[Goanet] [Secular Goa] The Inquisition Lore By Frederick Noronha
It's 2012 and Vincent and Martha are falling instantly in love with Goa. Four sentences into Ashwin Sanghi's The Rozabal Line (Westland, 2008), we encounter the Inquisition. Response: Unfortunately Goan writers (including historians) and most European writers (including historians) make a mishmash of the (religious) Inquisition with the laws and practices of the autocratic kings of the period in the respective countries and their colonies. Many of them had / have an agenda in their writings as well analyzed by Noronha. For example much is made of the Capital Punishment of "burning of the victims" at the Auto de Fe. This was the form of capital punishment practiced in Spain, Portugal and Italy. The French had their own form of capital punishment called the guillotine. The English had their capital punishment in the Tower of London or the ax and the chopping block. (See Henry VIII wives). The American had and have their own form of capital punishment - hanging, the electric chair and now the "more humane" lethal injection. I am not defending any of these practices except to state the obvious practices of the period. Capital punishment is needed for those cases of serious criminal offenses which exists in every society. These include murder, army desertion, spying, undermining the state and its ruler, repeat and unrepentant offenders, etc. In the 16th-19th century, the state (ruler) and religion often comingled and acted in unison; often one exploiting the other to abuse their respective powers and on occasion one keeping the other (or their civil/ military employees and in-check. In this historical period also called "The Period of the Absolute Monarch", the rulers of the various European countries demanded full control of the religion (and its purse) within their territory. The Catholic Church after its experience with the monarchs of England and Germany had little leverage but to oblige / go along with monarchs of other European countries. In Goa things were even more complicated with the government coming to Goa to colonize the land and its people. The colonial government used and abused all legal and military tools at its disposal to maintain control of the local population, exploit and defend the territory. All foreign individuals in the colonial government were above the law and a law unto themselves. This had little to do with religion. The period of colonization coincided with the period of Inquisition. Worse atrocities (than the Portuguese inquisition) against the native population were committed by the Dutch in Ceylon and Indonesia (where whole villages were burnt); by the British in India and Middle-East; and the Spanish and French in their respective colonies; not to mention the massive slave trade. Perhaps many of the Goan writers (of fictional and non-fictional works) are unfamiliar with wider history and practices of the period. Would the presence of Inquisition in Portugal (only introduced in 1536) prevented the early explorers to the India Ocean behave more humanely rather than practice the gun-boat piracy of which Vasco da Gama, Cabral and others were criticized but not punished on their return to Portugal? Today's armchair historians should love to debate that issue ... if they are serious about analyzing history. Regards, GL
