The story of Goa’s Revolution Day has many aspects to it, not all of which are known. Researcher and author Sandesh Prabhudesai highlights a few of these unfamiliar facts
ADITHI SHARMA | NT BUZZ
There have been many books penned on the June 18 revolution in Goa. Yet, you are going to pen another. Why?
Essentially, to clear misconceptions created through fictional writings about the historic day, which we commemorate as the Goa Revolution Day. My parents were freedom fighters, and I have heard many firsthand accounts of the entire phase from their comrades. I watched these freedom fighters closely and continued to read about their history. There are many missing links. The facts are sometimes quite different.
For example, everybody says it was raining heavily on June 18 in Margao. But Laxmidas Borkar, who escorted Dr. Rammanohar Lohia and Dr. Juliao Menezes from Hotel Republica near the old railway station to the meeting venue (today’s Lohia Maidan), says it was only drizzling. The only historic photo available of the mammoth crowd is the factual evidence. Do you see a single umbrella in that photo?
Nobody gives due credit to Laxmidas Borkar, who was hardly 21 years old, for singlehandedly making a decision not to follow the instructions of getting Dr. Lohia and Dr. Menezes by hiring a taxi to the venue. He did this because the police had instructed that every taxi passenger be brought to the police station. Borkar instead decided to hire a horse cart, pulled down its curtains under the pretext of rain and brought them to the meeting venue. What would have happened if he had followed the instructions to hire the taxi? The Goa Revolution Day would have never happened.
What about Dr Lohia’s speech? Did he actually deliver the speech?
No. He was stopped at the open ground near Margao municipality, where thousands of people had gathered. He was immediately arrested when he started speaking. There are also different stories with some freedom fighters claiming that they were arrested because they started reading the speech after Dr Lohia’s arrest. But eyewitnesses dispute it. Even his full written speech was never quoted by anybody. But we could read it after Dr Rammamohar Lohia Foundation reprinted the rare book written by Dr Lohia himself – ‘Action in Goa’. It’s a very intelligent document. He speaks about the Konkani-Marathi controversy, etc. and places an eight-point agenda before Goans.
In fact, Dr Lohia himself busted one myth regarding him, when he visited Goa in June 1963 after Liberation and addressed one of the rallies in Vasco. Even after that, to date, a story flows that when Captain Miranda aimed a revolver at him, Dr Lohia fearlessly told him to shoot him. But, at the rally, Dr Lohia said, “I was very scared. I am a common man like you. But if I had shown it on my face, the crowd would have been discouraged. So I told the officer that if he shoots me down, the crowd may lynch him with stones.”
Was Dr Lohia surprised by the suppression of civil liberties in Goa and was he completely ignorant about the kind of fascist Portuguese regime existing in Goa at that time?
His written speech begins with “I had also known how an alien rule had tried to tempt and force you into a soulless culture and hear that you were deprived of your civil liberties. But my surprise was great beyond measure when I actually saw under what kind of rule you lived.”
And Dr Juliao Menezes, in his book ‘Goa’s Freedom Struggle’, writes that Dr Lohia’s interest in Goa dated back to 1938, eight years before he actually came down. Even during the 1942 Quit India movement, Dr Lohia requested Dr. Menezes to take him to Goa, but Menezes persuaded him not to come because it was wartime and Goa was bristling with British agents. In 1946, after his torturous imprisonment in Lahore, he once again desired to visit Goa. His written speech of June 18 is a testament to the fact that he had in-depth knowledge of Goa. In fact, his ‘Letter to Goans’ written a little later is like a vision document for Goa and is relevant
to date.
What about the impression that Christians had very little role to play in Goa’s freedom movement? Is it a fact or fiction?
Completely fictitious. Historically, most of the anti-Portuguese struggles were led by Christians, including Goan Christian priests, like Abe de Faria and his father etc. Dr. Francisco Luis Gomes was the first Goan to speak about Indian nationalism, Luis Menezes Braganza was called “Tilak of Goa”, Dr T B Cunha was called “Father of Nationalism in Goa” and the last phase of the freedom movement was successfully led by Peter Alvares. The first satyagraha held on August 115, 1954 to cross Goan borders from India from three sides was led by Tony D’Souza, Alfred Afonso, and Mark Fernandes.
After June 18, for two months, there were spontaneous mass protests without any organisation all across Goa. Most of these were held in Margao and villages in Salcete like Vasco, Cansaulim, Carmona, Assolna, Cuncolim, etc. At one such public meeting held in Cansaulim on July 1, Christian tribals were guarding the meeting with ‘dandas’ in their hands. When Dr. Cunha and Berta Menezes Braganza were beaten up at Lohia Maidan on June 30, one soldier pulled a Gandhi cap that Vincent Cunha from Cansaulim was wearing and passed it on to his colleagues to clean their shoes. Vincent took the cap and later moved it to all the Salcete villages up to Cuncholim and collected money for the Portuguese to go back. He was later mercilessly beaten up in public at the Cuncolim meeting. There are many such inspiring stories.
So, June 18 a turning point in Goa’s freedom struggle?
Certainly a turning point. Because Dr Lohia’s action gave immense confidence to the people that they could challenge the Portuguese rule, without arms, when the Europeans had ruled Goa at gunpoint. That zeal and confidence led to Goa’s freedom.
But I look much beyond 1946 and link it to today’s situation in Goa. Every 20 years, Goa has been witnessing a similar uproar against injustice and a fierce fight to save Goa from disasters. After 1946, in 1966, we witnessed a historic Opinion Poll struggle that retained Goa’s identity, through the opinions of each individual. In 1986, Goa witnessed a violent official language agitation that gave us Statehood. In 2006, all of us were part of the Goa Bachao Abhiyan that saved Goa from getting destroyed in the name of the Regional Plan. And now, Goa has once again started boiling, we are just one year away from witnessing yet another mass uproar, in 2026.
