20 Aug 2020  |   04:05am IST

Goans are not new to migration; movement for a better life is the key to every moving Goan?

As part of the South Asian Heritage month, The Goan Association UK hosted a webinar : Goans in Britain: The rile of British and Portuguese Colonialism in their migration and settlement. A worldwide audience and media logged in to hear the speakers, Ravi Vaz, President, Goan Association UK, Rt Hon Suella Braverman QC MP ( Attorney General UK) and Dr Stella Mascarenhas- Keyes, Goan Social Scientist- author of ‘Colonialism, Migration and the International Catholic Goan Community.

NESHWIN ALMEIDA; café@herald-goa.com

In a year of the Covid-19 pandemic when there could be no World Goa Day festivities in London organized by the Goa UK Association headed by Ravi Vaz and multiple other Goans, it was time to discuss the Goan identity in the UK.

Ravi the President of the Goa UK Association along with  Suella (Fernandes) Braverman, Attorney-General of England and Wales and Stella Mascarenhas-Keyes, both having Goan ancestry and making it big for themselves in Britain were part of a South Asian Heritage Month webinar discussing a key issue of Goan migrating abroad and their achievements and what really triggers these migrations. The webinar on 18 August 2020 which was at 5.30 pm UK time, was at 10 pm Goa time but was largely attended by Goans across India, Australia, Europe and parts of America despite some of them having to login in the wee hours.

The keynote address was by Suella Braverman who was appointed Attorney General on February 13 2020. She was previously Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for Exiting the European Union from January to November 2018. Braverman was elected as the Conservative MP for Fareham in May 2015. Her father of Goan origin migrated from Nairobi while her mother Uma Fernandes recently was feted for her service in the National Health Service in the UK for contributing 45 years in the service of the NHS.

 On the other hand, the other important speaker, Stella Mascarenhas Keyes is the first Goan social science scholar to do her Ph.D on the theme Goan International migration at the London University Social Anthropology doctoral thesis and is the author of the book Colonialism, Migration and the International Catholic Goan Community.

Ravi who explains to us that the Goa UK Association not just brings Goans together across the UK and has reached out to Goans stuck in the UK through ration and other supplies during the lockdown of the pandemic, also made known to us the pride of Goans in the UK and their far reaching contribution to the British economy.

“ I must say that Goans chanced on migration because of the cultures they inherited from the Portuguese rule in Goa and the conversion to Catholicism, which made Goa a society more acceptable to ways of taxation, respecting and trading alcohol, meat-eating of beef and pork and also respecting other cuisines, which makes it easy for Goans to be employed anywhere in the world,” asserted Stella.

Stella explains how Goans first moved to Mumbai and other parts of India to work for the British and Scottish nationals working in the Indian system as civil servants and later Goans took opportunities to move towards other British and Portuguese colonies in Africa for better returns and remuneration.

“ Portuguese was definitely the first language but Goans are always known to spend their first earnings or remittances on learning English in Africa which is better equipped. Besides their no qualms to handle beef, pork, wines which fetched jobs in restaurants and caretaking. And Goans culture to spend on learning quality education in English can be seen till date on how Goans remitting funds to their families back home immediately chose private educational institutions which are in the English medium.

Suella backs up this point and explains how her parents brought her up in a frugal system but ensured funding for her good education around Wembley which is where British citizens with Goan ancestry of her generation have done well for themselves and able to go the distance in terms of achieving enough in their careers.

Stella points out that Goans have had a lot of relatives in India, outside Goa, during the Portuguese rule and later Goans migrated to Africa, Europe especially the UK and also to the Gulf since they had the skill-set to seek these jobs. “It’s the stories of a better life and experiences they took home with them which has inspired more Goans to migrate and that’s how Goans have been chancing on this opportunity of a Portguese passport to move to UK, until now before Brexit.

Stella also mentions that the number of Goans moving out has created a vacuum within Goa and allowed others to take advantage and the effect is seen in an unsustainable framework in mining and tourism besides lots of Indians moving into Goa post-liberation to take up key jobs, which has resulted in the land grab and massive sale or transfer of land from Goans moving out to non Goans which indeed has changed the demographics of the land.

Suella herself who has able to experience the heritage of Old Goa and Assagao because of her father’s many trips to Goa in her younger days, expresses that the rise of Goans migrating to the UK in want of work, only because they could chance on the opportunity of the Portuguese passport has also resulted in a lot of unsustainable migration of Goans into the UK mostly in their 30s and 40s and their struggle to own housing or buy a piece of land in UK which results in their struggling lifestyle and livelihood within the UK.

Suella and Stella place high regards for Goans who migrated into the UK in the 1960s for various factors and the fact that their Catholic faith unlike the other denominations of Christianity across India has been it simpler for Goans to move into Europe and their subsequent hard work and ability to blend into any kind of work atmosphere is now paying for the second and third-generation Goans in the UK.

 Ravi, on the other hand, is fighting hard for Goans to keep their traditions, culture, music, heritage and Goan ethos alive amongst the diaspora in the UK. He puts ends together to ensure Goan vendors sell their local Goan cuisine, Goan musicians make it to the stage and more importantly Goans speak their mother tongue Konkani right there in the UK.