Herald: You have always been at the forefront demanding recognition for Dr Jack de Sequeira. There are others who feel he played an equal part along with other groups who fought against merger.
Radharao Gracias: The Opinion Poll involved the issue whether Goa should be merged with Maharashtra or not. And when there is an issue there are personalities supporting/opposing it. Those supporting merger were led by Dayanand Bandodkar and those opposing merger were led by Dr Jack de Sequeira. Now, let us be clear, and this is an undisputed fact and facts are different from opinions, the movement to save Goa’s identity and against merger was led by Dr Sequeira. He was the leader of the movement.
Herald: The opposing view is that Dr Sequeira did not single handedly win the Opinion Poll. Would it be fair to say that Dr Sequeira represented those who voted against merger?
Gracias: No one is saying Dr Sequeira single handedly won the Opinion Poll. That has never been the basis for calling him the Father of the Opinion Poll. Let’s take the Indian cricket team that won the World Cup 2011 for example. All 11 players played their role but they were led by Mahendra Singh Dhoni who decided the strategy that finally culminated in the victory. The World Cup trophy is handed over to the leader of the group, in this case Dhoni. Similarly Dr Sequeira should have been credited as the leader of the group of all those who supported him during the Opinion Poll. Dr Sequeira may have been as fallible as anyone else, but he was a great leader and this was a landmark moment that made Goa what it is today. He deserves recognition.
Herald: It has been argued that the State’s minority population at that time was not more than 35% and that it was not possible for Dr Sequeira to have convinced the entire population alone. It is further argued that after the Opinion Poll, the United Goans Party led by Dr Sequeira lost to the MGP.
Gracias: If you look at the 1967 electoral roll, you will find that the Catholic voters constituted about 40 percent of the electorate, the Muslims about two percent and so in total the minority voters was about 42 percent. Now, 54% voted against the merger versus 44% who voted for merger. It can be said that nearly 100% of the Catholic population and 25% of the Hindu population voted against merger and that 75% of the Hindu population was for merger. Uday Bhembre was part of the Gaud Sarawswat community that represented 3-4 percent of the population that was vocal for non-merger. Finally Dr Sequeira was not the leader of the Catholic population alone. There were Hindus who also appreciated and supported his stand against the merger and there were Hindu leaders in the United Goans Party like Vasudev Sarmalkar, Babu Naik, Jagdish Rao, Srirang Narvekar and others. So UGP did not have Catholic followers only but Hindu followers also.
Herald: There was a notion among the UGP supporters that every vote for merger was a vote for Dr Sequeira’s party?
Gracias:Admittedly, there were other groups and parties who worked for the Opinion Poll. Again, no one is saying UGP alone won the Opinion Poll. As it has been argued, the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) governed the Union Territory and thus enjoyed a majority of the support. But many of the Hindus who were supporting MGP did not support their stand on merger. Now the 44% who voted for merger were mostly MGP supporters. Among the 54% who voted non-merger there were supporters of various political dispensations and for the purpose of the Opinion Poll Dr Sequeira was the leader of those campaigning against merger. For the Assembly elections that followed the Opinion Poll those who did not agree with the UGP, although they had supported non merger, voted against it. It follows that the majority of the people who voted for non merger under the leadership of Dr Sequeira felt that Dayanand Bandodkar was better for being Chief Minister and so supported him in the Assembly elections.
Herald: What about the other four groups that fought for non merger along with Dr Sequeira? It has been argued that they should get equal credit and erecting a statue for Dr Sequeira alone is excessive.
Gracias:There may be five or ten groups, at the end of the day they were all led by Dr Sequeira. What is required, and long overdue, is a memorial and, the role of all the groups can be acknowledged. But you can’t erect statues of all the groups. You erect statues of the leader and here is the man under whose leadership Goan identity was saved. That is why he deserves a statue. Remember it was Dr Sequeira versus Bandodkar whose party wanted to destroy Goa’s identity. Yet, there are statues of Bandodkar all over the State and we are opposing erecting a statue for Dr Sequeira? If there is any group of people who deserve special recognition for their role against merger it is the ‘tiatrists’ of Goa.
Herald: You, along with those who are pushing for such commemoration of Dr Sequeira, were not part of the Opinion Poll. You must have been very young at that time. Uday Bhembre for instance was a leader during the Opinion Poll. Doesn’t that give him more credibility to speak on this matter?
Gracias: I was not even a teenager at that time. I was too young to go and participate in the voting but I remember the entire campaign. We can thus look at it dispassionately while those who participated have a parochial view of things. This was not a small matter but the matter of the State and Dr Sequeira was not just one of the participants but a symbol and an inspiration for the people. By commemorating his role either by building a statue or other means, is a symbolic gesture and way of recognizing the person under whose leadership Goa was saved.
Herald: Why do you think those who participated in the movement feel that commemorating Dr Sequeira alone in such a big way is too much?
Gracias: One can see that post liberation a lot has been done to undermine the Catholic community and its leaders and their contribution to the State. That is one of the reasons Dr Sequeira is being opposed. If you observe, these are the same reasons why Konkani being preserved in the Konkani Script is being opposed because it is the script being used by the Catholic community. Konkani has never been widely written in the Devnagri script except by the Saraswats since some years before Liberation. The leaders opposing Dr Sequeira are the same who are opposing Konkani in the Roman script for the same reasons. As a result of this kind of attitude, Goan Catholics are running away from Goa, so much so, that no Goan Catholic is member of the Lok Sabha or Rajya Sabha but three Catholics of Goan origin are members of the House of Commons. Likewise, there are two Catholic Goans who are Members of Parliament in Portugal. The Mayor of Lisbon is also a Goan Catholic and is tipped to be the next Prime Minister of that country. Even Hong Kong has a very powerful MLA who hails from my village. So you see you can kick the Goan Catholic out but you cannot keep him down.
Herald: Coming back to Dr Sequeira, they say it was the then local Congress president Purshottam Kakodkar who pushed for holding of the Opinion Poll and getting the Act passed as opposed to holding midterm elections. A home secretary at that time coined the word Opinion Poll. So there are two parts here. One is campaigning to win the Opinion Poll, but what about those who got the Opinion Poll in the first place?
Gracias:The word ‘Opinion Poll’ is not a copyright of anyone and the etymology of the word is irrelevant. Since the Congress was a ruling party at the center and Kakodkar was its Goa leader he was consulted as is the practice of political parties even today. Also it was Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru who promised after Operation Vijay that Goans would be consulted with regard to their status. And the Opinion Poll was that promised “consultation”.
Herald: As per records it was Kakokdar who met the leaders concerned and after his intervention in Delhi, the government agreed to hold the Opinion Poll. Dr Sequeira as leader of the opposition was also called to Delhi and he had asked that the Opinion Poll be about statehood which was rejected.
Gracias: The fact that Dr Seqeuira was called to Delhi itself is an acknowledgement from the central government of that time that he was the leader of those opposing merger. The factual position is that the Opinion Poll was fought by Goans and there were many who worked together, even those who otherwise deferred with Dr Sequeira worked under his leadership, including Uday Bhembre. Dr Sequeira was the undisputed leader and a memorial would give recognition to the effort of the entire population under his leadership. After all, we cannot put up statues of all the 1,72,191 persons who voted against merger.
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Herald: There have been strong reactions to your position that Dr Jack de Sequeira cannot be called the father of the Opinion Poll.
Uday Bhembre: Those who claim that Dr. Sequeira is the father of Opinion Poll do not give any justification for their claim. In fact, there is no basis for such a claim. Those who make it are ignorant about the developments that preceded the Opinion Poll. They were either too young to comprehend what happened or were born after the Opinion Poll.
Herald: So are you saying they are not well informed?
Bhembre: Yes. I have no doubt that they are ignorant about the history of Opinion Poll and it is sad that they have not taken the trouble of reading any part of the material that is available on the subject.
Herald: Why do you think Dr Sequeira should not be called the father of the Opinion Poll?
Bhembre: Dr Sequeira as Leader of the Opposition in the Legislative Assembly and president of United Goans Party outside the Assembly had a role to play. He played that role well and in the interest of Goa. He deserves our respect for it. But definitely he was not the sole architect of achievements of Goans in connection with the Opinion Poll.
Herald: Can you elaborate?
Bhembre: Dr Sequeira did not bring the Opinion Poll. He did not coin the term ‘Opinion Poll’. He did not win the Opinion Poll single handedly. He was one among several sons of the soil who were instrumental in achieving success. It was Purushottam Kakodkar of Congress Party who, more than anyone else, was instrumental in bringing the Opinion Poll.
Herald: But wasn’t Dr Sequeira at the forefront of the movement?
Bhembre: As I said earlier Dr Sequeira was one of those who were at the forefront. It was not a movement started by anti-mergerists. Opinion Poll was forced upon Goans by the situation created by MGP that insisted upon merger. Before the Poll was held there was a propaganda campaign to save Goa from merger. In that campaign two political parties and three other groups were actively involved. The political parties were UGP and Congress. The other groups were the Konkanivadis (or Rashtramat family), ‘Gomant Kala Pathak’ of Ulhas Buyao and ‘Sanghapradesh Jyot’ of Shabu Dessai of Cuncolim. There was neither an alliance nor a front of these five entities and hence there was no supreme leader. The groups worked independently and separately; but towards the same goal.
Herald: Why do you think there is this misconception about Dr Sequeira?
Bhembre: Most of those who call Dr Sequeira father of Opinion Poll were not involved in the campaign and do not know the facts. They also forget that Dr Sequeira or UGP alone could not have won the Opinion Poll with even 100% votes from the minority community. I know from personal experience that it was collective effort of the leaders, workers and the voters who opposed merger and, therefore, their success too was collective. To call any one person the ‘father’ will be nothing less than distortion of history.
Herald: The argument is that there have been attempts to undermine the Catholic population and its leaders and their contribution to the State post liberation. It’s argued that these are the people who opposed Konkani in the Roman Script and are opposing Dr Sequeira’s commemoration. Also the perception that it is the Gaud Saraswat community that was against the merger during the Opinion Poll is now opposing Dr Sequeira from receiving due credit?
Bhembre: History is history whether one likes it or not. It gets distorted when one looks at it with a communal bias. I have not merely read or heard history but have personally experienced it. When I assess Dr Sequeira’s role in the Opinion Poll and his valuable contribution, religion and caste, to me, are totally irrelevant. What was at stake was Goa’s future and not any religion or caste. If any person or group feels that opposition to label any person as ‘Father of Opinion Poll’ is an attempt to undermine the Catholic population, I would say that the feeling is a symptom of paranoia. There is no relation whatsoever between the script issue and the commemoration of Dr Sequeira’s memory. The script issue is related to our language which has suffered and is still suffering from the use of multiple scripts; while the other is related to the contribution of a leader. The perception that the Goud Saraswat community was massively against merger is born out of stark ignorance. The Saraswat community was divided. Many prominent families from Margao, Panjim and other places advocated merger. Their members addressed public meetings with other mergerists. In my own family my father was not with me on the issue of Marathi and merger. I do not believe that any one is opposing Dr Sequeira receiving due credit. If at all anything is being opposed it is distortion of history either due to ignorance of facts or with some ulterior motive.
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TIMELINE
May 1963: PM Jawaharlal Nehru visits Goa from. States in Panjim on May 25 that Indian government wants to preserve the distinct identity of Goa. As regards its future political status Goans will decide,he says.
December 1963: Elections to the Legislative Assembly are held. MGP forms the government. Dayanand Bandodkar is elected CM and Dr Sequeira becomes Leader of the Opposition.
April 7, 1964: Congress Parliamentary Board decides that the Goa issue should not be raked up for the next 10 years.
May 27, 1964: Nehru passes away. Lal Bahadur Shastri becomes the PM.
January 22, 1965: Assembly passes a private member’s resolution that Goa be merged with Maharashtra.
March 10, 1965: Assembly passes another private member’s resolution urging the Centre to merge Goa with Maharashtra immediately.
1965: Lal Bahadur Shastri’s cabinet agrees to decide Goa’s political status by holding mid-term elections. All anti mergerists oppose. Centre neither changes the decision nor acts on it. Purushottam Kakodkar, then president of GPCC, tries to get the decision changed. Centre does not respond.
1966: Shastri passes away at Tashkent. Indira Gandhi is elected PM. Out of disappointment and frustration Kakodkar leaves for Rishikesh in the Himalayas.
June 1966: Kakodkar returns from Rishikesh meets Kamraj, then President of Indian National Congress, who advises Kakodkar to see the PM. Kakodkar meets Indira Gandhi and urges her to change the decision to hold mid-term elections. PM expresses inability as it is a cabinet decision under Shastri. Kakodkar meets Morarji Dessai. He too says “cabinet decision is cabinet decision”. However, he assures Kakodkar that if anyone proposes a change in the policy, he will not oppose it. Kakodkar meets S K Patil who agrees to move the resolution to change the earlier decision and to hold a poll to ascertain the wishes of the people on the issue of merger alone.
September 3, 1966: Congress Parliamentary Board meets. SK Patil moves the resolution. It is passed.
December 1, 1966: Lok Sabha passes the Goa, Daman & Diu Opinion Poll Act. (Home Secretary L P Singh coins the words “Opinion Poll”)
December 3, 1966: Bandodkar government resigns. Assembly is dissolved. Goa under President’s Rule.
December 7, 1966: Rajya Sabha passes the GDD Opinion Poll Act.
December 13, 1966: President gives his assent to the Opinion Poll Act.
January 16, 1967: Polling is held for the Opinion Poll.
January 19, 1967: Results are declared. Anti-mergerists win by a margin of 34,021 votes.
