazar), and that a number of these represenatives were native Goans; 2. How these representatives were elected; If possible, please indicate a link to a list of the names and the periods in which these representatives were active members or the Courts / the Portuguese Parliament, even if this link is not in English. An interesting aside would be if there were any Goa-related representatives in the Portuguese Courts / Parliament for regions other than Goa. This would go a long way to clear the air regarding the relationship between Goans and Portuguese. Regards, Gabriel de Figueiredo Melbourne - Australia. (ex-Ponjekar ani Lotlekar)
