By Valmiki Faleiro valmikif at gmail.com
(It was called Operation Vijay-1 after Kargil 1999 was also named Operation Vijay, necessitating the use of numerals 1 and 2 to distinguish one from the other.) On 13 December 1961, the USA pressurised both India and Portugal to settle the Goa issue without the use of force. India's D-day of 14 December 1961 was postponed by two days, to 16 December 1961. On 15 December 1961, the US Ambassador to India, Prof. John Kenneth Galbraith, briefed Finance Minister Morarji Desai on the US position. Desai (later the 4th Prime Minister in 1977-79 after Nehru, Shastri and Indira Gandhi) was the chief opponent of using force in Goa. He expressed "inability to support violent means because of strong personal belief in the validity and necessity of non-violence as the true means of solving the colonial problem". He counselled patience and steadfastly debated with Defence Minister Krishna Menon against using force in Goa... famously known as the 'Morarji vs Menon' debate. On 16 December 1961, US President John F Kennedy personally messaged Nehru. D-day was postponed again to midnight 17/18 December 1961. So optimistic were the Portuguese that last-minute US diplomacy would succeed that on Saturday, 16 December 1961, the Governor-General and Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces in Goa attended the wedding reception of his friend, Vasantrao Dempo's daughter. (Like the Gandhi topi -- that can be turned in opposite directions -- Dempo would soon turn into Dhempe; and, according to a fable of the famed Doutor Kui, if the Chinese had walked in in October 1962, Dhempe would have become Dempoo.) On 17 December 1961, the US Ambassador Prof. John Kenneth Galbraith met Nehru again and proposed that India postpone military action by six months (to give diplomacy one last chance). An alarmed Krishna Menon told Nehru and Prof. Galbraith at that meeting that it was too late: "I am very sorry, the troops have moved [meaning, are already inside Goa]; we cannot pull them back now; I have no means of communication." It was another downright lie by India's defence minister, which he nonchalantly admitted later. Indian troops were still at Goa's borders, bracing for the midnight hour, the H-Hour (alliteration for 'hour'), the zero hour of invasion. Later that night (17 December 1961), Krishna Menon would come to the borders of Goa to inspect the troops. By now, he had earned a sobriquet twisted from the snake Boa Constrictor, Goa Constrictor. At the stroke of the midnight hour, 17/18 December 1961 (or Monday, 18 December 1961, 00.00 hours), India's military might crossed the international borders and rolled into Goa, Daman and Diu. The "much-delayed according to some and, it is now known, postponed at least twice in the hope that diplomatic methods might yet succeed," said The Economic Weekly (Bombay, Vol. XIII, Nos. 51 & 52 dated 23 December 1961), 'Op Vijay' rolled out. Times of India banner headlined: 'Our Troops Enter Goa, Diu and Daman at Last'. There were 16 foreign mediamen present in Goa at the time. India announced the action to the world later in the day on 18 December 1961. Indian land forces stole a quick march in an almost bloodless conquest. There were some skirmishes in Daman and Diu. In Goa, brief combat was witnessed only in the naval action in Anjediva, in the Zuari-Mandovi estuary and when an Indian Army unit was briefly bogged down in Verna. From here on, let us peek at the action in Goa, service-wise. The task of subduing the Portuguese and capturing Goa was assigned to 17 Infantry Division under command of the Special Task Force Commander, just promoted Major General (later Lieutenant General and Army Commander, Western Command) KP Candeth, PVSM. 17 Infantry Division being the main task force was given the shorter, better and easier route into Goa from Anmod in the east. Its objectives were to capture Panjim, Dabolim and Vasco da Gama (capture of Mormugao port was assigned to the Indian Navy). Maj Gen Candeth had two brigades: 63 Infantry Brigade under Brigadier KS Dhillon as the operational brigade and 48 Infantry Brigade under Brigadier Gurbux Singh as the reserve brigade (the third brigade, 64 Infantry, was left behind at Kasauli). The operational 50 Independent Parachute Brigade under Brigadier (later Lieutenant General and Corps Commander, IV Corps) Sagat Singh, PVSM, in a diversionary role from Dodamarg in the north aimed at splitting the defenders who would otherwise stage a concerted resistance to 17 Infantry Division, was also placed at the command of Major General KP Candeth. The feint from the south (Karwar-Canacona-Margao) by a Company of the 4 Rajput Battalion was directly under HQ Southern Command. Major Fonseca SO 2 (Signals) was tasked to extend / bridge the line of communication with two detachments of newly imported RS C41/R22 radio relay sets along with detachments of 1 Air Support Signal Unit under Captain AS Kahlon in support of the advance of 17 Infantry Division on the Tinaighat-Anmod-Panjim axis. Similarly, Major Fonseca was to support the 50 Parachute Brigade along the Sawantwadi-Bicholim-Ponda axis with two radio relay sets under Captain George A Newton (Maj Gen VK Singh, History of the Corps of Signals, Volume III, Chapter 3). -- Excerpted from 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. Tailpiece: This column, which simultaneously appears in three languages -- Marathi in Goa daily Gomantak, Portuguese/English in Forum ELOS in Lisbon, and English on some Goa-centric Facebook groups -- on 'Fake Freedom Fighters' last Sunday, produced much reader response and several stories. Two stood out... Olavio Fernandes of St. Cruz/Kalapur, a fellow boarder at Loyola-Margao and later an agriculture graduate with the state Agriculture Department, once spruced up the Raj Bhavan gardens for the Governor's Liberation Day tea party. He met a state guest, improbably young to be a freedom fighter. And out came the story: The 'freedom fighter' was eight years old when his father, a freedom activist, had to hide from the Portuguese police somewhere in Taleigao. His mother sent him with eatables for the father, telling the boy to bring back the containers. When waiting for the empty containers, police raided the hideout. While the father escaped, the boy and three other men were picked up and lodged in the Panjim police lockup. The mother got the boy released within two days. Soon, post 1961, the boy was registered as a freedom fighter. Asli or Nakli? Miguel Mascarenhas of Sanguem, a former journo and Higher Secondary school lecturer, tells another, of a 'freedom fighter' who was not a freedom fighter but was arrested for being a freedom fighter ... reminiscent of the Marathi drama, Karaila gela ek ani zale baltach: Two neighbours in Sanguem were forever at loggerheads. The wife of one had a brainwave. She told her husband to denounce the neighbour as a Jaihn (Goans generally could not pronounce Jai Hind, connoting a freedom fighter). Portuguese police promptly arrested the innocent neighbour. 19 December 1961 soon arrived. The man was released and was registered as a freedom fighter. Pension for lifetime made him popular in the area. The denouncing neighbour rued the result, Kelem kitem ani zalem kitem.