Portugal: Goa leader wants historical documents back from former colonial power

Login

Register

http://www.clubofmozambique.com/

Portugal: Goa leader wants historical documents back from former colonial power

10:12 CAT | 08 Jun 2022

Photo: Lusa

The chief minister of the Indian state of Goa, Pramod Sawant, has said that the government of the former Portuguese colony wants to retrieve all historical documents from the region that are currently in the possession of Portugal, according to local reports.

According to Indian news agency IANS, Goa’s chief minister on Monday advised the state’s Archaeology Department to “visit Portugal and bring these documents back” or seek help from India’s Ministry of External Affairs to “try to bring back all Goa-related documents.

“Many documents from Goa are still in Portugal,” Sawant noted, stressing that documents relating to the forts of Goa, Daman and Diu could be crucial for research by academics and students on the history of the region.

Sawant was speaking during a ceremony commemorating the coronation of Shivaji Maharaj, the leader of the Maratha Empire in the 17th century, who ruled over large parts of the territory that is now modern India, and is considered by many Hindus to have been a hero.

“Shivaji Maharaj ruled Goa; many have tried to erase that history,” said Sawant. “The Portuguese ruled Goa for 450 years in certain ‘talukas’ [administrative division] of Goa. They ruled in eight ‘talukas’ for some years.

“If we look at history, we will know that the Portuguese did not rule the whole of Goa,” Sawant said.

Sawant is a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Hindu nationalist party of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is regularly accused of discriminating against minorities, particularly Muslims, who account for about 14 percent of India’s population.

The so-called Portuguese State of India – of which Goa was by far the largest part – was annexed by the Indian Union in December 1961, after a military intervention that lasted only three days.

Today, Goa is one of the India’s 28 states. Despite the survival of Portuguese as a minority language, the official language in the state is Konkani, a language spoken in ancient Concan, the part of India where Goa is located.

Source: Lusa