PANAJI
Bharatiya Janata Party is consistently blaming India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru for delaying Goa’s liberation because he was primarily instrumental in blocking Goa’s merger into Maharashtra.
This allegation was made by journalist and writer Sandesh Prabhudesai at the release function of a book ‘Bhuimput’ by renowned novelist Devidas Kadam. It is based on Goa’s liberation struggle.
During his speech, Prabhudesai observed that only BJP leaders are involved in this hate campaign, from chief minister Dr Pramod Sawant to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, without giving any justification for their allegation that Goa’s liberation got delayed by 14 years due to Nehru.
The journalist expressed doubt that there is something more than the BJP’s normal anti-Nehru feeling when it comes to Goa’s liberation. He observed that the RSS and then Jan Sangh were one of the strong proponents of merging Goa into Maharashtra.
After the Opinion Poll of 1967, all the pro-merger parties like the local Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party as well as the Maharashtra-based leaders of the Congress, socialists and communists had accepted the people’s verdict. Goa’s first chief minister Bhausaheb Bandodkar had even supported Dr Jack de Sequeira's Assembly resolution demanding statehood for Goa.
However, the Sangh Parivar is upset even today that the merger did not happen due to which it cannot implement its prime agenda of Hindu Rashtra in Goa. The BJP simply cannot form the government by polarising the Goan society. They are compelled to take the Christian community along with them to gain majority seats and form the government.
“Even when Karnataka’s BJP government bans beef, Goa’s BJP government is compelled to mediate in order to regularise beef supply from Goa. In spite of their so-called principled stand of primary education only in the mother tongue, they are forced to give grants to the English medium primary schools by the Church ”, observed Prabhudesai.
If Nehru had not opposed the merger of Goa into Maharashtra consistently during his prime ministerial tenure and had he not proposed a plebiscite on the issue, the merger would have taken place soon after the MGP came to power by sweeping the first Assembly election of 1963. Nehru had bluntly dismissed the argument of the mergerists that Goa’s Assembly election verdict was the verdict in favour of the merger.
After releasing the ninth novel of Kadam, veteran freedom fighter Nagesh Karmali recalled several incidents of the freedom struggle. Though he was personally part of the non-violent Satyagraha during the liberation struggle, he said the real heroic struggle was waged by militant organisations like the Azad Gomantak Dal and the Goa Liberation Army.
Adv Uday Bhembre, the chief guest at the function, expressed delight that the era of novels has started in Konkani literature. Not only Kadam has written nine novels and plans to write more but many more novels are getting released in the last five years on varied issues confronting the Goan society.
After a research-based in-depth novel on Inquisition called ‘Voddlem Ghor’, Bhembre himself has finished writing another novel on the heroic life of world-renowned hypnotist Abe de Faria.
Noted critic Dr Hanumant Chopdekar, while reviewing the book, said that Kadam’s novel is not only about the life of common workers in the freedom struggle but also the real-life stories of the families who suffered immensely due to their participation in Goa’s freedom struggle.
Kadam also expressed his mind on the research he had to conduct to write the novel. The function was compered by Anant Agni. Dinesh Manerkar proposed a vote of thanks.
