Temples razed by the Portuguese colonialists were not technically “Hindu” temples but belonged to independent cults and religions that were later assimilated into Hinduism, a Christian Theologist has proposed in an academic paper.
Fr Victor Ferrao, the dean of studies at the Patriarchal Seminary of Rachol, where young men study to be Catholic priests relied on the fact that the term ‘Hindu’ to refer to a particular religion was coined by the British and it did not exist at the time when Portuguese arrived in Goa.“This political motive of appropriating Goan history is highly reductionist and distortionist in its approach. I have described these attempts as ‘Hindu-ology’.”
He adds that “in fact even the word Hindu does not exist in the entire sixteenth century Indo-Portuguese historiography,” his paper titled ‘The Other Orientalism and the Challenge and Opportunities for the Church in Goa’ reads. Speaking at a talk on ‘The challenge of being a Goan Christian’ recently, Ferrao said that there have been attempts in the recent past to blame present day Christians in Goa for brutal conversion of their ancestors.
“By painting of pre-colonial Goa as Hindu territory, there is a direct attempt to turn the historical facts about conversion against the Church and the Christians of today,” Fr Ferrao said. On the other end lies the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, which is laying claim to Goa’s Hindu pre-colonial past.
“Goa, even four decades after liberation, is misguidedly projected as the Rome of the East, particularly in tourism - by Government and non-Government agencies. But Goa is the Kashi of the West coast India... The Portuguese are not the makers but destroyers of Golden Goa,” a brochure distributed by the VHP at a recently held conclave on making India a Hindu Rashtra reads.
Ferrao, in his research paper, insists that such obfuscation stemming from political motives, made it necessary that Christians in Goa will be able to understand their past and lay claim to it. “It important to assert that we have not come from Hinduism of today, but the then fragmented cults that today have been steadily assimilated into Hinduism of today,” Ferrao said.
"Though the temples that were demolished were not Hindu, but belonged to different cults that have been united into Hinduism of today. The Hindu community is certainly carrying the pain of this false impression,” the paper reads. Ferrao has also called for a therapeutic dialogue between the two communities living in Goa. “There is an inevitable need for discussion that can heal the wounded memories of our society,” he said.