In Old Conquests of Goa, Territories conquered from 1510 an “Institution of Comunidade”, which administered village land, through councils whose membership was hereditary, male and usually upper caste. The Brahmins were particularly strong.
In the Vedic Age the Aryans introduced the four Varnas. The names of the four Varnas are: 1. The Brahmans, 2. The Kshatriyas; 3. The Vaishyas; 4. The Shudras.
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These Varnas were based on Vocations and not on Birth. A Portuguese Order at the end of the 19th Century allowed for the Shudras to be recognised as members of the “Comunidade”. This threw open, the possibility of the litigation of Comunidade Land, and thus the battle lines were drawn between the Brahmins and the Shudras.
In the early 20th century, one individual Custodio Caetano Fernandes made a claim to the Comunidade of Aldona, asking that his right to be registered as a Shudra villager at the age of 12, be recognised.
But Bento Sertorio Mascarenhas, advocate for the Comunidade of Aldona, published a defence of the Comunidade’s position, where he cited that only the Brahmins had the Right to Administer the Comunidade of Aldona. In response to this, Jose Baptisto Caetano Vaz, in 1930 appealed to the Portuguese Government to uphold his plea as a representative of the Shudras of Aldona and asked the Government to provide a law that would protect him and his caste members from becoming victims of the Brahmans of Aldona and asked Justice for Custodio Fernandes who asked for his right to be registered as a recipient of The Dividends from the communally administered villager land as his son had turned the age of 13.
The Comunidade refused, invoking a law which allowed only Brahmins, the Scribes to be registered when they were at the age of 12, but required the Shudras to be registered at the age of 19. Custodio Fernandes took his case to Court in Mapusa. The Comunidade defended its claim saying that since the Brahmins were of the class of Masters, Administrators, Governors they had a Prior Right, while the Shudras were of the labour class.
Conflicts between Brahmins and Shudras intensified and the Comunidade of Aldona split into two. Caetano Francisco Soares, a lawyer from Aldona, grandfather of (Joao Damasceno Soares/grand daughter-in-law Amelia Alvares Soares of Santerxette, Aldona) was shot dead one evening on November 13, 1921 at Ucassaim whilst returning home from Mapuca. The Shudras thought that Caetano Soares had influenced the judge in the case in Mapuca which the Brahmins won. A sharpshooter was brought from Bombay who hid in the bamboo grove in Ucassaim and assassinated our grandfather Caetano Francisco Soares.
The assassin got a life sentence. But the case was taken to the Supreme Court in Lisbon, Portugal where the Shudras won the case. The Comunidade of Aldona was divided into two.
A memorial still stands on the spot in Ucassaim, where he was shot.
