[Goanet-News] 26. Balance of Power (Valmiki Faleiro)
26. Balance of Power By Valmiki Faleiro valmi...@gmail.com As seen, India mobilised a relatively large military force -- land, sea and air -- to physically oust a minuscule and ill-armed Portuguese military presence from Goa, Daman and Diu. Let us take a peek at how imbalanced the comparative strength of the two sides actually was, in Goa alone. In terms of ground forces mobilised by India, the disproportion or numerical superiority was about 10:1 (30,000 Indian troops versus the Portuguese garrison of 3,300), as estimated in most diplomatic reports. Some exaggerated reports put the figure at 45,000 infantry. One patently false report declared the ratio was 30:1, stating that three 'Divisions' were used when in fact two brigades were used and the third was held in reserve (three brigades equal one division). In terms of naval power, India deployed 16 warships -- a carrier group comprising of one aircraft carrier with one cruiser, one destroyer and three antisubmarine, torpedo and antiaircraft frigates as escort ships patrolling the Arabian Sea some 80-50 miles off Goa, one cruiser and one destroyer for the assault in Anjediva, three frigates for the assault at Mormugao, four minesweepers and one support vessel -- against a lone and ageing Portuguese destroyer and a small patrol boat. In terms of air power, there was no basis for comparison. India deployed a huge force of fighters, bombers, reconnaissance, air observation, communications, transports and helicopters in Pune and Belgaum plus Naval Aviation's air combat Sea Hawk and recce/anti-submarine Alizé aircraft aboard the INS Vikrant against a non-existent enemy air force. Portugal had zero aircraft in Goa (not to be confused with Japan's feared 'Zero' aircraft -- the Mitsubishi A6M combat aircraft called Reisen or the Zero fighter -- that caused havoc in the earlier stages of World War II). In terms of equipment, the disproportion varied from department to department. There was no artillery worth the name in Goa. Some ageing 6x105mm Portuguese howitzers faced a towed field artillery regiment and a heavy mortar mountain battery with air observation support (though towed artillery was meaningless on Goa's then narrow roads). The Portuguese in Goa had no modern infantry weapons, save a few mortars, LMGs and MMGs (light and medium automatics or machine guns). Perhaps the only area where there was some semblance of parity was in infantry rifles: while Portuguese troops used German Mausers of 1904 vintage and Lee-Enfield and Kropatschek rifles of 1917 vintage, Indian troops used Lee-Enfield rifles of 1917 vintage (instead of the recommended modern Belgian FN4 rifles because India's defence minister Krishna Menon, as seen, did not want NATO arms in India). [One Peter Paul Mauser rifle from an abandoned Portuguese arms and ammunition heap at the Cuelim-Cansaulim hilltop, wrapped in a mat and tied to the crossbar of a bicycle, resurfaced at remote São Brás-Cumbarjua. Elders in the family duly broke and disposed the firearm, to the chagrin of the enthusiastic lad who had pedalled with the weapon all the way from Cansaulim. Of no use to the Indian Army, the Portuguese rifles were handed over to the Goa Police, who stored them at their Altinho-Panjim armoury... from where the weapons began wriggling their way into the hands of Telugu naxalites, until terror police of the then unified State of Andhra Pradesh busted the racket in 1991.] India had all it took in excess, while the Portuguese were hopelessly ill-equipped. India's AMX tanks and Stuart armoured vehicles were pitted against a handful of Portuguese 1942-vintage armoured reconnaissance vehicles that were no longer armoured at the bottom... their worn-out bottom iron plates had been replaced with wooden planks of bacalhau (dried cod) crates. It typified the pathetic state of the Forças Armadas do Estado da Índia (armed forces of the Portuguese State of India). The Portuguese magazine Visão História wryly commented that the Portuguese equipment, only for the reason of being deployed in Goa, was not in a museum (Volume 14, 2011, Page 42). In the estimation of Goa-born Portuguese Colonel Carlos Alexandre de Morais in A Queda da Índia Portuguesa -- Crónica da Invasão e do Cativeiro (The Fall of Portuguese India -- Chronicle of the Invasion and Captivity, Lisbon: Editorial Estampa, 2nd edition 1995, ISBN: 9789723311341) the Indian side was "using combat vehicles of the latest model, artillery, air-transported troops, amphibious units, technical support, modern aviation, etc." while all that the Portuguese side had was "around 3,500 men ill-equipped with arms and ammunition, without armoured cars or anti-tank weapons, no air support, and practically without any artillery". Major General Dinesh Merchant, AVSM (a Pai
[Goanet-News] Assembly Elections 2022: Ten fights to follow in Goa (Pamela D'Mello, MoneyControl.com)
Assembly Elections 2022: Ten fights to follow in Goa Family fiefdoms, leaders making or breaking parties’ electoral fortunes and demanding constituents, these poll battles promise drama and nail-biting finishes PAMELA D'MELLO FEBRUARY 10, 2022 / 12:39 PM IST Watch out for cliffhangers and kingmakers in the Goa Assembly Elections 2022. (Representational image, Credit: Pexels) --- 1. Sanquelim: Mining town Sitting legislator and current chief minister Pramod Sawant is seeking re-election from this constituency in Sattari taluka for the third time. Sawant was appointed as chief minister by the central leadership of the BJP, after the untimely demise of Manohar Parrikar in March 2019. On February 14, he will face Dharmesh Saglani of the Indian National Congress. Saglani is no pushover. He heads the Sanquelim Municipal Council and recently scored another win in the council. As a mining area, Sanquelim faces high unemployment and disenchantment over failure to resume mining in some form. Current MLA (Party): Dr Pramod Pandurang Sawant (BJP) Winning Margin: 2,131 Traditional Stronghold of BJP/ Dr Pramod Pandurang Sawant Main Poll Issue: Closure of mining, Unemployment, Inflation Voter Demographics: Total Population: 37,867 Total voters: 27,491. Male voters: 13,557 Female voters: 13,934 Voter turnout at last poll (2017): 90.43 % --- 2. Margao: Kamat’s dominion This is former Congress chief minister Digambar Kamat's stronghold, and it has backed him solidly over the years. He won the seat for the BJP initially, but voters stayed with him even when he switched to the Congress in 2005. The BJP has been unable to unseat Kamat from this seat, despite their best efforts. Though the Congress has not officially announced it, Kamat is the de facto chief ministerial candidate of the Congress in 2022, making Margao a seat to watch. He led their government from 2007-2012. The commercial city of Margao is also the taluka headquarters of the Catholic dominated Salcete taluka, the South Goa District headquarters and an important cultural and intellectual centre. Current MLA (Party): Digambar Vasant Kamat (Indian National Congress) Winning Margin: 4186 Traditional Stronghold Indian National Congress/Digamber Vasant Kamat Main Poll Issue: Unemployment, a legacy garbage dump, sewerage, traffic congestion, demand of burial ground for Muslims, Water shortages Voter Demographics: Total Population: 40,392 Total voters: 29,434 Male voters: 14,435 Female voters: 14,999 Voter turnout at last poll (2017): 78.55 % --- 3. Marcaim: Hindutva politics’ stronghold A stronghold of Goa's oldest regional party, the Hindutva leaning Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party and its current leader Ramkrishna Sudin Dhavlikar, this interior Goa segment of Marcaim is in the temple taluka of Ponda. Dhavlikar has been winning here for multiple terms since 1999, the last time in 2017 with the highest electoral margin in those polls. MGP is in an alliance with the Trinamool Congress in Goa, and though the alliance has not officially named Dhavlikar, he is the defacto chief ministerial candidate of that alliance. The MGP has managed to win between 3-5 seats in the past four assembly terms and has adroitly managed its numbers to stay on the winning side, joining either the Congress or the BJP in several hung assembly verdicts or to shore up treasury bench numbers. With that strategy, Dhavlikar has been a minister in successive governments, and was last deputy chief minister in the BJP coalition government, before he was dropped in 2019. The regional saffron MGP's electoral and political fortunes are tied up with Sudin Dhavlikar and his brother Pandurang Deepak Dhavlikar, who run the party, and some say prefer it not expand, to retain control of its fortunes. Marcaim is also the headquarters of the controversial Hindutva Sanatan Saunstha organisation, and the family maintains close links with the same. Current MLA (Party): Ramkrishna Sudin Dhavlikar (Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party) Winning Margin: 13,680 Traditional Stronghold of Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party/ Ramkrishna Sudin Dhavlikar Main Poll Issue: Unemployment, Lack of Playgrounds Voter Demographics: Total population: 38,345 Total voters: 28,151 Male voters: 13,826 Female voters: 14,325 Voter turnout at last poll (2017): 86.55 % --- 4. Panjim: Son versus a defector As the capital city, this constituency on the Mandovi river bank, is important in itself. This time it is seeing a triangular contest between sitting MLA Atanasio Monserrate; independent candidate and BJP rebel Utpal Parrikar; and Congress candidate, a former bureaucrat and twice municipal commissioner of the city, Elvis Gomes. Also in the running is the Aam Aadmi Party's Valmiki Naik, whose
[Goanet-News] Hobbled by Voter Anger and Rebellion in Goa, BJP Turns To Familiar Ploy: Targeting Nehru (Devika Sequeira, TheWire.in)
Hobbled by Voter Anger and Rebellion in Goa, BJP Turns To Familiar Ploy: Targeting Nehru Amit Shah and Rajnath Singh have repeated PM Narendra Modi's claim that Jawaharlal Nehru deliberately "delayed" military action to free Goa from Portuguese colonial rule along with India's Independence. Hobbled by Voter Anger and Rebellion in Goa, BJP Turns To Familiar Ploy: Targeting Nehru Goa chief minister Pramod Sawant. Photo: Twitter/@BJP4GOA Devika Sequeira devikaseque...@gmail.com 11/FEB/2022 Panaji: The last phase of the election in Goa has put a shaky Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on the defensive, with the ruling party and its phalanx of big faces trying to distract the voter with an orchestrated attack against Jawaharlal Nehru and his role in Goa's Liberation of December 1961. Playing up Prime Minister Narendra Modi's spiel in parliament that Jawaharlal Nehru had deliberately "delayed" military action to free Goa from Portuguese colonial rule along with India's Independence, Union home minister Amit Shah and defence minister Rajnath Singh -- campaigning in Goa on February 9 -- sang the same tune. Had Nehru been a decisive prime minister, Goa would have been liberated in 1947, rather than 1961, Shah said, with Singh echoing the attack. "In trying to demolish Nehru's image, the BJP believes it will help them damage the Congress in this election," says Konkani writer, former editor and lawyer Uday Bhembre. With voter resentment against the BJP running high, the Congress campaign has moved apace, placing it as the principal challenger in this election, as the high-pitched disruptions of the Aam Aadmi Party and Trinamool Congress fade into the background. Bhembre says the BJP's attack on Nehru's role in liberating Goa is a "deliberate attempt to distort history" and in keeping with the party's political strategy to discredit him. "Nehru was a perfect democrat, and his decision to hold back on military action has to be seen in the context of the political history of the time," he says. Caught up in the spiral of problems in running the country post Independence, the Goa case would hardly have figured in the agenda of the new Congress government. "In any case, the decision to annexe Goa was not Nehru's alone, but the cabinet's," says Bhembre. With his hands tied by India's commitment to the UN and the non-aligned movement to desist from using force in taking back Goa, the country's first prime minister spent years exploring every diplomatic option to convince Portuguese dictator Antonio de Oliveira Salazar to give up Goa peacefully. The New York Times reported in July 1955 that Nehru had met with Pope Pius XII in Rome and brought up the "Goa question". Jawaharlal Nehru. Photo: Wikimedia Commons, public domain Quoting from Pundalik Gaitonde's book The Liberation of Goa: A Participant's View of History, Bhembre says Nehru sent the Goan surgeon (Gaitonde) who had connections in London on various diplomatic missions abroad "to see that Salazar doesn't force us to take military action". Gaitonde, a critic of the colonial regime, had been arrested in Goa in 1954 and deported to Portugal. He was released in 1955, after which he became something of Nehru's unofficial diplomat-at-large pushing for the cause of peacefully dismantling the colonial rule in Goa. Calling out the BJP's falsification of Goa's resistance struggle is also personal for Bhembre. His father, Laxmikant Bhembre, was arrested by the Portuguese in 1946, sentenced to four years and deported to the notorious political prison in fort Peniche, Portugal (the jail is today the National Museum of Resistance and Freedom). Bhembre's father spent 16 years in exile in Portugal before he was allowed to return to Goa after the Liberation. Though the RSS played no role in the resistance to Portuguese rule, as Bhembre points out, in another attempt to reinvent the historical narrative, the BJP under the late Manohar Parrikar, felicitated scores of Sangh members for "participating" in the Goa freedom movement. "The dynamics and politics of the liberation struggle of Goa had to consider the national and international geo-politics of that period. Today, historiography seems to be influenced by the colour of political ideology. Leaders are either humanised or demonised depending on which side of the political spectrum they belong," says writer and professor of history Sushila Sawant Mendes. Rebellions and departures It isn't the Congress alone that's pinching the BJP's Achille's heel in this election. The party's been hit by a series of departures and rebellions that's likely to overturn any hopes it has of making it anywhere close to the single largest party, leave alone a majority on its own. The most prominent face to desert the saffron party is the former union defence
[Goanet-News] 25. Mobilisation: Navy & IAF (Valmiki Faleiro)
25. Mobilisation: Navy & IAF
Valmiki Faleiro
valmi...@gmail.com
India assembled four naval task forces for the 1961 Goa ops.
Led by the newly acquired aircraft carrier INS Vikrant
bearing about a dozen-and-half Sea Hawk combat and Alizé
antisubmarine aircraft, the carrier group had the Indian
Navy’s flagship, cruiser INS Delhi, destroyer INS Rajput and
three frigates, INS Kirpan, INS Khukri and INS Kuthar with
antisubmarine, torpedo and antiaircraft capabilities.
Patrolling some 80 to 50 miles seaward off Goa, the carrier
group was deployed to fend off possible external intervention
(by NATO and/or Pakistan).
The main assault group billed to engage the Portuguese
destroyer at Mormugao consisted of three frigates: INS Betwa
(lead ship), INS Beas and INS Cauvery (since renamed Kaveri).
Two frigates of the carrier group were held in
reserve because it was believed that besides the
destroyer, the Portuguese had three frigates and
three S-class submarines in Goa. There were no
such frigates or submarines and the two Indian
reserve frigates were not used.
There were false reports, though, that the NRP Afonso de
Albuquerque disabled two Indian frigates of the assault group
and that the two reserve frigates of the carrier group had
taken their place. Lieutenant Commander John Eric Gomes (of
Margao, lives in Porvorim) was aboard the INS Cauvery during
battle. He rubbishes the balderdash.
(Lt Cdr Gomes was also part of the landing at Mormugao, and
later led Christians in the task force for the midnight
Christmas Mass at St. Andrew's Church, Vasco da Gama, 24/25
December 1961. After Mass, Goan Catholics invited the Indian
naval party to their homes for cake and coffee.)
The task force assigned to storm Anjediva Island comprised of
cruiser INS Mysore and destroyer INS Trishul. INS Mysore
doubled up as the command ship for the surface action in
Anjediva and Mormugao.
The fourth task force was the minesweeping flotilla. It had
INS Karwar, INS Cannanore, INS Kakinada and INS Bimilipatan.
The support vessel was INS Dharini.
Admiral Ram Dass Katari, PVSM, AVSM, was the 3rd Chief of
Naval Staff (1958-62). Naval ops in Goa, Daman and Diu were
under the command of Rear Admiral Bhaskar Soman, FOC-in-C of
the then unified Indian Fleet, soon to be the 4th CNS
(1962-66). Naval Officer-in-Charge for the Goa ops was
Captain HA Agate. Captain (later Commodore) Douglas St.
John Cameron was skipper of INS Mysore, command ship for the
surface action in Mormugao and Anjediva.
The Task Force commander of the assault squadron at
Mormugao and skipper of the INS Betwa was Captain
(later Vice Admiral) Rustom ("Rusi") Khushro
Shapoorjee Gandhi, PVSM, Vr.C, a gallant officer
and a thorough Parsi gentleman, the only Indian
Naval Officer to command ships in all the naval
wars fought by India. Interestingly, he was also
the only Naval Officer who, on his passing, as per
his wish, was buried at sea ... "I enjoyed fish
all my life, now let the fish enjoy me."
HQ for Op. Vijay was set up at the Maritime Operations Room,
Bombay.
Sixteen warships were arrayed against one ageing
destroyer and one small patrol vessel in Goa -- and
the false intelligence of Portuguese frigates and
submarines at Mormugao and NATO and/or Pakistan
intervention in favour of Portugal.
The Indian Air Force was led by Air Chief Marshal Aspy Merwan
Engineer, DFC, one of the famous four flying Parsi brothers
of the IAF. He was a bold and adventurous early Indian
aviator -- a peer of JRD Tata, Subroto Mukerjee, Biju Patnaik
and Karachi-based Edmundo Sequeira (the first Goan aviator,
native of Moira) -- though all were junior to the pioneer,
Dattu Patwardhan and Indra Lal Roy, Srikrishna Welingkar,
Errol Chunder Sen and Hardit Malik who fought in World War I.
Air Chief Mshl Aspy Engineer was a pilot at age 17 in 1930
and became the second Chief of Air Staff (1960-64) on the
sudden demise of Air Chief Marshal Subroto Mukerjee, OBE on 8
November 1960.
Air operations in Goa, Daman and Diu were under the command
of Air Vice Marshal Ehrlich Wilmot Pinto, PVSM (posthumous),
M-in-D, AOC-in-C of the then unified Operational Command of
the IAF responsible for the conduct of air ops throughout
India.
[Air Vice Mshl EW Pinto was actually a Pinto do Rosario of
Porvorim. His older brother in the Navy was known as
"Surgeon Rear Admiral DRF Pinto, PVSM" -- DRF for do Rosario
Faust. Faust Pinto do Rosario morphed to 'Do Rosario Faust
Pinto'! Only the brother in the Indian Army was known by the
correct form of the surname, Captain Norman Pinto do Rosario,
who later was Dental Surgeon to the President of India and
retired as Dental Advisor to the Government of India. They
were sons of the early Indian epidemiologist, Dr. Jose Luis
Pinto do Rosario (1883-1935).
