The policy of the Partido Indiano was crafted to suit the interests of the powers that be. The latter would be assured by the party of getting candidates elected who would be friendly to the central government. The pith of the policy was to use parliamentary elections as a bargaining counter to clinch concessions, jobs, offices, sinecures, full control of the municipality and the electoral committees. This had worked for over a quarter of a century. The slogan “Never again official candidate” was conceived by a native, who desired to be elected deputy. He wanted to bind his leader who traditionally backed a European or a ‘descendente’. The slogan could have been coined only by those who had been always backing official candidates. In fact, Cristóvão Pinto, the only native candidate proposed by the Partido Indiano, had addressed a letter to the governor promising that he would vote in favour of the party in power in Lisbon on all general subjects.
The internal squabbles and defections in the Partido Indiano had intensified after the last parliamentary elections and the embezzlement of the municipal monies and the falsification of electoral rolls became known to the public. Municipal sessions did not take place either due to lack of quorum or because of the councillors’ absence. At about this time, the President of the Census Committee applied for police protection to defend the municipal building in Margao. These happenings were conveyed to the government and to the public prosecutor in Salcete by the Administrator of the borough, Luís Carneiro Souza Faro. The judiciary was thus set in motion and the vaults and the records of the municipality were sealed. The governor dissolved the municipal council on April 30, 1890 and appointed councillors until fresh municipal elections could be held. These were Luís José de S Catarina Coutinho, Vicente Cunha, Júlio Barreto, Inácio Rodrigues, Domingos Faria and Pedro Mesquita, who had earlier been councillors.
In the investigations, that followed, irregular transactions and misappropriations were confirmed. The Notary Public Camilo Vicente António da Silva Coelho, a member of the Partido Indiano, gave a finding that the former electoral rolls were full of erasures and falsifications.
By a notification dated September 10, 1890, the Administrative Committee fixed the number, the limits and the venue of the various electoral assemblies.
The administrative committee emphasized:
1. “That for many years free and fair elections had not taken place in that borough, since, with the revision in 1864 of the constituencies, which had been in force for many years, a new demarcation, so vicious, was effected that a handful of persons manipulated at their freewill the votes of all citizens painting the minutes of the proceedings of the elections and depriving the voters of freely exercising the franchise that the law conferred on them.
2. “That in the current year, the committee, seeing the defects in this demarcation and consequent upon the complaints received by it from several voters and requesting the guarantee of their personal safety and the freedom to exercise their franchise, felt it was its bounden duty to refer to the original set-up, restoring with slight modifications, the demarcation drawn by the municipal council functioning in the biennium 1857-1858 under the presidency of the citizen Francisco Xavier Bragança, a man known for his liberal ideas”.
The findings of the committee, in a way, confirmed what A Índia Portuguesa, organ of the Partido Indiano, dated May 11, 1890, wrote, namely, that ‘All over the world uncontested elections are always written or painted. Who does not know this? And when do thousands of voters go to the ballot box to say that they all want the same thing? Strict formality is observed only in those elections in which there is more than one candidate.’ And further: ‘Now, the Partido Indiano, most of the times had nobody to dispute the suffrage and can it be surprising that it was in the habit of painting the minutes of the proceedings?’ That was the period when the Partido Indiano blared that they held the keys to the electoral results.
The State Council by order dated September 20, 1890 dismissed the appeal preferred by Roque Correia Afonso. The demarcation of the constituencies adopted by the Administrative Committee had formerly been accepted, with slight modifications, by the municipal councils during the presidency of João Miguel Gomes, brother of Francisco Luís Gomes; and Roque Correia, father of Roque Correia Afonso.
António Ligório da Cunha, father of Tristão Bragança da Cunha, who enjoyed the support of the dissidents of the Partido Indiano, was in the fray in these municipal elections. Ligório da Cunha took up the leadership and the initiative to select the candidates for the municipal council election.
The members of the Partido Indiano, desperate, in their vituperative writings and vitriolic speeches, talked of taking the law in their hands and hinted at bloodshed. They instigated and incited their hirelings to use violence. Pamphlets defaming and denigrating the families of their opponents were published. They apprehended that the popular will would affirm itself.
The Plan
On September 18, there was a meeting of the Partido Indiano at Navelim. The plan was to engage hirelings who would be highly intoxicated with hard liquor and would be sent to the various polling stations, armed with sticks and clubs. They would forcibly enter the polling stations, raise a hubbub and by use of violence against the electoral committee destroy the ballot papers. The newspapers Ortigas and Anglo-Lusitano, which were aware of what was being prepared, forecast sabotage of the election.
The Administrator of Salcete had received an order from the governor dated September 15, 1890 directing him to ensure that the voters would exercise their franchise freely.
The Incident
On the polling day at Margão, the first floor verandah of the house of Salvador Filipe Álvares, which was at a safe height, was occupied by a group of youngsters, members of the Partido Indiano.
People from Benaulim, Colva, Navelim, under influence of liquor and armed with sticks, reported at the residence of Salvador Filipe Álvares and then some of them clustered in front of the municipal building at Margão. None of the caudillos of the Partido Indiano, who were perched at a safe height in the verandah of the house of Salvador Filipe Álvares, came down to the Church Square.
When the administrator of the county and the President of the Municipality reached the door of the municipal building, they were assaulted and their entrance blocked. This fact was testified by Lucas Almeida, Agostinho Barreto and Camilo Vicente António da Silva Coelho, witnesses above suspicion for the accused, since they belonged to the same party, namely, the Partido Indiano, in the criminal case later instituted. And when the administrator and the president entered the municipal building with great difficulty, large stones were hurled through the windows, and the building was damaged.
The deposition of Silva Coelho, Notary Public and member of the Partido Indiano, records that ‘he saw before eight o’clock in the morning something, that is, some persons getting together near the house of Salvador Filipe Álvares; a little thereafter these people were called by the persons who were in front of the municipal building by waving handkerchiefs. Then he saw moving towards the building a vehicle in which, as informed, the administrator of the county and the president of the municipal council were, and he heard thereafter shouts of the people who had gathered at the door of the municipal building which was stoned by the said people; as a result of the stoning, the glasses of the windows were shattered. The stoning lasted for more than one quarter of an hour. He saw that, despite the proclamation which the administrator had ordered to be published, several persons came armed with clubs and sticks which they brought. These people, after the military forces appeared and a little before, withdrew to the churchyard, to the house of Salvador Filipe Álvares and a very few persons to the balcony of the witness’. The residence of Camilo Vicente António da Silva Coelho was adjoining the house of Salvador Filipe Álvares.
The deposition of José Maria Lucas Borges de Almeida records that ‘before 9 o’ clock in the morning, he saw that many people, who had already met inside and outside the house of Salvador Filipe Álvares, proceeded to the municipal building, several persons who went there kept their sticks in that house and others did not have. These people clustered in front of the municipal building; when the administrator of the county came in his vehicle to the door of the building there was an uproar. The witness went from his room to the sitting room of the parish priest and, when he returned there, he saw the municipal building was being stoned. After this, the armed forces came and all the people withdrew some to the house of the said Alvares, some to the churchyard”. And further: “When the forces came, the people who were at the house of Salvador Filipe Álvares waved their handkerchiefs to those who were near the building and these also made similar signs to the latter people when the administrator arrived.”
Filipe Caetano Ferrão states: “When the forces were approaching, the people were withdrawing. However, from the balcony of that house the persons, who were there, were shouting that they should not withdraw, that they should not be afraid. When the forces started dispersing the gathering, they were assaulted by several persons of the said group. The aggression was backed by those who were in the balcony. He heard clearly: “Bravo, well done!” The aggression was made with stones and sticks’. And further: ‘the witness added that the hooligans right from 8 o’clock in the morning were drunk and he recognized several persons form Colvá, Margão and Navelim who were not electors’.
Caetano Agostinho Barreto Pacheco said ‘that at about 7 o’clock in the morning he saw several groups from the village of Colva, Navelim and Benaulim coming to this town and proceeding to the house of Salvador Filipe Álvares. Several persons from the groups came armed with clubs and sticks and many quite drunk.’
Thus, these witnesses, who were members of the Partido Indiano, also deposed in the court and confirmed that disruption of the electoral process by violence was pre-planned.
On the arrival of a military contingent to defend the municipal building, the assailants went back to their headquarters. Some stood in the balcony of the house of Álvares and others in front in the churchyard, arming themselves with clubs and sticks. Later, when the troops came in to disperse the crowd, the soldiers were attacked with clubs, sticks and stones. In this attack two soldiers fell prostrate. One of the soldiers, who had fallen, was beaten up – a fact that was confirmed by two witnesses in the criminal case, namely, Rosário Álvares and Barnabé Lourenço.
The troops fired their guns in the air. But the youngsters who were in the verandah of Salvador Filipe Álvares shouted in Konkani ‘te poque far, te poque far, binacai’ (those are empty shots, those are empty shots, don’t be scared). The mob that was under the influence of liquor, roused by the incitement, began to throw stones with greater fury. At this juncture, the troops received orders to shoot in self-defence. Several persons fell dead, none of them caudillos of the Partido Indiano. The records of the court hearing bear out that 15 persons had died.
The instigators fled from the verandah by a back door of the house of Álvares and vanished, abandoning those who were wounded or dead on their instigation in the church yard.
The depositions of the witnesses in the criminal case bring into sharp focus that there were, amongst those who participated in the disturbances, persons who were not voters and who had come drunk and armed with sticks and clubs and with prior instructions.
The Results
António Ligório da Cunha was elected president of the municipality of Salcete. The other persons elected councillors were: Francisco Xavier Elesbão dos Prazeres Barreto from Velsao, Manuel Agostinho Rebelo from Curtorim, Pedro Rosário João de M. Baracho from Varca, José Nicolau da Silva Albuquerque from Margao, João Baptista de Miranda from Loutulim, and Inácio Xavier Trifónio do Patrocínio Godinho from Majorda.
The Case
A criminal case was instituted against leaders of the Partido Indiano, who had fled to British India. The trial court, after holding an inquiry, framed charge against the accused. The accused approached the Tribunal de Relação (High Court) at Panjim.
On September 18, 1891, the High Court of Goa altered the charge and held that the offences committed came only within the four corners of Article 472 (1) and 363 (1) of the Penal Code and directed that the appellants be released on bail.
The last paragraph of the judgement of the High Court ran thus:
“In the premises, the appeal is dismissed in so far as it prays for a discharge of the criminal liability of the appellants but, partly allowing it, the order framing the charge with respect to the two offences of sedition, disobedience, theft and resistance are quashed and in the premises the judge a quo is ordered to alter the charge in the manner stated hereinabove and therefore to grant bail to the appellants”.
The High Court had only altered the charge.
On behalf of the accused, an application for their release on bail was filed on September 21, 1891, three days after the judgement. The order releasing them on bail was made on September 23, 1891. However, leader of the Partido Indiano was already in Goa.
A Índia Portuguesa records: “Nobody in the country is unaware of the fact that out of the six persons charge sheeted, who took refuge in a foreign country, only Mr Loyola returned to Goa on the 23rd last because he was very ill, being accompanied only by his chummery mate in Belgaum, Mr José Luís Álvares, who was kind enough not to allow him to come alone; and that the remaining companions stayed there till the 26th of the last month”. (A Índia Portuguesa dated October 8, 1891).
Roque Correia Afonso and others, who had been left behind by their leader, returned on September 27, 1891 to Goa only after the order granting bail had been made and the legal papers had been duly processed. The Partido Indiano organised a welcome on their arrival back in Goa.
Later, by a decree dated July 4, 1892 amnesty was granted and, in view of the said amnesty, the case was disposed of by order dated August 18, 1892.
The statements recorded in the criminal case, of persons, who had witnessed at first hand the events, unravel and relate the devastating and compelling history which culminated in the horrific episode of September 21, 1890.
(The writer is a former Advocate General of Goa)
Also read a related column on Review Page 2 by Joaozinho Da SFA Martins
