2008/10/17 Gabriel de Figueiredo <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > Subodh Kerkar with his art > http://www.flickr.com/photos/joegoauk15/2946619873/sizes/l/ > > The above is reminiscent of the cartoons that appeared on some international > newspapers after that invasion of Dec 1961. > > One particular one shows a knife in Gandhi's back, with the word Goa on its > hilt. Another is the ghost of Gandhi in chains behind Krisha Menon, with > Krisha Menon saying "Gandhi is not here, is he?"
Talking about the "international" papers, the US anthropologist (then based in La Trobe, Australia) once gave me a set of microfilm copies of the front pages of the New York Times, leading to the build-up of 1961. For obvious reasons (cultural biases and geo-political interests), the NYT carried Goa on the frontpages for almost a fortnight, with a series of amazingly one-sided coverage. Of course, those were the days of the Cold War, and the US was still caught on the "wrong" side of the fence, before its "pro-democracy" rhetoric of latter decades. On the other hand, the former Soviet Union was painting itself in a "progressive" light, supporting de-colonising movements across the globe (of course, it had nothing to lose, being a regional colonial power last in the times of the Tsar, though it was also easy to engineer secessionist movements in its far-flung border areas to weaken the failed superpower, as the post-1990 events showed). The latter's stand would work to its advantage for a few more decades, till Afghanistan. Self-interest was the obvious reason for such propaganda in the "international" media (we know how one-sided and neo-colonial the transational newsflows then were). Of course, the self-interest was on both sides, that of the "international community" and its antedulivan Portuguese allies, and of course the post-British Indian state, in its "national building" frenzy. We need to recognise too that opinion was divided within Goa too. With the privledged elites and the middle-classes (who had it good) largely supportive of the Portuguese, and the bulk of the population of that time hankering for a better deal. Of course, there were complications too ... like the support to the Portuguese by the poor Goan in Bombay, pushed out from his homeland due to the inefficiencies of Portuguese colonialism in the first place. And then, there was the business elite in Goa, that not only went to quickly change track but also retain their mining leases till the 21st century, and curry favour with the new power elite in no time. [Trade unionist the late Gerard Pereira (we have in cyberspace his son Thalmann, named after the German KPD Weimar Republic-time leader Ernst 1886-1944 arrested by the Gestapo in 1933, held in solitary confinement for 11 years, and shot at Buchenwald on Hitler's orders in 1944) used to narrate how in the late 1950s, the mineowners of Goa promised to stand by 'the Nation'. You can guess which nation it was. I think there's a reference to such a quote during the launch of some plant in 1956, in a newspaper from Bombay, in Pereira's book. ] It's time the handful of Goanetters who hanker for the past woke up to the realities, and acknowledge that while life might have been priviledge in pre-1961 times for them, this was not the reality for all. Otherwise, we are just looking at the world with ourselves as the centre! FN -- FN * Independent Journalist http://fn.goa-india.org M: +91-9822122436 P: +91-832-2409490