Identity Crisis
There have been several attempts in the past and in more recent weeks to provoke a scare that Portugal might indeed be considering revoking Portuguese nationality rights to Goans and others from its former Indian territories. A report in this newspaper on Monday quoting the Portuguese Ambassador to India Jorge Roza de Oliveira saying Portugal had no such intention, puts the issue into perspective.
Portuguese legal experts have long held that any attempt to withdraw Portuguese nationality rights to Goans and those from Daman and Diu would require major Constitutional amendments to Portuguese laws and the move would be both legally and politically irrational. Legally, because as Portuguese legal expert Miguel Reis argues, the descendants of those born in Goa, Daman and Diu during Portuguese rule enjoy the same rights as any other Portuguese descendants in Portugal and other parts of the world. Politically, because any move to amend the Constitution to deprive the right to only those from its former Indian colonies would be downright racist.
While many of those in Goa engaged in this debate are more interested in its political complexity, given that two MLAs have been taken to the courts over their nationality, for Portugal which allows dual citizenship, the law is simply this: those who were born in Goa before December 19, 1961 are Portuguese. Granted this, two generations of their descendants too are entitled to Portuguese nationality. It is unlikely Portugal, even under pressure from other EU countries—as rumours fly—would amend its Constitution to change that. Two generations down the line, of course, the rights would cease, which is perhaps another reason for the rush at the Consulate in Altinho.
It’s rather ironic that the Portuguese nationality right has become such a major issue currently. For years after the Liberation, there were few takers for the Portuguese passport. Portugal was still a dark dictatorship, a closed society and a country with very poor economic prospects. But the fall of the fascist dictatorship on April 25, 1974 began to change all that. After Portugal joined the European Union in 1986, a Portuguese passport became the ticket to jobs in other more prosperous EU countries, the UK most notably, because of the language and the relative ease with which the “Portuguese passport Goan” could fit into a society so culturally diverse. Some estimates suggest over 15,000 Goans who acquired Portuguese nationality have made the move to work in the UK over the last five years.
For all the discussions and debate over entire Catholic villages emptying out with the emigration, one tends to forget Goa’s long history of the outbound movement of its people. Migration and emigration have been as much a part of the Goa evolving story as it has been of other parts of India and large parts of the world. There are many in Goa who still harbour a very romanticised and idealized notion of the past, the years they can still recall preceding the Liberation and perhaps the turn of the 20th Century under the Portuguese. But the historical fact is Portugal’s jewel in its Indian possessions had slumped to commercial decadence in the early 19th Century, with economic activity practically arrested. By 1830 the first wave of migration was set off from these shores with the tide moving towards British India where jobs were available in education, health and administration. Migration studies on Goa show that by the 1930s one-tenth of Goa’s population had been forced to migrate in search of employment.
To this day we’re still lacking in data that would give us a sense of how many Goans live abroad, and how many in Mumbai—where thousands moved to during the British Raj. Some assessments suggest there are more Goans living outside of Goa than in their home State. Compiling such data would not be such a challenging assignment anymore, given today’s technological connectivity and the Goan diaspora’s proclivity for continuous engagement both with issues and people “back home”. A comprehensive assessment of the Goan expatriate community would be not only instructive, but it would also help bring into perspective the human resources of a State that currently sees itself under siege with the influx of “outsiders”.
