HISTORY OF GOA'S STATEHOOD AND UNIQUE IDENTITY

HISTORY OF GOA’S STATEHOOD AND UNIQUE IDENTITY

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30th May 1987 – From archives of oherald.

Introduction

In 1510, Alfonso de Albuquerque with the help of the emperor of Vijayanagar attacked and captured Goa. With the arrival of the Jesuit priest Francis Xavier in 1542 proselytisation began in Goa. However, the Portuguese continued to rule over the territory except for an interlude during the latter half of the 17th century when Shivaji conquered a few areas in and around Goa. Even after India’s independence, Goa continued to be in the hands of the Portuguese. However, they could not fulfil the aspirations of the Goan people and ultimately on 19 December 1961, Goa was liberated and made a composite union territory with Daman and Diu. On 30 May 1987 Goa was conferred statehood and Daman and Diu was made a separate union territory.

Goa had celebrated it’s Golden Jubilee of its liberation and its 34 years of attainment of full-fledged Statehood. Pandemic has hampered the celebration of statehood this year. Goa will not officially celebrate Statehood day on May 30, this year on account of the ongoing pandemic and in view of statewide curfew which has currently been imposed in the coastal state till May 31, Chief Minister Pramod Sawant said.

In a message to the state on the eve of statehood day, Sawant also said that while the revival of the state’s economy was the need of the hour, Goa was ready to gear up to meet the challenges.

Background

You have to look all the way back over 60 years ago to the last time Goa’s borders were as critically important as they are today, on the 37th anniversary of the former centrepiece of the Estado da India becoming the smallest state in the Republic of India.

Back then before 1961, there were customs agents posted at all the main entry points, who tried to prevent contraband from being imported. Fast-forward to 2021 and this time the border controls are our best attempt to keep out the worst of COVID-19.

The 1967 Goa status referendum was a referendum held in the state of Goa, India, on 16 January 1967, to decide the future of the Union Territory of Goa, Daman and Diu within the Union. Although popularly called an opinion poll, it was in fact, a referendum, as the results of the poll were binding on the government of India. The referendum offered the people of Goa a choice between continuing as a union territory or merging with the state of Maharashtra.

It is the only referendum to have been held in independent India. The people of Goa voted against the merger and Goa continued to be a union territory. Subsequently, in 1987, Goa became a full-fledged state within the Indian Union.

In 1961, India incorporated these territories after a liberation of Portugal’s Indian colonies. At the time of Goa’s accession into India, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru had promised that Goa would retain its distinct identity. Even prior to the annexation of Goa, Nehru had promised that the people of Goa would be consulted on any decision about their territory.

Why referendum was needed
One of the main reasons leading to the referendum was the diglossic situation among the people of Goa. Konkani was the main language spoken in Goa. However, many Goans were bilingual; they spoke both Marathi and Konkani. Among the native Hindu minority in Goa, Marathi occupied a higher status due to the century-long Maratha rule of the Novas Conquistas that preceded Portuguese rule of those areas. Konkani was spoken by Hindus at home and in the bazaars, but religious literature, ceremonies etc. were in Marathi. Some in Goa falsely believed that Konkani was a dialect of Marathi and hence imagined all Goans to be of Marathi ethnicity. As a result, there were demands from various sections in Goa as well as from Maharashtra to merge Goa into Maharashtra.

The enclaves of Daman and Diu were Gujarati-speaking areas due to mass immigration of ethnic Hindu Gujaratis following the end of Portuguese rule, and bordered the new state of Gujarat.
Since Goa was an acquired territory, it was not given immediate statehood but was incorporated as a Union Territory. Goa did not have its own state legislature, hence Roque Santana Fernandes opposed the nomination by Governor and organised a 3-day Satyagraha for early democracy in Goa. Subsequently, Goa’s first polls were held on 9 December 1963 and for this Roque Santana Fernandes is popularly known as the ‘Father of Goan Democracy’.

United Goans Party & Maharastravadi Gomantak Party
The two main parties, UGP and MGP, were formed with two opposing ideologies contest the first election. The Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party wanted to merge the state of Goa into the newly formed state of Maharashtra. The United Goans Party wanted to retain independent statehood for the former Portuguese enclaves . The MGP had the support of the lower castes among Goa’s Hindus (they were hoping for land reforms that would allow them to take over the property of their landlords) as well as the Marathi immigrants who had flooded into Goa to take jobs at the MGP’s invitation (Portuguese had been replaced by Marathi so that government jobs would be given to immigrants from Maharashtra instead of to native Goans – this led to a population growth of almost 35% that decade). The UGP was dominated by Catholics with support from upper-caste Hindus.

Of the 30 seats in the Goa, Daman and Diu assembly, 28 belonged to Goa, and one each to Daman and Diu. MGP formed the government, having secured 16 seats strengthening the merger movement while UGP secured 12 seats and occupied opposition benches. The assembly of Goa, Daman and Diu convened on 9 January 1964.
Prime minister Jawahar Lal Nehru had promised in 1963 that Goa would remain a Union Territory for ten years after which the future of Goa would be decided in accordance with the wishes of the people of Goa. The MGP was not prepared to wait for that long.

How the Merger with Maharashtra was sabotaged

The MGP and politicians in Maharashtra were elated at the victory and touted it as a mandate that the majority of Goans were in favour of merger. Dayanand Bandodkar, the leader of MGP and the first Chief Minister of Goa, proclaimed that by voting the MGP into power, the people of Goa had, in effect, voted in favour of merger with Maharashtra. According to them, passing a bill in the state legislature was all that was needed. Passing a bill in the assembly would be easy for the MGP as they had a simple majority.
In a representative democracy like India, the elected representatives take the decisions. It is in very rare conditions that the onus of decision making is put directly on the public.

The United Goans Party, headed by Dr. Jack de Sequeira, also knew that if the issue was put to vote in the state assembly, merger was a foregone conclusion. Merging Goa into another state was a monumental decision. Also the very future of the state and the identity of the Goan people was at stake. So they pressed for a people’s referendum instead of a vote among the representatives; as was the norm in a Parliamentary democracy like India.

He visited New Delhi along other MLAs and impressed Nehru about the need of an opinion poll on this matter. However he died before Parliament could take this decision and Lal Bahadur Shastri succeeded him as Prime Minister. A delegation consisting of MGP MLAs and Maharashtra’s leaders went to New Delhi to convince him that a vote on the merger should be conducted in the Goa Assembly.

Dr. Sequeira, along with his delegation, went to Bangalore where an AICC session was being held and met Shastri. They opposed the move to get the merger voted in the Assembly and impressed on Shastri and Kamraj, the need to put this question before the people of Goa themselves instead of a vote in the Assembly. However Shastri died in 1966 in Tashkent and this decision was now left to the new Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.

Again Dr. Sequeira along with other MLAs met Indira Gandhi and submitted a memorandum that such a monumental decision affecting the future of the State could not be left to legislators alone, but should be put before the people to decide. Purushottam Kakodkar, the president of the Goa unit of the Congress Party, used his personal equations with the Nehru family to lobby hard for a referendum with the central leadership. According to one source, he reportedly “almost lost his sanity” trying to do so.

The referendum could be conducted via a signature campaign or by secret ballot. UGP also demanded that expatriate Goans staying in other parts of India or the world, should be allowed to vote by postal ballot. However this request was denied.

Referendum

The President of India gave his assent to the Goa, Daman and Diu (Opinion Poll) Act on 16 December 1966 after it was passed in both houses of the parliament. 16 January 1967 was chosen as the date for the referendum.

Now that the referendum would be conducted, the anti-merger faction feared that Bandodkar may use the state’s administrative and law-enforcement machinery to browbeat the anti-mergerists into submission. The UGP demanded that the MGP government resign so that the referendum could be conducted in a free-and-fair atmosphere. The central government conceded and on 3 December 1966, the MGP government resigned.

Pro Merger

The MGP had the backing of the depressed classes and landless tenants of Goa as well as the landlord warrior class which were ethnically Marathas along with the other Goans and were of the thinking that the clerks (Brahmins or shenvis) had won undue favors from Portuguese in terms of land and money which they consider themselves as the rightful heir as they were the rulers. They were convinced that the only way to overthrow the dominance of the upper caste Hindu Brahmins, bhatkaars(land-owners) and the Catholics who had benefited from Portuguese rule; was to merge into Maharashtra. After merger these previously dominant groups would count for nothing within the vast Maharashtrian populace and their influence would vanish.
The MGP had promised that Goa would be granted several concessions after merger with Maharashtra. The then chief minister of Maharashtra, Vasantrao Naik, backed up these promises.

Anti Merger
The Goan Catholics still living in Goa following the end of Portuguese rule accounted for around 250,000 of the Goan population. They had considerable influence due to their better education and economic prosperity, and were fearful that the merger would lead to their oppression by Hindus (e.g. beef ban, prohibition, etc.). Many Hindus living in Goa at the time, on the other hand, were of immigrant-origin from Maharashtra. But the determining question was whether Goa should cease to exist. Unlike the Hindus, for whom Marathi was a medium of religious instruction, the Catholic Goans had never used Marathi. They mostly spoke in Konkani (although the upper class also knew Portuguese, French, English and Latin), and did not have any feelings for Marathi. The pro-merger argument that Konkani was a dialect of Marathi did not please them.

Campaigning for the referendum
Campaigning for the referendum began one month before the vote and was vigorous.
The pro-merger group received support from leaders of Maharashtra, cutting across political lines.
Dr. Sequeria toured extensively over Goa conducting public meetings explaining the anti-merger stand. He also went to many places outside Goa, such as the city of Bombay which had a sizeable Goan community to highlight the issue. However, later it turned out that this was in vain as only resident Goans were allowed to vote. He was aided in his tasks by his son Erasmo.

The tiatrists of Goa (stage-play performers and writers) campaigned earnestly with Konkani songs written by young writers like Ulhas Buyao, Dr Manoharrai Sardesai, Shankar Bhandari and Adv Uday Bhembre. The pro-merger groups began disrupting Buyao’s programmes in their stronghold areas. Buyao’s songs Goenchea Mhojea Goenkaramno and Channeache Rati inspired many Goans. Many people now feel that Goa should never have accepted the Indian parliament enacted Goa Opinion Poll Act. Because an opinion Poll of such kind cannot be termed as a Plebiscite or a referendum. Thus Goa never was given its mandatory right of a Plebiscite.

Goa’s main Marathi newspaper Gomantak pursued a pro-merger view. To counter this Rashtramat a new Marathi daily, was started to influence the Marathi readers (who were mostly pro-merger) against the merger. Its chief editor was Chandrakant Keni . Uday Bhembre wrote a fiery column Brahmastra, took a stance opposing his pro-merger father. The Rashtramat proved critical in bringing many of the pro-Marathi faction to vote against the merger.

The referendum offered the people of Goa, Daman and Diu two options, To merge Goa with Maharashtra; and Daman and Diu with Gujarat OR To remain a Union Territory of India.

The two options were represented by two symbols: A flower for merger, and two leaves for retaining independent identity. Voters had to pace a “X” mark against the symbol of choice.

Referendum Held
The poll was held on 16 January 1967. Polling was largely peaceful with reports of a few incidents. Supporters from both sides tried their best to ensure that people voted.

Result of referendum
There were 388,432 eligible voters. A total of 317,633 votes were polled. Three days were allotted for the counting. 54.20% voted against merger whereas 43.50% voted in favour. Thus, Goans rejected the merger with Maharashtra by a vote of 172,191 to 138,170. The anti-mergerists won by 34,021 votes. In the territorial capital of Panjim, the results were cheered by a crowd of 10,000, who danced in the streets carrying branches symbolic of victory, set off firecrackers, and created such a joyous disturbance that the government had to call in police with tear gas to restore order.

A clarion call to true Goekars…Wake up…We need Green Warriors to save our Goa on this Statehood Day.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IrCdEOl8oc

Inputs from https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1967_Goa_status_referendum