To,
The Editor,
Gomantak Times,
Panaji
Sub: Nothing objectionable,only factual says Nagesh Karmali. GT dated
23.12.2004 page 1.
Dear Sir,
Can one really call a person, who is unwilling to come on record about his
views on the Goan freedom struggle in a FREE Goa[ currently under a
pro-hindu BJP dispensation] that is a part of an INDEPENDENT India, a
FREEDOM FIGHTER? Such persons are better off wearing green and red glass
bangles on their arms. If they cannot speak, the truth or otherwise, with
their names on record in a country that enshrines the Freedom of Speech in
its Constitution, they are unlikely to have dared to work against the
dictatorial regime of antonio Oliviera de Salazar. The tamra patra that they
have fraudulently obtained to benefit from the pension and reservation
schemes should be returned to the Government.
These so called 'Freedom Fighters' may one day want us to believe that
'Admiral' Thimmaya [a Camotim ?] defected from the Bijapur Kingdom, worked
with the Vijaynagar Kingdom and Vasco da Gama[1502 to1508] and then led
Afonso de Albuquerque to attack Goa in March ,1510, to liberate it from
its Muslim ruler[Adil Shah]. His descendents can then be eligible for
pension and other benefits given to freedom fighters. Seems like
Dr.Olivinho Gomes shares this line of thought on the liberation of Goan
hindus by Thimmaya with Portuguese assistance.Even Nagesh Karmali fled the
field while we were discussing this worthy historical figure after the
infamous Mala PNKS incident which he co-led with Rajendra, the son of his
friend and co-scrutinizer of the infamous VCD, Subhash Velingker.
I have had the misfortune to interact with the late Shri Vishwanath
N.Lawande in 1983 and 1984 when he was the incumbent President of the
Freedom Fighters' Association of Goa. He was developing the land at
Matne[Sindhudurg taluka of Maharashtra] across the border from
Maulinguem-Bicholim which is now Capt.Lobo's Hideaway.The work was of
re-directing the course of the river and he was using a bulldozer from the
Government of Goa; both acts were patently illegal.He was using one anguta
shaap[Thumb impression illiterate man] called Dhaktu Shirodkar from
Bicholim and the Sanjivani Society as fronts to defraud the Indian [not
Portuguese] Government.
He attempted to bribe me[ then just in the second year of Government
service] with Rs.10,000/- [then equal to 10 months worth of my high status '
four figure salary' ] to get his work done partly off record. When he did
not succeed, he made a complaint against me to my Controlling Officer. It is
then that I fully understood what my father had told me when I asked why he
was not applying for the 'tamra patra' when it would benefit one more
generation through reservation in professional colleges and jobs [I was in
school when I asked him]. He said, I was jailed in 1955 for possessing
Mahatma Gandhi's autobiography 'My Experiments with Truth'. I was not really
a freedom fighter; neither are these rogues who were jailed for crimes and
are now masquerading as Freedom Fighters.Do you want your father to be
counted among rogues? What the Portuguese could not do with jeep-borne
police was done by an amoeba traveeling in a mosquito.The late V.N.Lawande
was killed by malaria. May his soul rest in peace. There are ,of course,
genuine freedom fighters whom I met through my father, who was a co-prisoner
with the late Bhausaheb Bandodkar and a fan of his until death.
If there is a connection of Inquisition [ in the 18th and 19th century] with
the freedom struggle in Goa [mostly in the late 19th and 20th century], let
the so-called freedom fighters tell us what it is--and stand by it on
record. If Damodar Mauzo can write his name and let his phot be published
when taking a stand in favour of his Christian brethren in Goa, can these
persons[ men may be too strong a word to describe them] not stand by their
bigoted views? I stand by what I write and in witness whereof I write my
name.
Yours sincerely,
Miguel Braganza
Mapusa-Goa.
9822982676
