Hand it over to Fred Noronha for his adroit piece in today's Herald on the issue of Portuguese colonialism. I could not make sense of his opening paragraph, "Hand it over to Goa; and a few other States do it with so much shamelessness. Even when a supposedly secular Congress government is in power here, the agenda-setting role gets handed over to communal ideologies." To use a pronoun "it" it has to have a have a previously mentioned thing. I am not sure if by "it" Fred means "colonialism" or "communalism." The last line of the para is ridiculous because only people can set an agenda and not "ideologies". In para 5, Fred says "Still, the recent generation of Portuguese — the Consul-General was born after 1961 — have shown their willingness express regret." The regret was, if I remember correctly, expressed in the treaty the Portuguese signed with India on March 14, 1975, with the Portuguese acknowledging Indian sovereignty over Goa, Daman and Diu. The current Portuguese officials are only reminding the "lunatic fringe", as Fred calls the small pro-Portuguese group, that the matter is closed. Fred says, "They (the Portuguese) ironically used a religion that was born out of a protest against the Roman Empire to justify their end..." It ia a radical view that Christianity was born in the way Fred mentions. Some historians aslo maintain that Christianity preceded the birth of Jesus Christ, but that's another matter. There are different kinds of historians who look at historical issues from their own perspectives. Those historians -- and people -- who see Portuguese colonialism as one of "religious bigotry" (Fred's words) are free to express their own views in a free society. No matter what this "tiny fringe" (tiny and fringe?) says about the lack of Portuguese contribution to Goa and Goan life, it is an undeniable fact that Portuguese presence helped Goans to be westernized, at least the Catholics. "The Marathas, today lionised by the current rulers of Goa who use post-dated spectacles of 20th century nationalism, undertook frequent attacks on the region, and probably made life for the locals here." Fred obviously forgot to qualify "life". Did he miss inserting "miserable" after "life"? Portuguese colonialism will remain a subject with Goans even after another 50 years of its end. It will form part of the narrative discourse of Goa's past and present historiography.
Eugene Correia
