Dear Bhushan, He was the engineer Joaquim Xavier Oto de Sequeira (sometimes expelled Siqueira) Coutinho born in Cape Verde, being the son of a Goa doctor at the Portuguese colonial military medical service (José António Valeriano Coutinho) and brother of the writer Maria Luísa de Sequeira Coutinho. I came across him when doing research for my thesis. At the moment I was searching at the archives of Portuguese parliament the candidates to the first parliamentary elections after the 1910 republican revolution and came across his name. I had never heard of him but started digging as he was described by his supporters - headed by Luis de Menezes, who by that time was part of the team of the newspaper Debate directed by Menezes Bragança - as being "a devoted and years-long republican, son of this land" residing in Lisbon. He was in addition supported by the Portuguese Republican Party. According to Peregrino da Costa, Sequeira Coutinho studied in Lisbon and Cambridge (in fact he studied in London and Oxford where there was a significant Indian student community). He left to Berlin and than migrated to the USA after working for some years with the Portuguese railways and becoming involved in Portuguese politics. After the revolution, he was the secretary of Manuel de Arriaga. At the time of my thesis, I came across his fascinating story which has been in part reconstituted by the members of a team dedicated to study Savarkar and his network. After my thesis I was able to come into contact with his grandson in the United States who shared a biography of Otto written by his daughter - a lovely family who have facilitated me a significant number of documents. Basically, when in England, Oto came into contact with the Abhinav Bharat Society, founded by Savarkar, becoming a member or at least a sympathizer. It was when living there that he was entrusted the manuscript of the book, in a moment when Savarkar was arrested and the group, who had liaisons with Madame Cama in Paris, persecuted. As he was presented as a Portuguese with no links with India that must have been the reason for choosing him. In any case, he kept the manuscript until India's independence when he returned it to Savarkar. Along the years he kept some links with the Indian anticolonial circles. When still living in Portugal he ended being forced to leave the country due to British pressure. In the USA he became known as a specialist in Portuguese language and history, in addition to being a specialist in geopolitics. He was one of members of the founding team of the Foreign Service School of Georgetown University which invested in the American sphere of influence in Latin America, among other assignments he took along the years. Among other honors gathered along his life, since the eve of the Portuguese republican revolution, in the 1950s he was decorated a medal by Salazar's government for his services to Portuguese language and historiography... . Along the years I have gathered a significant number of documents, and I want one day to dedicate a proper study to him.
best wishes, Sandra Sandra Ataíde Lobo [cid:d3979e5d-c37f-4e5a-a7c9-80c5d1f9f0d9][cid:4d6f0686-91e5-4130-be78-d3a4b7a83567] [cid:be7c028f-cd40-4dcd-a5fe-8443f0275122] [cid:5ede759e-8061-478e-835f-59a73e93f716] https://giepcip.wordpress.com/ https://praticasdahistoria.pt/ tmn. ++351 930690459 ________________________________ De: [email protected] <[email protected]> em nome de Bhushan Bhave <[email protected]> Enviado: 28 de outubro de 2023 06:23 Para: The Goa Book Club <[email protected]> Assunto: Re: [GOABOOKCLUB] Savarkar - Son of Portugal Dear Sandra, can you please provide details of the person who saved copy of Savarkar's book on 1857 revolution? On Tuesday, May 28, 2019 at 11:18:40 PM UTC+5:30 sandra lobo wrote: That thesis about Shivaji was a motive of waste of a lot of ink.... Regarding Savarkar, the story shared by Sajan is absolutely delicious. What many may not know is that a son of Goa played an important role in saving the manuscript of his book on the 1857 Revolt. Best wishes, Sandra Sandra Ataíde Lobo CHAM – Centro de Humanidades, FCSH/NOVA-UAC [https://groups.google.com/group/goa-book-club/attach/5a1abc3a9efb9/Outlook-l2eykodi.png?part=0.1&view=1] https://giepcip.wordpress.com/ tmn. +351919214170<tel:+351%20919%20214%20170> ________________________________ De: [email protected] <[email protected]> em nome de Frederick Noronha <[email protected]> Enviado: 28 de maio de 2019 13:40 Para: [email protected] Cc: Ashley D'Mello; Brenda Rodrigues Assunto: Re: [GOABOOKCLUB] Savarkar - Son of Portugal Someone has also claimed that Shivaji was born in Bassein and was of Portuguese descent: https://www.jstor.org/stable/25194201 -- _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ _/ _/ FN फ्रेड्रिक नोरोन्या * فريدريك نورونيا _/ https://archive.org/details/@fredericknoronha _/ _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ On Tue, 28 May 2019, 19:01 Sajan Venniyoor, <[email protected]> wrote: It was reported<https://www.theweek.in/news/india/2019/05/27/son-portugal-savarkar-bjp-flays-rajasthan-congress-textbook-revision.html> by the Press Trust of India – a story<https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/fresh-feud-over-son-of-portugal-savarkar/articleshow/69529453.cms> then picked up major newspapers – that the Congress govt in Rajasthan had offered up a major insult to V D Savarkar by captioning his photograph in a Class X textbook, “Son of Portugal”. Savarkar, of course, is a fairly controversial figure in post-colonial India. It was reported last year that a Class X text book in Goa had replaced Nehru’s image with that of Savarkar's (though not calling him a ‘Son of Portugal’), and this was roundly condemned by the Congress. Only this morning, Savarkar’s portrait was unveiled in the Goa Assembly complex by the Chief Minister, who said, “The tortures endured by Veer Savarkar during freedom struggle in Andaman prison in 1883 have been forgotten. People should read his autobiography” (Actually, Mr. Sawant should read Savarkar’s biography. Savarkar was born in 1883. He was imprisoned in the Cellular Jail in 1911). Anyway, I was somewhat puzzled by the caption in the Rajasthan textbook, “Son of Portugal”. As far as I knew, Savarkar – a Chitpavan Brahmin from Nashik – had no Portuguese connections. And then it hit me. While imprisoned in the Andaman & Nicobar islands, Savarkar had written several infamous mercy petitions to the colonial government, begging to be released. He wrote the first one within six months of becoming Convict No: 32778 in Cellular Jail. In a second petition dated 14 Nov 1913 – a fairly craven piece of work – Savarkar swore loyalty to the English government, “if the government in their manifold beneficence and mercy release me,” adding: “The Mighty alone can afford to be merciful and therefore where else can the prodigal son return but to the parental doors of the Government?” Ah, the Prodigal Son. Or, in Hindi, the “Son of Portugal” (पुर्तगाल का पुत्र). The translator’s is a thankless job, and I can imagine the poor chap trying to make sense of ‘prodigal’ – not a common word in Hindi – and deciding Savarkar meant ‘Portugal’. (Savarkar, incidentally, was extremely well read in several languages, and contributed many words to the Marathi vocabulary. He also popularized the term ‘Hindutva’). Savarkar is a bogeyman to left-liberals, and a hero to the right. He was a patriot, admittedly a fairly homicidal one in the non-Gandhian tradition, but nevertheless a deshbhakt. Though he was – and is – many things to many people, I’m fairly sure Savarkar was never, in his chequered career, a son of Portugal. I’d be very happy to be proved wrong. Sajan -- *** Please be polite and on-topic in your posts. *** --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Goa Book Club" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/goa-book-club. 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