The more one reads about the history prior to and during the colonial period,
the more one realizes that it was a world of totally unfettered greed,
wealth and power on one hand and abject poverty, disrespect for human life on
the other hand. In a period of monarchs, oligarchies, lords and land
barons, the rules, laws and justice was made specifically to benefit the rich
and the colonizer. The inquisition was an effort by religious people to dampen
human vice.
To get a feel in today's context what greed does to an individual; and how it
affects other human beings, and the whole order of society, one should read an
excellent assay in current Newsweek by Fareed Zakaria - "The Capitalist
Manifesto - Greed is Good (to a point)". He reviews the financial crises since
1637 to today. http://www.newsweek.com/id/201935?from=rss
What Frederick Noronha, now Maurice Machado and myself have written
is antithetical to the image of the Goa Inquisition promoted by some Goan
Catholics and Hindus. Individuals like Santosh could better serve by working to
modulate the hate-Christian and hate-Goa blogs and writings of Hindutva (sites)
instead of being an Inquisitor on Goanet; especially when it comes to facts
about the Goan and European Inquisition.
The Hindutva has done a good job. In America few Hindu friends of mine
sometimes engage me in a discussion about the Goa Inquisition. And I am always
astounded to know, where do these otherwise intelligent and very friendly guys
get the anti-Christian message and bigotry. If I face this problem in an
Indian community of about 100 Indian families, I can only guess what happens in
various parts of India. Perhaps the Hindus may or may not express their views
as openly as in USA. Worse still, they may not express the views in front of
Christians, but among themselves feeding-off on a lot of false information on
the web, and now popular fictional novels, and movies based on them.
We know that the Inquisition did not spare the rich, powerful, well connected,
or the high professionals and officials - a section of the population which
is far from immune to commit crime. Some Goans claim the inquisition was
corrupt because a few White physicians (about four over 350
years) were sentenced by the Goa inquisition tribunal, - a logic that ranges
from facile to ludicrous. In fact the numbers would suggest the Inquisition
was very judicious in selecting those whom it brought to justice. The reality
is much of my readings about the inquisition the critics play the gottcha game
with little hard data and much opinion.
Regards, GL
