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Gurudas Kunde joined the anti-nationalists when he was just 17 years old. Their movement gathered at night, to discuss the injustices of the state. They worked hard to pass the message to other idealistic young men and women. On 17th February 1955, Kunde (along with Viswanath Gude, Rajnikant Mahatme and Dinkar Ambe) dramatically offered satyagraha, by shouting slogans and unfurling the tiranga near the Municipality building in Margao. For this act of conscience, he was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment, and disinherited by his father to boot. By that time, Alvaro Pereira was already incarcerated in Aguada jail. The 29-year-old was part of a resistance cell under Peter Alvares, and his compatriots Ravindra Raiturkar, Shivnath Karmalkar and Abu Naik were also brought into custody. Found guilty of distributing pamphlets, Pereira was given 11 years for “anti-national crimes.” The sadistic Agente Casimiro Monteiro singled out this “big fish” for inhuman beatings, demanding an apology. But Pereira refused to bend. When the visiting priest, Father Chico Monteiro complained about the abuse, Captain Romba exploded, “what do you expect Padre, should we offer him bonbons?” Kunde and Pereira were released on the international Amnesty Day, August 15, 1959. By this time, the writing was on the wall about colonialism. The last Governor General of the Estado da India, Vassalo E Silva admitted years later, “The liberation of Goa was in the interest of Goans. Though Portugal ruled Goa for 450 years, this territory had always remained a part and parcel of India, irrespective of some people who might feel otherwise. It was also in the interest of Portugal that Goa should go back to the hands of Goans.” But that wisdom was not apparent in white-hot 1961, when Indian troops swept across the border. Quite the opposite, Vassalo E Silva was told to “prevail or perish.’ It was only his own brave acts of conscience that prevented, in his own words, “the total destruction of Goa.” Then, “harassed, humiliated, and even stripped of my powers” he returned to Portugal. Here he faced the singular wrath of Salazar, the authoritarian Prime Minister, whose deeply regressive Estado Novo survived from the 1930s right to the Carnation Revolution in 1974. In uncanny parallel with several hard-right leaders of the 21st century, people continue to debate whether Salazar was actually a fascist. But there is no doubt we see a contemporary revival of his trademark blend of cult of personality, vainglorious nationalism, highly conservative religiosity, and disdain for parliament. Crucially, he also criminalized dissent, which is what jailed Gurudas Kunde and Jose Pereira in Goa. Another victim was the Goan-Mozambican novelist Orlando da Costa, who was arrested several times by Salazar’s secret police But here’s the big lesson from all this history. Truth prevails. Iniquity fails. As Martin Luther King said, “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” Orlando da Costa’s son became the Mayor of Lisbon, and is the current Prime Minister of Portugal. When he visited Goa earlier this year, he met 93-year-old Alvaro Pereira at his civic reception in Panjim, an extraordinary vindication of moral courage, and the difficult road taken by many “anti-nationals” to the betterment of both nations. Today, no country is closer to India than Portugal. But the days of sacrifice and strife aren’t yet over, and no one is more aware (or ready to serve again) than Kunde and Pereira, who spend almost every morning together at the latter’s little shop on Azad Maidan in the state capital. They pore through the newspapers together. Earlier this week, they read about the shocking wave of arrests of activists and lawyers under the rubric of “urban Naxals” and the Supreme Court ruling “dissent is the safety valve of democracy, if it is not allowed the pressure cooker will burst.” Pereira said, “it’s just like Salazar, all over again.”