CUNCOLIM: Recognising Goa’s first act of defiance against Portuguese colonisers, the State government will observe July 15 as Cuncolim Chieftains Martyrs Day, as a state festival, this year.
Twenty-two years after Cuncolkars first began pushing for the revolt of 1583 to be included as a part of India’s freedom struggle, the day will also be commemorated as War Memorial Day, at the national capital next week.
The Cuncolim Chieftains Memorial Trust, formed by a group of people insistent on obtaining national recognition for the sacrifice of their village, is now pushing for inclusion of the historical event in the school syllabus, and for the state government to recognise the 16 chieftains who were killed during the revolt as State and National Martyrs.
The trustees who met Chief Minister Pramod Sawant recently also demanded that a post card commemorating the battle be released, and that the Chieftain’s memorial park in Cuncolim be upgraded and maintained regularly.
The violent revolt of July 15, 1583 involved the massacre of five Jesuit priests and several native Catholic converts who had travelled to the agricultural village to erect a cross, and identify land for a church.
This 1583 battle for ‘swarajya and swadharma’ is considered the first ever uprising against foreign colonisers across the entire Asian continent, long before India’s freedom movement against the British began. Soon after, in retaliation to the attack, the Portuguese massacred 16 Kshatriya chieftains from Cuncolim after luring them to the erstwhile Assolna fort on pretext of a peaceful parley.
The Portuguese army also came down hard on the village, razing their temples and homes, and burning all their orchards and crops.