Goan theologist glosses over Portuguese atrocity
The attempt by a Christian theologist to obfuscate the history of the persecution of the Hindu community in Goa by Portuguese rulers, on the technical ground that the term ‘Hindu' did not exist in the “entire 16th century Indo-Portuguese historiography”, does not substantially change the known narrative. The Portuguese rulers, with the aid and advice of the clergy, had resorted to massive suppression of not just the local Hindu religion, but also the language and culture of the people. You can call the local religion by any name; it was brutally beaten down. You can refer to the temples by any description; those were destroyed. You can give their customs any pagan context; they were desecrated. This is not the opinion of ‘Hindu nationalist historians' but of secular writers and commentators who have studied the period and written well-researched articles and books on the subject. These include eminent freedom-fighters cutting across party lines. Had the theologist-researcher, Fr Victor Ferrao, who has made his claims in a recent paper he read out at a function in Goa to discuss, ‘The challenge of being a Goan Christian', bothered to acknowledge the literature already before him, he would have found it difficult to counter the reality. He takes objection to “painting of pre-colonial Goa as Hindu territory”. In other words, since pre-colonial Goa was not ‘Hindu' in the sense we understand the term today, whatever existed then among the people was fair game for the Portuguese invaders! Fr Ferrao, with the full weight of his scholarship, does not see the emptiness of his argument. He wants to somehow stand out among the crowd of researchers with a dramatic new position. That is fine so long as he does not push the envelope of credulity too far — which he has done.
Fr Ferrao talks of a tendency in Goa to blame the present-day Christians for brutalities that their ancestors may have imposed on the populace. Fr Ferraro is creating monsters where none exists. No Goan today — Hindu or otherwise — blames present-day Christians for the brutal conversions or oppression that happened during the 450 years of the Portuguese regime. If Christians and Hindus live in close harmony with each other in Goa, it is because they do not allow the burden of the past to distort their present. But are the people supposed to simply forget the atrocities that the foreign rulers and the clergy rained on the people of other faithsIJ Must that be wiped out of the books of history to placate the hurt feelings of Fr Ferrao and his ilkIJ Next, he will tell that no atrocity of any sort ever happened in Goa; that the Portuguese embraced the Goan Hindus (or whatever Fr Ferraro wants to call them) as long-lost brothers and sisters; that there were no conversions whatsoever. Even the Portuguese could not have done a better public relations job, more than 50 years after they were shown the door by the Indian Armed Forces.