Let us look back at the historic ties the state shares with this seemingly distant region
Goa’s connection with Africa is well known. Mozambique, Kenya, Tanzania, Angola and South Africa have all shared long historical ties with Goa, not just through the British and Portuguese Empires, but also through Indian Ocean trade, migration, freedom fighters, religion and military service.
It is a historical fact, though now often forgotten, that Goa served as an administrative and ecclesiastical hub linking Portuguese territories in Africa with Lisbon and Asia. Many Goans also worked as clerks, teachers, railway employees, doctors and priests across East and Southern Africa during the colonial period.
But that’s not all. African products such as ivory, gold and slaves moved through trading networks connected to Goa, while Goan culture, architecture, cuisine and music also travelled to African port cities. Goan soldiers and sailors served on ships operating along the African coast. Later, large Goan communities emerged in places like Nairobi, Dar es Salaam, Lourenço Marques (now Maputo), Kampala, Entebbe and elsewhere. There are Konkani-speaking communities in South Africa to this day, linked to the Konkan coast of Maharashtra. Such links produced cultural exchange in language, food, religion and music, traces of which survive to this day. Today, May 25, on Africa Day, it may be an apt time to look back, ponder a little, and consider the historic connect between these two seemingly distant regions.
Till the 1950s, if not even the 1960s, many Goans lived, worked and settled in what was East Africa. Quite a few thought of that place as their permanent home. That came to an end with the Africanisation programmes, and as rulers like Idi Amin ascended to power in Uganda. Portuguese East Africa too was no longer as attractive after the decolonisation process of the mid-1970s. However, some links live on with kin of that generation retaining strong memories. Such historic connections need to be reviewed and, if possible, revived. Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited several African countries over the last decade, including Uganda, Mozambique, Kenya, Tanzania and South Africa, to bolster bilateral ties.
Africa Day, once called African Freedom Day and African Liberation Day, is celebrated in Africa and around the world to mark the foundation of the Organisation of African Unity on May 25, 1963. The organisation was replaced by the African Union in 2002, but the holiday continues to be celebrated on May 25.
Goa should find ways of observing Africa Day in its own way, even if in a small manner. It can be done meaningfully by highlighting its long Indian Ocean, trade, migratory and other connections with African societies rather than treating the occasion as a purely diplomatic formality. Schools and institutions of higher learning could see this as an opportunity to host talks on Goa’s historic links with Mozambique, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Angola. It could be an apt time for archives and museums to exhibit photographs and oral histories of Goan communities in East and Southern Africa, while cultural festivals could feature African and Goan music traditions, food exchanges and film screenings. Goa’s scholars could also collaborate with their African counterparts on maritime history, postcolonial studies, mining, ecology and coastal issues shared across the Indian Ocean world. More practically, the state could use the day to strengthen educational, tourism and business ties with African countries and acknowledge the contributions of Afro-Indian and African-origin communities to Goa’s own history. It’s never too late to build such connections.
