35053668-Empire-of-the-Soul-Paul-William-Roberts

‘A FLAME OF FAITH’
Luiz Vaz de Camoes in the middle of a vast grassy space between
the mouldering ruins of Velha Goa. Green and gold, full of a dancing,
vibrant life, it contrasts starkly with the crumbling remains of
Portugal’s empire around it. It’s as if those who had brought the
Inquisition had wished to leave a more noble and uplifting aspect
of themselves and their culture behind them, to remind Goans that
the four hundred and fifty years had not been all bad.
In December 1961, forced by Dr. Antonio de Oliveira Salazar,
the cryptofascist monkey then on Portugal’s back, Indian troops
marched into Goa, Daman, and Diu, the remaining Portuguese
possessions, in a massive manoeuvre. The Indian government had
negotiated with Salazar for fourteen years, trying to arrange a
dignified withdrawal. Obstinate and paranoid, Salazar had refused
to budge. Finally the Portuguese were ignominiously kicked out by
the Indians themselves. Apart from some serious fighting in Diu,
the military operations were practically bloodless. Perhaps
determined that his nation would not leave Goa the way it had
entered, Governor-general Vassalo e Silva pointedly ignored
Salazar’s orders to defend the colony with everything he had. He,
too, one assumes, wanted to leave his own version of Camoes’ statue,
his personal apology – even knowing that Dr. Salazar would most
certainly denounce him as a traitor.
India has always been a big-hearted, forgiving land. Newly
independent in a new world, the subcontinent found little difficulty
in ascribing its suffering at the hands of imperialist colonisers to a
vanished age of kings and tyrants. With the death of Salazar, a poor
man’s Franco, and the reinstatement of parliamentary democracy
in Portugal, the two nations soon became friends and equals.
Perhaps it is its brutal past that has made Goa a far more lenient
and understanding place than anywhere else in lndia. That lenience
and understanding drew me and my companions there in 1975,
along with thousands of other Westerners looking for paradise. The
bridge across the Mandovi River was still standing in those days, so
we were able to drive from Panjim and its pungent, harrowing past,
north into a lush world of waving palms, emerald rice paddies, and
ten miles of the finest beaches on earth. Calangute was our
destination.
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