Freedom Fighters
Wandering around aimlessly for some time in Bombay in the early 1950’s, I
stumbled on a selective band of Goans who called themselves freedom fighters
(FF’s).
By and large the FF’s looked a dejected lot, just as I was myself. And that may
well be one of the reasons for having called ourselves ‘hail-fellows-well-met’.
However, in a short while I discovered that the most compelling reason why they
were on the wrong side of the border was their hatred for a foreign rule in our
motherland.
From the days of Mahatma Gandhi’s tryst with freedom, one prerequisite to be a
‘freedom fighter’ came to be accepted as a short adventure in an Indian jail.
Critics then called it a ‘picnic in prison’. And may be rightly so. In today’s
India too, people get into a jail one day, bailed out the next, and everything
goes hunky-dory thereafter.
On the other hand, Portuguese jails were far removed from the romance of a
Presley’s ‘Jailhouse Rock’. They were exactly what lawbreakers deserved to be
in. Discipline was what they exacted out of an erring ‘rocker’, and the stick
did the trick. However, their aversion to the so-called freedom-fighters roused
them to raise that stick even higher. It’s because they branded them as
terrorists – the very label that India now puts on Pakistanis marauding across
the Kashmiri border, but which label Pakistan itself brushes off as ‘freedom
fighters’. Amazing how pots and kettles exchange colours with changing
situations.
Incidentally, some of the freedom-loving buddies in Bombay were already known
to me while in Goa. They were also known for tampering with the strict law
and order of the Portuguese regime.
Nevertheless, having been influenced by Mahatma Gandhi’s struggle for freedom,
a path hugely accentuated by his courtship with prison-cells, the local machos
also developed an appetite for freedom of sorts. But what was under suspicion
was their determination to fight for it. They tried to emulate the great
Mahatma in so far as his sit-in’s were concerned. But his fasts-unto-death
dreaded them as death itself. The group that I came to be associated with would
hardly miss a morsel for any cause on earth, least of all freedom.
Much credit goes to those Goans who put their lives on the block in their
pursuit of freedom. However, what became debatable to right thinking men and
women in Goa was, whether their motive was to oust one occupier and make way
for another; or to take over the reins themselves and let the U.N. declare an
addition to the family of nations. But soon their intentions were laid bare.
Jawaharlal Nehru’s ‘Operation Vijay’ sealed the fate of Goans forever.
Bennet Paes
