Floriano Lobo wrote: 

> I can prove to you that at least one person who had been lodged in
> Aguada jail for mis-appropriating the neighbour's property came out to
> declared himself  a freeeeeeeeeeeeeedom fighter.

That's fine. I don't doubt that. Freedom fighters have themselves been
saying that (some) people who don't deserve the label have been
included in their ranks. The case of the RSS members being packed in by
the recent BJP government is a case in point too. That's political. 

But what I see as questionable is the attempt to by crypto-colonialists
to support Portuguese rule by delegitimising ideas of freedom or
pouring scorn on the entire class of freedom fighters (as if there was
no idealism among them). This is what some are aiming at.

> This is just that you know that when I say 'most'  it remains 'most and does
> not become 'all' .

Most? You are citing one case and then moving to "most". Is there some
reason or evidence to make such a statement. Is it just your feeling?
Could you cite some numbers? Or is this just an opposition politician
shooting from the hip (as Manohar Parrikar also tends to do these
days... and even did while he was in power!)

> BTW if I was tht General Candeth at the time of Goa's so called liberation
> (which is not), I would have set up a judicial bench to identify criminals
> from freedom fighters before I threw open the prison gates. That would be
> the responsibility of the liberating forces. This has not happened and
> therefore I consider that Goa was not liberated but INVADED. If you,
> however, ever get a hangover over this statement of mine, please let me
> know. Then, in that case we shall  have to refer to the  order of the
> SUPREME COURT OF INDIA may have  stated just what   I have stated re the
> liberation of Goa.

I think you are getting carried away by your rhetoric.

The intent of the Goa-was-invaded-because-the-Supreme-Court-said-so
argument is clear the moment one looks where it is coming from. It is
the Lusostalgic class that has either never reconciled themselves to a
perceived (and possibly real) loss of colonial priviledge, or it comes
from those bleeding hearts who live thousands of kilometres away from
Goa and need some rationale to explain why they are so far from that
spot of earth they claim to love so much.

Also the Goa-was-invaded-because-the-Supreme-Court-said-so argument has
been repeated ad nauseam and needs to be challenged. (Just like the
Goa-missed-two-Five-Year-Plans-and-hence-deserves-more-aid rubbish.)

Don't mix legal phraseology with the terminology of political science.

In the famous "Chico" Monteiro case (where a Catholic priest opted for
Portuguese citizenship after 1961 and then sought the right to stay on
in Goa, without any regulation by the government) the issue was neatly
framed, should we say, by a Queen's Counsel Edward Gardner, Q.C., who
was interestingly made available by the Salazar regime to the priest.

In the 20th century global context of decolonisation -- specially in
Asia and Africa -- a large number of colonial powers simply accepted
that the sun had indeed set on their empires, and went home. But the
Portuguese were an exception.

Gardner QC and the battery of lawyers for Fr Monteiro -- A. Bruto Da
Costa, M. Bruto Da Costa, P.C. Bhartari, A.K. Varma and J.B. Dadachanji
-- sought to make the case that the "Occupying Power" is bound by
certain articles of the Geneva Convention! Quite a twist to what could
have been a not-so-unhappy ending of the sojourn of the first European
colonial power in Asia of this millennium.

Are the words being cited properly? The Supreme Court of India uses the
word "annexation" in a legalistic sense, shorn of the connotations it
would have in say Political Science. 

It also said in the 'Chico' Monteiro case: "In the Hague Regulations to
which the Geneva Conventions were supplementary the definition of
"occupation" shows that a territory is considered as occupied when it
finds itself in fact placed under the authority of a hostile army. This
means that occupation is by military authorities i.e. belligerent
occupation."

If you want to know how legal and technical the arguments were, just
read this (the judges quoting the Queen's Counsel): "He concedes that
the war of liberation of Goa and the annexation were lawful but he
contends that annexation does not deprive protected persons of the
protection."

Or, "Annexation may sometimes be peaceful, as for example, Texas and
Hawaiian Islands were peacefully annexed by the United States, or after
war, as the annexation of South Africa and Orange Free State by Britain."

[Thanks to the Internet, the ruling is available online at
http://tinyurl.com/zunvu See it for yourself.]

By taking words out of context, a handful seem to be keen to start a
quarrel where none exists. It is odd to see someone like Floriano
accept this logic. Had he won a seat, I am sure he would have been more
than willing to swear to uphold the "soverignity and integrity" of
India, and stand by a parliamentary system that is more suited to the
needs of the mercantile classes of seventeenth century Britain than the
commonman (and woman) of today's South Asia.

I am definitely no great fan of the Indian state, and believe it has a
long, long way to go before it can become even remotely democratic (as
in, serving the needs of the average citizen). But, on the other hand,
supporting moribund colonialism is not my cup of tea either. As far as
the post-1961 record of Goa is concerned, it very consoling to blame
New Delhi for everything that has gone wrong. Without, of course,
looking at the local contributions to the problems or whether Goa would
have been better off as some banana republic killing its own citizens
as they fight over their unsorted conflicts and contradictions (like a
Nepal, a Haiti, or even a casino-and-triad dominated Macau). FN

PS: I'm no lawyer, and have no specialist domain in this field. But
it's time someone called this bluff... if we repeat it often enough, we
just might get around to believing it. 


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