Published in NT on: December 12, 2010 - 22:49 BY NANDKUMAR KAMAT UNLIKE some slavish neo-Salazarist and culturally rootless and confused Goans, the Portuguese who fought Salazar and admire Saramago have no problem in having a fresh look at their forefathers' deeds or misdeeds. In 2001, Fundacao Oriente sponsored the festschrift volume-The Portuguese, Indian Ocean and European bridgeheads, 1500-1800 in honour of Professor K S Mathew.
In his essay the eminent Australian historian, an expert on Asian colonisation, Professor Pearson had exploded the myth of cultural superiority of the Portuguese. Raising important questions, he answered these himself. He asked, "If we take a very long term view, can we say that the Portuguese opened the door for other Europeans to come in and change Asia profoundly? Were they harbingers of a future when most areas in Asia were colonised by the European powers, with very dramatic and deleterious consequences? Again this claim is difficult to sustain." Cultural and Linguistic Genocide What Pearson says further should put to rest any tall claims of the so called 'civilising' influence of the Portuguese. Freedom fighter, Late Laxmikant Bhembre, imprisoned in Portugal refused to return to Goa and had spent a considerable time in the libraries and archives there to collect the original evidence of the so called "civilising influence". Although he was denied access to some sensitive manuscripts, documents and books he succeeded in compiling enough evidence about the systematic attempt for three centuries of uprooting Goan cultural and linguistic identity. Unfortunately, his Marathi book published in May 1987, just a week before Goa got statehood could never be translated in English or Portuguese. The 40 chapters of Bhembre's book confirms the world's and Asia's least discussed cultural and linguistic genocide. Even the Nazis had not gone to the level of forcing people to eat like the Portuguese did. In her eye opening chapter' Vindaloo: The Portuguese and the Chilli Pepper' from the highly enjoyable and well researched tome, Curry: A Tale of Cooks and Conquerors (OUP, 2006), Lizzie Collingham mentions, "Portuguese cooking was strongly meat based. Lamb, pork, and beef were the most favoured meats. Pork was, of course, forbidden for Muslims, as was beef for Hindus, and many Indians were vegetarian. Indifferent to the feelings of the indigenous population, the Portuguese continued to eat all these meats whenever they could. This was not unusual. What is striking, however, is that they succeeded in changing the eating habits of the Indians living in their territories. By the 1650s Jean-Baptiste Tavernier reported that beef and pork were "the ordinary foods of the inhabitants of Goa," and Christian Goan cuisine today uses a great deal of meat, especially pork. Nowhere else in India did European settlement have this impact. The British certainly did not persuade their subjects to relinquish their taboos on meat consumption." Those who resisted diet engineering discovered the typical Goan fish curry-humon, amati or kol which has now become a fully indigenised and globally popular recipe. The black peppers, 'miri' were replaced by 'mirsang', the Capsicum species introduced by the Portuguese. Pearson acknowledges such ingenuity and creativity of highly cultured and civilised people in Asia. Answering his own questions he wrote, "As we have been pointing out, in many areas the Portuguese had no particular advantage over the Asian states and peoples with whom they had dealings. They were, if you like, as pre-modern or early modern as anyone else. Generally speaking, westerners had no superiority in any area at this time. This was obviously the case in terms of culture, society or religion, and it would be racist to say otherwise. However, this also applies in material matters, such as the production of goods, trade practices, technology, etc. Inequality appeared only when Western Europe industrialised, and for the first time we have a rich world and a poor world." Political Corruption While not denying credit that is historically due to the Portuguese, Professor Pearson fires a final salvo, "We do not need to accept the grandiose claims of some historians which see them as bringing civilisation to Asia, or as achieving mastery over the ocean'. The ruthless Portuguese colonial rule had destroyed the beautiful and ancient social cultural architecture of "ganvpon" and "gaunkaris' of Goa. Original pre-Portuguese archival documents in Hale kannada and modi scripts transliterated by epigraphist and archivist Gajanan Ghantkar prove the total absence of corruption in Goan society. The Gaunkaris had the fear of their deities and had not heard of institutionalised corruption-an infection which the Portuguese introduced permanently in the Goan society. The patron saint of Goa, Saint Francis Xavier was bitter about what he saw around him. Four hundred years later (1985) a research centre established in his name published, The black legend of Portuguese India by George Davison Winius with a subtitle, a contribution to the study of political corruption in the empires of early modern Europe. The history of institutionalised and political corruption in Goa after the breakdown of self administered gaunkaris can be traced back to the facts recorded in this book. The myth of "Goa Dourado" was constructed on the foundation of the cultural genocide. How the civilised Portuguese permitted the decay of city of Old Goa? Jose Fonseca (1878) observed, "Society was almost rotten to the core. The morals of the community were extremely lax. Profligacy had become predominant and fashionable vice, and men gave themselves up to the sensual pleasures peculiar to Oriental life. Nor was the public administration less tainted. The civic virtues of Albuquerque and Castro were supplanted by corruption and venality; justice was bought; the public offices were put up to sale; and the martial sprit of the nation degenerated into effeminacy, sloth and indolence as in the last days of Roman Empire". On November 25, 1950, late Vasant Nevrekar, a Goan who had a laudable career in Indian diplomatic missions, had written an article in Mumbai's Free Press journal captioned, November 25: A challenge to our sovereignty. He exposed the mental slavery of Goans. This needs to be translated and read in every school of Goa after flag hoisting on December 19. (to be continued).