Ashley D’Mello
The visit of Portuguese President Mario Soares to Goa in January 1992 still stirs up emotions in me. It was the first presidential visit I covered within a month of coming to Goa as correspondent for a national newspaper.
I later covered other visits in Mumbai but they were cold affairs and did not involve the emotional outpouring like the Portuguese President’s visit did. Emotions began cascading at the airport, when Soares began an impromptu speech on the tarmac soon after alighting from the plane. “It is difficult for anyone from Portugal to speak about Goa without emotion,” he said slowly in a voice charged with feeling.
Indeed, the Portuguese President seemed to be holding himself back, something he did not do when he visited Daman and Diu where according to Portuguese journalists he wept openly when he heard people speaking and singing in Portuguese.
Some Goan politicians at the airport broke into Portuguese, which they spoke with some effort when talking to the Portuguese media. This was obviously an emotional time for them too. One journalist, Mario Cabral e Sa, breaking protocol, went ahead and ignoring the security cordon on the tarmac pumped the President’s hand.
According to Portuguese journalists at that time another emotional moment for the President came when he saw the old Cadillac awaiting him at the airport. This was the same car used by the last Portuguese governor of Goa, Vassalo e Silva. The driver of the vehicle, Yusuf, had also been the former governor’s driver and spoke to the president in Portuguese which has gone rusty over the last 30 years.
Several Goan freedom fighters were moved by the visit as it brought back memories of their struggle with the Portuguese colonial regime. “Remember Mario Soares is a freedom fighter who fought the dictatorship in Portugal and had strong sympathies with freedom fighters in Goa,” Mohan Ranade told me during the visit, “We will relive the old days of camaraderie as well as the fears of arrest and detention.”
It was Soares who met two other prominent freedom fighters from Goa in Lisbon – Tristao Braganza Cunha and Purushottam Kakodkar – and held secret discussions in coffee shops on how to challenge colonial rule.
His first visit to Goa came as foreign minister of the new government in Portugal in December 1974, During which he managed to get the Indian government to sign a treaty which re-established links between India and Portugal. Links which had broken off after the liberation of Goa by the Indian Army.
Eighteen years later, Soares now President, came with his wife and a team of 150, which included Portuguese officials, several prominent Portuguese with Goan backgrounds and a 50 media strong force. Among the Goans were several MPs Naraina Coissoro, Eduardo Pereira, Fernando Correia Afonso and Minguel Rodrigues, a former Prime Minister in a caretaker government, Alfredo Nobre Da Costa and Kalidas Baretto, a labour leader. All of them with strong family connections in Goa and Mumbai.
Soares endeared himself to the Goans by his informal charm and his readiness to party. He shook a leg on the floor at several dinners with his wife, Maria Barosso Soares and even asked the Union Minister, Margaret Alva to join him on the floor.
He was also keen to be politically correct and during his speeches and talks he referred to Gandhi on several occasions. This endeared him to many but on more than one occasion while he did praise India and her achievements, he was unwilling to be apologetic for Portuguese colonial rule in Goa.
During his final press conference in Goa, when urged by journalists to express regrets for the excesses of Portuguese colonial rule, he maintained silence.
This of course came as a disappointment to journalists who felt his socialist background should have made him more open to the feelings of people in the former colonies of Portugal. Perhaps this was his way to telling people, that times had changed. While Goa was not a colony anymore, he was now president of a democratic country and not accountable for the misdeeds of the past. His way of saying that the future of relations between Goa and Portugal should not be tied down to emotions raked up by what is already over, it should be a new beginning.
