Dare to forget

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One great difference between historians and politicians is that the former remember and forget, while the latter forget and remember. Psychoanalysts defend the need of remembering to lay bare traumatic experiences that haunt individuals as long as they resist to identify and confront them. Long long before the modern psychonanalists, Buddha taught the Indians that we carry 'baggage' from past lives. It was only by facing the past squarely that one could relativize the ever-changing reality and free oneself for achieving Nirvana, the liberation from the chains of Sansara.

This theme for this column is motivated by the ongoing comemorations in Portugal of the fifth centenary of the death of Afonso de Albuquerque, who proved himself to be a master strategist of the Portuguese empire in the East. Perhaps he was a pioneer in recognizing the choke points of the Indian Ocean as early as that time. The contemporary world is becoming ever more concerned with international terrorism and knows better the importance of the straits of Hormuz and Malaca / Singapore for the world trade.

The recent Indo-American joint naval excercises code-named Malabar points to the importance of defending the Indian Ocean waterways, particularly the straits which handle nearly 80 percent of world trade. Professor K M Panikkar had already drawn the attention of the leaders of newly independent India towards this challenge, reminding them in his book India and the Indian Ocean (1945) of the beginning of the western colonialism with the Gama epoch. The earlier invasions of India had all been via the Hindukush mountain passes, but the Portuguese discovery of the sea route to India had changed all that, and revealed that the vast coastline of India was its weak side and needed protection.

Afonso de Albuquerque’s military prowess and restless pursuit of his aims was accompanied by his cruel treatment of those who twarted his plans. When he took over Banasteri from the Adil Shah’s forces, he let the enemy forces withdraw by mutual agreement. He respected also Adil Shah’s plea for saving the lives of the renegades, meaning the Europeans (chiefly italians, but also some Portuguese) who had become Muslims and joined Adil Shah´s service, but let them go only after he had their right hands, noses and ears cut.

Earlier, after conquering Goa a second time he reported to his king that he had put to sword and burnt alive nearly six thousand Muslims, including men and women (probably children too) who had sought shelter in the mosques. Some who had escaped were caught by local Hindu collaborators whom he paid with pieces of cloth for every head presented as trophy. The letters of Albuquerque indicate their names and the prize they received. That much for the so-called peaceful Goans who possibly became sossegados during the colonial regime.

Albuquerque’s administrative thoroughness is revealed in his extensive correspondence published in seven volumes and constitutes the main contemporary source of information about the feats of Afonso de Albuquerque. It is complemented by constant accusations directed against him to the king by a group of Portuguese based at their trade counter at Kochi. They could convince the king to demote him from his governorship. Another rare contemporary report belongs to an Italian trader Giovanni di Empoli, who had come to India in a Portuguese fleet with the permission of king Manuel to engage in private trade and free from the authority of Afonso de Albuquerque. However, he was drafted by Afonso de Albuquerque to join his forces in the re-conquest of Goa. He was later allowed to go to Sumatra, but there all his goods were gutted in a fire that destroyed his property and savings. He complained to the king on return and got compensation.

Albuquerque is much remembered for his policy of mixed marriages. His abolition of sati in Goa also left an impression that he was a far-sighted planner. The miscigenation started with captured Muslim women whom he gave in marriage to his soldiers. He wished to reduce the dependence on manpower coming from Portugal by creating a population of mestizos acclimatised to the soil. Abolition of sati was probably also a strategy of getting some Hindu women to marry his soldiers.

The group of the so-called descendentes became a thorn in the flesh of the native elites, particularly when many descendentes arrived in Goa in large numbers from the Portuguese territories taken over by the Dutch and the Marathas. They had the local army under their control and used it well to make their presence felt and treated the local elites with disdain, calling them negros and cachorros (niggers and dogs). Following the administrative reforms introduced by Marquis of Pombal, the army in Goa was disbanded and the descendentes were warned to end their offensive treatment of the natives.

It was this sort of conflictual relationship that irked the Goan elites. It is not surprising if the bulk of these descendentes disappeared from Goa some years before 1961, and located themselves in Portuguese African colonies, fearing the backlash after liberation. But it explains why the Portuguese empire last longer than other colonial empires that did not invest in miscigenation.

Strangely the first Konkani encyclopaedia published by Goa University in 1991 in 4 volumes has no entry on Afonso de Albuquerque, but has one on Vasco da Gama. Was it a memory lapse? Unfortunately, the frigate Afonso de Albuquerque that put up a symbolic fight before losing Goa was sold as scrap, losing thereby a rare opportunity of keeping it as a trophy in a museum dedicated to Goa´s freedom struggle for the education of the future generations.

Teotonio R de Souza is Founder-Director of the Xavier Centre of Historical Research (1979-1994), Fellow of the Portuguese Academy of History (since 1983), retired professor of Universidade Lusófona, Lisboa (1996-2014), author of Medieval Goa (1979,1994,2009), Goa to Me (1994), Goa outgrowing Postcolonialism (2014) and a dozen of edited works and over 200 published articles