By Valmiki Faleiro valmi...@gmail.com Portugal's protracted intransigence in negotiating the 'Case of Goa' on the one hand and India's failed diplomacy on the other led to the imposition of an 'Economic Blockade' of Portuguese Goa by India.
The measure produced unexpected results. Instead of the anticipated economic depression, there was an economic boom in Goa. In marked contrast to neighboring Indian states, high-wage jobs and West European luxury goods suddenly became easily available to Goans. Goa enjoyed a period of prosperity unseen either in Goa before or in India now. "In India now" because India was once a prosperous land. Roman Emperor Vespasian (69-79 AD) discouraged Indian imports and Pliny the Elder (23-79 AD) lamented, "Not a year passed in which India did not take 50 million sesterces away from Rome" (Naturalis Historiae or Natural History). British economist Angus Maddison (1926-2010) estimated in The World Economy's Historical Statistics (2004) that India enjoyed a staggering 33% share of the world economy in the 1st century AD, compared to that of entire Europe (21.5%) and China (26%). India held about 25-30% of all the gold ever mined in the world. This attracted invaders and plunderers. Mahmud of Ghazni raided India 17 times in 25 years, 1001 to 1026. Babar wrote, "Hindustan is a place of little charm.... The one nice aspect of Hindustan is that it is a large country with lots of gold and money" (Tuzuk-i-Baburi). By 1498 when Vasco da Gama arrived, India's share of the world economy stood at 24.5% and, thanks to Great Britain, shrunk to 16% by end of the First Industrial Revolution (1820)... and to a dismal 4.2% in 1947 (Europe and North America surged to 60%). Post 1947, India's leadership chose not to prosper. The share slid to 3% in 1991 when, under severe circumstances, India, the world's second most populous country, pawned gold with the Union Bank of Switzerland. The Economic Blockade of 1954 did a world of good to Goa. For the first time in history, Portugal drafted a six-year Economic Development Plan for Goa. A provision of 200,00,000 Escudos for construction of airports in Goa, Daman and Diu was made in the first Development Plan, 1953-1958. Airfields were quickly constructed in Goa, Daman and Diu in 1955 by the Obras Públicas (local PWD). A Goa-based civilian airline, Transportes Aéreos da Índia Portuguesa (TAIP), began operations with DeHavilland Herons each carrying 14 passengers with a flying range of 608 nautical miles. Goan expatriate Gabriel de Figueiredo in a well-researched article titled 'Dabolim and TAIP' said these aircraft were replaced by Vickers Vikings carrying 27 passengers over 1,477 nautical miles. The fleet was later expanded with McDonnell Douglas DC-4 Skymaster and DC-6B. For the record, TAIP was the first civilian airline from India whose airhostesses wore the sari as uniform. Patsy Almeida Cardoso who worked as a TAIP airhostess said every time a flight landed in Lisbon, its airport staff would say, "Já chegaram as pombinhas brancas de Índia" (the white doves of India have arrived)... Goan airhostesses wore white saris in summer. TAIP flew to Colombo, Daman, Diu, Karachi, Aden and Jeddah, and to Lisbon via Damascus, Beirut and Malta, then a British colony. The seven-year Economic Blockade led to three unwitting results. One, it demonstrated to India that Goa was not economically dependent and could survive on its own. Two, imports of western merchandise -- especially luxuries like silks, fountain pens, watches, liquor, silver, gold and precious stones -- led to cross-border smuggling by locals who posed as 'freedom fighters'. Goa's first elected Chief Minister, D.B. Bandodkar, called freedom fighters blackists, meaning smugglers, to the howls of protest of genuine freedom fighters! Brigadier (later Lieutenant General) Sagat Singh had an interesting account of an attempt by a sub-unit of his 50 Para Brigade to capture the Sanquelim Bridge intact where Goan smugglers helped with maps and ground guidance (follows in a later piece when we come to the actual military ops). Author Arthur Rubinoff said Goa was "a haven for smugglers" (Rubinoff, 1971, Pg 106). In just three months, Indian Customs seized contraband valued at Rs.25 lakhs (of the value of 1954, when gold was Rs. 5/- per gram against Rs. 5,000/- today) – and Customs Department believed it had detected/seized only about 10% of the goods smuggled from Goa into India (Rubinoff, 1971, Pg 34). The Consul General of India in Goa pointed out that one-third of Goa's economy survived on contraband smuggled into India. Of the Rs.9 crore imports, only Rs.3 crore worth goods were utilised in Goa, while Rs.6 crore were smuggled into India, he said. Silk imported into Goa was of the value of Rs. 5,68,000/- in 1948. By 1957, this increased to a whopping Rs. 100,00,000/- (Resources & Potentialities of Goa by Gerald Pereira, 1958). It was not as if Goans had suddenly discarded cottons and begun the exclusive use of silk. In 1956, Rs. 5 crore worth of gold was 'officially' imported into Goa -- not counting the gold 'unofficially' imported by businessmen ... like one who held both a TAIP ticket-selling monopoly in Goa, Daman, Diu and Karachi and a diplomatic passport (Teotónio Souza, Portuguese Literary & Cultural Studies 17/18, Dartmouth: University of Massachusetts, 2010, Page 158) and by Goan mine owners to bribe the Goa Governor-General, ferried, as seen, in three chartered Sabena Airways seaplanes. Most of this gold, of either description (official and otherwise), was smuggled into India. The third unwitting result: locals who clandestinely carried contraband across the border masquerading as 'freedom fighters' fed lies about the Portuguese military disposition existing in Goa to Indian intelligence gathering. This would boomerang in intelligence reports, and consequently, on the war mobilisation, as we shall see later. Just a thought: who were the majority of these smugglers -- driven by avarice, no doubt -- but who helped the colonial regime in a roundabout way? 'Anti-national' Goan Catholics? Various stringent economic measures were relaxed, as for instance on remittances and travel to and fro Goa, at various points of time. India finally lifted the trade embargo of Portuguese Goa on 1 April 1961. Nehru emphasised this was not an abandonment of economic sanctions but only a variation to help poorer Goans. Under the new terms, only betelnuts would be imported and medicines, cloth, books, tea and leather goods would be exported to Goa. -- Excerpted from the revised text of the book, Patriotism In Action: Goans in India's Defence Services by Valmiki Faleiro, first published in 2010 by Goa,1556 (ISBN: 978-93-80739-06-9). Revised edition awaits publication. *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*- Join a discussion on Goa-related issues by posting your comments on this or other issues via email to goa...@goanet.org See archives at http://lists.goanet.org/pipermail/goanet-goanet.org/ *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-