Then Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, met Pope John Paul II, former Archbishop of Krakow, in Rome, on June 26 2000, in the backdrop of an openly conducted propaganda campaign by the Sangha Parivar against Christian missionary activity, whose only victims till then had been Christian priests and nuns - not the general Christian population.
Vajpayee, assuring the Pontiff that his government would bring to book the perpetrators of violence against Christians, also emphasised that it was necessary to view the whole issue in its “correct perspective”, indicating perhaps that the Christians, should in the interest of continuing to enjoy their right to freely practise their religion, and in the interest of their own safety and security, consider the surrender of their right to “propagate”, which although is guaranteed by Article 25 of the Indian Constitution, is just not acceptable to the Hindus, who form as per the 1991 Census, 82 percent of the Indian population.
The Church has in adversity in the past and now can, to its advantage, subordinate its supposedly God ordained decrees to the imperative needs of the hour.
The proposal by Catherine de Medicis, the Queen of France for wedding her daughter, Princess Margareth de Valois with King Dom Sebastiao of Portugal, was turned down because Pope Pius V in 1566 advised Dom Sebastiao to reject the proposal on the grounds that the French were Protestants.
In 1580 Portugal lost its independence to come under the sovereignty of King Philip II of Spain. The sovereignty of the Spanish Crown over Portugal lasted for sixty years. Although the Portuguese were allowed to preserve their own laws, language and administration, both in Portugal as well as in its colonies during the period of Spanish sovereignty, the Portuguese inherited from the Spanish the animosity with the Protestant Dutch. The Portuguese and the Spanish, who were both Roman Catholic, were destined to engage in battle with the Dutch on the four continents and on the seven seas, from the beginning of the seventeenth century. From 1640, when Portugal regained its independence, till 1663, the Portuguese had to fight with the Spanish at home to retain its independence, and with the Dutch abroad to retain its colonies.
It was in this time of great peril to the Portuguese nation that a Marriage Treaty containing 20 Articles and a Secret Article, was signed in June 1661, between Princess Catherine de Braganca, the sister of King Affonso VI of Portugal and King Charles II of England, inspite of the fact that England owed allegiance to the Protestant faith.
By virtue of Article 4 (I think), the Queen was permitted to “practise” the Roman Catholic religion freely. And by virtue of Articles 2, 3 and 11, the Portuguese presented Tangiers (in North Africa) and Bombay to the English and the residents of these places were to be permitted the free exercise of their Roman Catholic religion. Germane to our discussion is the fact that in adversity, neither Her Royal Highness, Queen Catherine nor the Roman Catholic residents of Tangiers and Bombay were given the right to “propagate” their religion, but only to “practise” it freely.
In 1739 the Marathas launched a sustained attack on all the Portuguese held territories. In this war the Portuguese lost to the Marathas almost the entire Province of the North extending from Versova to Daman. In Goa itself the Marathas occupied Bardez and Salcete except for the forts of Aguada, Reis Magos, Rachol and Mormugao. The situation appeared so perilous, that the Portuguese Viceroy in Goa, Dom Pedro Mascarenhas, Count of Sandomil even contemplated about abandoning India to board their ships to return in disgrace to their metropolis, Lisbon.
The Marathas (Baji Rao Peshwa) forced the Portuguese to pay an indemnity of seven lakh rupees and to agree to pay forty percent of the annual revenue of Bardez and Salcete for vacating Bardez and Salcete. With the conclusion of this Luso-Maratha war, the Portuguese sea borne empire, which at one time extended over Africa, India, Malacca and China, were left in India with only the tiny territories of Goa, Daman, Diu and Chaul.
The only condition put forth by Baji Rao that was not conceded by the Portuguese Viceroy on the grounds that he did not have the necessary powers to concede (only His Majesty the King of Portugal could), was the demand for granting permission to the Hindus of Bardez and Salcete, and also of the island of Goa to practise their religion. On payment of the war indemnity, the Marathas withdrew from Salcete.
There was not even a single temple on Portuguese soil and the Hindus were denied the right to practise their religion even in the privacy of their homes, except for the outlying territory of Diu, where Portuguese writ barely ran.
According to Capitulation No. 12 of the Treaty of Peace, which paved the way for the safe withdrawal of the besieged Portuguese forces from Bassein (Vasai in Bombay), the Captain of the Fort of Bassein, Caetano de Souza Pereira proposed, and Chimaji Appa, Senior Commandant of Shahu Raja, in an act of great magnanimity accepted, inter alia the following two conditions. One, that the Christians, who may choose to continue to stay within the jurisdiction of Bassein, will be allowed to freely practise their religion, and that they will not be robbed or relieved of their possessions; and two, that Chimaji Appa, as long as he is master of the fort, will preserve the three churches - one within the fort, the second in the locality of Bassein and the third in the island of Salsette - for the local Christians to perform freely their practise of Christianity. It may be mentioned that the provision as per this article that the parishioners would be under the jurisdiction of the Primate of India (in Goa) for “cultivating” the Christianity “ was a just a meaningless ploy to avoid compromising the Portuguese Crown’s dictates on religion.
- Dr Antonio do Rosario Fernandes has published “The Bhagwad Gita” in the Boletim do Instituto Menezes Bragança No 162 in 1991, a series of articles in local media, under the name of Antonio do Rosario and the pseudonym Cristao Q’Pensa. A talk “Causes for the existence of communal harmony in Goa” was presented at the Xavier Centre of Historical Research in May 2006 under the name Dr A A Fernandes
