The morning of 4th September, 2015 dawned bright and sunny. I proceeded, to the Church of Mae de Deus, Majorda, to attend the funeral of Thomas Vaz, the patriarch of a powerful village clan, with a brother and son as priests, another brother as our Sarpanch and children well settled all over the world. After mass as the mourners proceeded to the cemetery in a queue, (the longest I have ever seen in my village), I realized that my next funeral will also be in a church dedicated to Mae de Deus, but this time, at Saligao. Dr Wilfred de Souza, had expired.
Dr Willy, as he is better known made his political bow, if memory serves me right (now a days sometimes it doesn’t) as United Goans Party candidate from Siolim in 1972 where he lost to Chandrakant Chodankar. Despite the loss, Dr Willy had impressed Jack de Sequeira so much that much against advice of party men he fielded him in a by election at Benaulim on 9 June, 1974. The result announced the next day was a stalemate with both candidates fighting for victory over a single vote. The Returning Officer declared MGP candidate Luta Ferrao as the winner after counts and recounts. Dr Willy challenged the result by election petition and after a prolonged battle he emerged victorious. A pyrrhic winner he turned out to be. The House was dissolved before he could take his seat.
Interestingly, there was another by election eighteen years later exactly to the day in Loutolim Constituency. And I was the candidate who emerged winner. As it happened I won my first election and did not win any more. Dr Willy lost his first but won many more to emerge as the fulcrum of Goa’s politics for more than three decades.
The Congress (U) led by Dr Willy swept to power winning twenty three out of thirty seats in the Assembly elections in late 1979. For the first time Goa was to have a non-MGP and non-Bandodkar family Govt. It was expected that Dr Willy would automatically be the Chief Minister having led the party to power. But then the unwritten law came into play. The Hindutva brigade had Pratapsingh Rane who had very little role in the Congress victory appointed as CM. Dr Willy was denied his due with the same clinical ease with which Dr Willy removed tumours on the operation table. This denial of a well-earned reward appears to be the genesis of all of Dr Willy’s subsequent revolts and counter revolts.
Dr Willy was one politician who is universally considered to be non-corrupt and a great administrator. Well, honestly it is my experience that if you are non-corrupt and dishonest, you cannot be successful in politics. But perhaps Dr Willy was the exception to this rule.
On his administrative abilities there should be no doubt at all. It is possibly a family trait as his brother Padma Shree, Fr Romualdo de Souza has a proven record of setting up some of the country’s top Management Institutes beginning with XLRI Jamshedpur and ending with Goa Institute of Management (GIM), originally at Ribandar, Goa. Fr Romualdo suffered the same fate as Dr Willy. He too was eased out of GIM after he had successfully set up the institute. Another brother Orlando retired as a top executive with American oil firm Caltex. He now lives in Texas. The only sister has retired as Mother Superior of her order and the other brother who lives in Goa has retired as Headmaster. Each one having reached the zenith of their respective professions.
Tragically for Goa, the talents of Dr Willy, as an administrator could never be put to the full test in view of the communal politics that has plagued the land since Operation Vijay. The unwritten law that no Catholic ought to be the Chief Minister of the State kept Dr Willy out from the chair and deprived Goa of his administrative talent. For this act of denial, Goa continues to suffer with shoddy administration till date.
The unwritten law was finally broken by political novice Churchill Alemao in the year 1990 when he was sworn in as the first Chief Minister from the minority community. Dr Luis Proto Barbosa, Dr Willy, Luizinho Faleiro and Francisco Sardinha followed. But it is noteworthy that none of them were allowed to complete twelve months at a stretch in office.
My own association with Dr Willy began in the year 1983 when Dr Willy with a group of MLAs broke away from the Congress to form the Goa Congress. He later mastered the art of break ups and patch ups which on hind sight now can be seen were a necessary consequence of the powers that be, never giving him his due.
Not many will disagree that Dr Willy was among the most arrogant of Goan politicians. It is only in recent times that Manohar Parrikar has been giving him competition. Dr Willy’s approach was aggressive towards anyone who approached him, friend or foe. He was to Goan politics what Sanath Jayasuriya was to Sri Lankan cricket. Like Jayasuriya, Dr Willy would swing at everyone, sometimes miss and sometimes get bowled. But when he did connect which was not infrequently, the bowlers would be pulverized beyond recovery. To me it is a surprise that Dr Willy could survive so long in politics with such an approach or perhaps he had realised that offence was the best means of defence. If that be so, he was highly successful.
As someone who has been in the thick in Goan politics these few decades I can say that Dr Willy was a collosus. Win or lose he was always a factor to be considered before making any move for a political change. The refrain was; “what will Dr Willy do? Let us meet him”.
Now of course, there will be no more moves or counter moves. Dr Willy has finally had his last call. For me the week that began with the biggest funeral in my village ended with the biggest funeral in Saligao. Farewell Dotor Willy.
(Radharao F.Gracias is a senior Trial Court Advocate.)
