AWAKE GOA, AND REMEMBER THE EVIL OF 1961 by Senhor Lucio Mascarenhas

In a few days, yet another anniversary of the invasion, occupation and annexation of Portuguese India by the Indian Union, and its illegal pretended absorption will pass the great sleeping people of Goa by. It has been forty-nine years since this monstrous crime was perpetrated, but the voices raised against it are still too few, feeble and faint. The loudest noise is that of the great snoring Goan people.

Forty-nine years ago, the Indian Union spun around us a tissue of lies, with the active, direct and material aid and assistance of the most influential institution amongst us, the Catholic Church, and put us to sleep, so that it could rob us of our country, enslave us and make us foreigners in our own homeland. 

Forty-nine years ago, the Indian Union committed gross and unjustifiable acts of unprovoked aggressions against our country, the Estado da India Portuguesa. Forty-nine years ago, on 18th December 1961, we encountered our 9/11 - the day that the terrorists of the Al'Qaida struck at the USA. And those who struck out at us, at our country, at our institutions and our rights, were they not also terrorists?

Yes, they were, for this is the judgment of International Law, of the Nuremberg Trials (of the Nazi officers after World War II). Forty-nine years down the line, the Indian Union has succeeded and succeeded spectacularly in its aims and objectives: the vast majority of the citizens of the Estado da India Portuguesa are not non-resident, and the Indian Union's colonists outnumber us on the ground.

Nor is this all: the work of overthrowing, uprooting and destroying utterly our five hundred years old Indo-Lusitanian, Christian culture, wrought by such exemplars as Afonso de Albuquerque, St. Francis Xavier, Father Jose Vaz, Fr. Agnelo Gustavo de Souza, etc., etc., has been flourishing ! The rape of Goa - cultural, demographic, environmental etc., goes on a pace, the while our people sleep beautifully on. It is time to awake. It is time to awake and cry a stop, to tell off these criminals that enough is enough, that our country is not a part of the Indian Union and that in our country, the Indian Union is just as much an invader and an interloper as Pakistan is in 'Azad Kashmir'! It is time to awaken and to fight, to fight to redeem our precious homeland, our precious culture, our precious heritage.

A. Veronica Fernandes has written: "The Church in Goa is not doing much to stress on the gravity of Goa’s disaster. The Church can do a lot, even after Dec 19, 1961 when Christians were falsely accused of being pro-Portuguese by the pro-Hindu sectarian MGP. All during this time, the Church has remained a silent spectator. It is a time now for the Church to directly and openly preach the gospel of justice, clean administration and egalitarian form of society – in conformity with Christian doctrine - in Goa and since the Church is in a better position to take up this issue with the ability to influence a lot of people, I think the Church should take up this issue immediately.  I think there is no one in a better position to do the same. In the past the Church has done good work for the protection of Goa and its identity. Hence, a Church role now is imperative."

I make no apologies for mixing Religion and Politics. The truth is indivisible, and God is the source of all truth. Religious truth is the first and highest truth, and all other truths are subordinate to it. Our salvation always comes first and patriotism must be subordinated to it. But just as we are obliged to be faithful to God, according to the First Commandment, we are also obliged to be patriotic. We must fight for the honour and liberty of our country, for justice and for truth.  And the truth is that our Country, the Estado da India Portuguesa never legally or freely joined the Indian Union, that the Indian Union invaded our country without just cause and pretendedly incorporated it without our free and informed consent, or any consent at all, merely trusting in its conquistadorism. And this we must reject, entirely and completely.

Therefore, I ask of you, I beg of you, awaken! Awake, for we are under threat, our very survival as a people are at stake. If we must survive, we must fight for our rights. We must proclaim from the rooftops that the actions of 18th & 19th December 1961 (and of 1954, in Dadra & Nagar-Avelim) are illegal, null, void, and criminal, and that these actions must be reversed!