Goa R.I.P.
Regarding the Response of "B" to Mario Goveia which reads:' Was Goa liberated
in
1961 due to a "groundswell of political support and organization" within Goa?"
' I
have two comments:
(1) On August 15, 1955 India send into Goa around 10,000 'peaceful' slogan
shouting
Indian satyagrahis who, when they resorted to menicing postures - as when after
repeated warnings they entered the Tiracol Fort - were fired upon mostly by the
first battery of Goan policemen who were manning the frontier posts, and
several
hundred were killed or wounded. But the Goans had at the time a different
peaceful
bearing and could not be roused with anti-Portuguese slogans, and life went on
peacefully in Goa. At that time, after the failure of the satyagrahis to
achieve
anything like a Goan revolt, Pandit Nehru stated publicly: "The Portuguese will
have
to leave Goa even if the Goans want them there."
(2) The Indian decision to take military action in Goa appears to have been a
sequel
to United Nations General Assembly Resolution 1514 (XV) dated 14 December 1960
recommending the right of self-determination to non-self governing territories
under
European administration. A Google search will give the text of this resolution.
But
Goa was very much self-governing at its grass root administration of
comunidades,
which had existed from Vedic times and, in fact, the Code of Comunidades
ratifying
this historic fact had been enacted by Governor General Vassalo e Silva on
April 15,
1961.
An important point in regard to self-determination - India had made it clear
to
France who had planned to hold a plebicite in Pondicherry and three other
French
territories in India under international supervision that, if it went against
India,
it would not be the last word and, in view of a protracted tangle on the issue
and
in view also of the fall of French Indo China in 1953, the liberal government
of M.
Pierre Mendes France in Paris decided to let go, and carried out the de-facto
transfer of Pondicherry and its territories to India on November 1, 1954 even
though
the territories were constitutionally a part of France with representation in
the
French National Assembly in Paris.
John Menezes.
