Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s State visits last month to African nations took him to a few countries in which the Goan contribution – political and economic – has been quite significant. Mozambique and Kenya were among the African nations that the Prime Minister visited and that once had a sizeable Goan community that has since dwindled in numbers.
In his speech at the State luncheon hosted by Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta in honour of Modi, the former made a mention of the role the Indian immigrants played in the history and growth of the Kenyan nation. Recalling that the first wave of Indian migration was in the year 1896, when 32,000 Indians went to Kenya to build the railway line, he said that when the railway line was completed in 1902, about 7,000 of those workers ‘stayed behind to build a future in East Africa’. But it wasn’t just their future that they built on foreign shores but also that of the Kenyan nation.
“But it’s also important to remember that the Indian-Kenyans who made this country their home did not just work to build themselves and their families,” Kenyatta said. “They also sought, more broadly, to serve this country and support their African peers. Indeed, they were central to liberation efforts and many, many of them made great sacrifices to see this country set free,” the Kenyan President said in his address.
Recalling the names of various Indian personalities he made a mention of two Goans – Pio Gama Pinto and Fitz D’Souza – for their contribution to the Kenyan cause. “Pio Gama Pinto, chose to shun the comfort of silent commerce to speak out against the injustice of imperialism and oppression. He was jailed for five years,” Kenyatta said in his address, and added, “Lawyers like Diwan Chaman Lall, A R Kapila, Fitz D’Souza and Jaswant Singh represented my father and the rest of the Kapenguria Six when they were imprisoned in the 1950s.” Kenyatta’s father Jomo Kenyatta was the first President of Independent Kenya after the British granted the African nation Independence. The Kapenguria Six were important Kenyan nationalists who were arrested in 1952, tried at Kapenguria and later imprisoned Northern Kenya.
After Independence, Gama Pinto was elected to the Kenyan Parliament but didn’t live long. He was shot dead in Independent Kenya in the 1965. Two years after that his family migrated to Canada where his widow, Emma, and the children still live. Fitz D’Souza went on to be Deputy Speaker of the Kenyan Parliament and today has returned to Goa and lives in Bambolim. To the family of Gama Pinto and to D’Souza, Kenyatta’s words, “…ultimately, this country was forged not just through the blood and sweat and tears of Kenyan and African freedom fighters, but on the sacrifices of many, many Kenyan-Indian freedom fighters too,” would be a testimony of and a thanks to the sacrifices made all those years ago.
Like Gama Pinto, Mozambique’s most famous Goan – Aquino de Braganca – too had a tragic end. Braganca was adviser to Samora Machel the Mozambican President following Independence from Portugal. He too had been involved in Mozambique’s freedom struggle and contributed during its nascent years as an Independent country. He was the representative FRELIMO (Front for Liberation of Mozambique) deputed to Lisbon to initiate negotiations with the government after the carnation revolution of April 1974 that overthrew the Portuguese dictatorship. He died in an air crash travelling in a plane carrying the Mozambican President. Braganca’s widow, Sylvia, lives in Goa on the island of St Estevam.
Kenya and Mozambique are East African countries, an area of the African continent that saw a large number of Goan emigrants who not only made a life there but involved themselves in the freedom struggles of the lands. It didn’t matter to them who was the colonial ruler. While Kenya was under British rule, Mozambique was being governed by the Portuguese. When both countries got their freedom, there were Goan personalities that had played a role in the struggle and could claim a little credit for the freedom the countries got.
Kenya hasn’t forgotten Gama Pinto. There is a road in the county named after him, the road on which he lived, and he has been featured in a commemorative stamp ‘Heroes of Kenya’. Mozambique still remembers Braganca. The Centre for African studies at the University Eduardo Mondlane, of which he was the director, completed 40 years earlier this year with a celebration.
Describing the historic ties between India and Kenya, the Kenyan President went on to say that the relationship between the two countries is “especially unique and especially meaningful” and that despite the trials the bond endures. That it indeed is.
The Goan connection with the African continent has been imortalised by the role that these men played in the freedom struggled of some of the countries on the eastern African coast. It has neither been overlooked nor forgotten yet, and history books will always carry a note on these men, who in a foreign country stood by the native population against a colonial aggressor to win a land freedom; a freedom that they themselves would not be able to enjoy for too long.
The number of Goans in the East African countries today is far less than what it was even in the 1970s. When the lands were under colonial rule the Goans there prospered, whether in government service or in business. After the countries got Independence a large number migrated to the United Kingdom, Canada and Portugal and many others returned to their roots. Yet, Goa’s fascinating tryst with Africa has not ended. It is a romance that persists in remaining alive, even though it needs to be documented much more thoroughly.
(Alexandre Moniz Barbosa is Executive Editor, Herald)
