As India gets ready to celebrate the 75th anniversary of Independence from the British rule, the struggles and sufferings of the natives under the Portuguese rule have somehow escaped our attention. In that context, it is time to recall the horrors of Portuguese rule in Goa, which ultimately got liberated only in 1961.
Portuguese knew about Goa’s strategic position and commercial importance as a major port. Before they took over, there was a royal order to conquer Goa in 1509 itself. Goa was continuously suffering under Adil Shah’s tyrannical rule, and the Goans sought help from Vijayanagara rulers. It was in February 1510 that Timoja, the commander of Vijayanagara empire, in collaboration with Afonso de Albuquerque’s fleet conquered Goa.
But Portuguese governor Afonso de Albuquerque was interested in much more than revenues promised by the commander for this support. The Portuguese were eyeing absolute control over the entire trade revenue of the east and a major expansion of Christianity.
When the Portuguese were expanding their hold, they faced shortage of manpower and resources. The long wars with Hindu rulers and growing competition from Dutch and English led early Portuguese administrators to fabricate a policy to convert Indians to Christianity to ensure assured loyalty of the natives. Soon Goa became the centre for missionary activities of the Roman Catholic Church.
The Portuguese policy of conversion got a big thrust when St Francis Xavier landed in Goa. His vision was to Christianise the Hindus by force when persuasion could not succeed. Quoting Boies Penrose, Anant Kabka Priolkar wrote in his monumental work The Goa Inquisition: “It is 6 May 1542, when Francis Xavier set foot ashore at Goa. From then on Jesuits did their worst, using every form of bribery, threat, and torture to effect conversion. Burton, writing 80 years ago, refers to “fire and steel, the dungeon and the rack, the rice pot and the rupee,” which played “the persuasive part in the good work … assigned to them.” “Facetious as this quotation may seem, it sums up in a nutshell that the methods used, and the satisfaction at the result, for the Jesuits were fanatics and like all fanatics they did irreparable harm.”
Priolkar said, “Though absolute care was taken to give the impression that conversions were free and voluntary, but the situation on ground was quite different.”
As per State Gazetteer of Goa: “The Councilio Provincial, an assembly of Bishops and divines enacted a law on 4 December 1567 to give effect to their decisions that ‘All heathen temples in Portuguese controlled territory should be demolished, that all non-Christian priests, teachers and holy men should be expelled, and all their sacred books should be seized and destroyed whenever found … Hindus and Buddhists were prohibited from visiting their respective temples in the neighbouring territories and even the transit passage of Asian pilgrims to such places was forbidden. A ban was also placed on ritual bathing which is such a core feature of Hinduism’.”
In his book The Portuguese Seaborne Empire 1415-1825, European historian C.R. Boxer wrote about other measures that were applied on the natives to alienate them from their religion. He wrote, “The public celebration of the non-Christian religious processions and marriage ceremonies was strictly forbidden … All orphaned children were to be taken, often by force from their relatives and were to be handed over to Christian guardians or foster parents and prepared for baptism by Catholic priests. If either of the partners in a pagan marriage was converted, the children and the property were to be given into his keeping. Christians were not allowed to live or lodge with non-Christians, nor allowed to have other than strictly business dealings with the people of other faiths. All Hindu families were sent in groups of 50 to hear Christian propaganda in the local churches and convents on alternate Sundays. A sharply increasing scale of fines was levied on those who tried to evade these obligations. Non-Christians were to be officially and legally discriminated against and converts equally favoured, in competition for such public offices and remunerative posts which were not reserved for Christian converts only.”
These discriminatory practices and coercive measures led many to become Christians. C.R. Boxer further wrote, “Deprived of their priest, teachers, holy men, sacred books and public places of worship, not to mention the free exercise of their respective cults, it was confidently expected by the legislators of 1567 that the false heathen and Moorish religions would wither and die on territory controlled by the Portuguese crown.”
Based on his study of official records of contemporary writers like François Pyrard de Laval, former judge of High Court of Goa, Dr Antonio Noronha had explained the manner and expanse at which conversions were taking place in Goa in his essay “The Hindus and the Portuguese Republic”. He wrote, “Until 1560 in Salcete there existed but one church and mission house in the fort of Rachol. In the course of less than 30 years a major part of the inhabitants of that province had embraced Christianity and 28 parishes had been established; it is known how such rapid and extensive conversions took place: some by fear of physical force others from moral cowardice; and many because they could not overcome the love for the country of their birth from which they would otherwise be expelled; not a few to avoid the loss of their properties and interests; some with their eyes on lucrative jobs—and almost none from conviction. The conviction, the faith, these would come later … .”
This zeal to colonize and convert by taking away the natural rights of native Goans by way of persecution resulted in creating repulsion towards Christianity and alienation of local population from the Portuguese.
No attempt was made by the Portuguese to understand Hindu dharma. On the limitations of the understanding and outlook of Saint Xavier about Hindus, Priolkar quoted Fr. Xavier’s Jesuit biographer, Fr. James Brodrick. The latter said, “St Francis Xavier’s knowledge of Hinduism was, if possible, even less adequate then his few biased notions of Mohammedanism. Though the Portuguese had been in India for over 40 years none of them appears to have made the slightest attempt to understand the venerable civilization, so much more ancient then their own, on which they had violently intruded.”
As a state policy the natives of Goa suffered because of the Portuguese zeal for spreading Christianity as it laid the foundation of empire through its Sword and the Cross. The result is that today most of the people are not even aware about the original Hindu identity of Goa.
The author holds a PhD in Sociology and is a senior fellow with Delhi-based think tank Vichar Vinimay Kendra. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not represent the stand of this publication.
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