Contra Harbans Singh
Prakash J. Mascarenhas, Bombay, India. See TGF. Although the letters or posts of Harbans and Nitin Singh were not addressed to me personally, nevertheless I found them to be extremely provocative, insulting and deliberately offensive to all Goans. I have therefore taken them personally and respond to them.
Harbans Singh: The takeover came as a result of Portuguese moves to make the EIP into a NATO Base...
Response: Rumours, without an iota of basis. These were actually lies manufactured by the Indian Union. Another version said that Salazar was going to lease the EIP to the USA as military bases. Then again, how can that justify the naked aggression of 1954 against Dadra & Nagar-Haveli? The manufactured lies came in to late to justify that crime, didn't it?
Still, such a situation, if there was real evidence that could be corroborated, could possibly justify military action - pre-emption, but not annexation without a proper Plebiscite! The refusal to respect the EIP's right of Self-determination demolishes all the Indian Union's lame excuses.
Harbans Singh: It is the Portuguese administration of the time that did not encourage the Indians to come into Goa and mix with the locals.
Response: Lies, all lies.
Can you tell me about the policy followed by the Dogra Kings of Jammu & Kashmir, which, incidentally, is still the law in that province, that outsiders cannot come in and purchase land and houses? Can you go to Srinagar and buy yourself a house?
But the Portuguese had no such policy. In fact, they had a contrary one. The Portuguese government followed a policy of encouraging the immigration of Indian traders and merchants, of whatever religion, and assured them of religious freedom. This was in order to improve the EIP's economic condition.
Of course, however, neither the Portuguese nor any sensible people are going to consider allowing an influx of people which will overwhelm the locals. Since this is what you want, why don't you agitate that the Indian Union permits Pakistanis and Bangladeshis who want to come, to freely come in and settle in the Indian Union? Why does your Indian Union government object to the influx of Pakistanis and Bangladeshis? Or do you have a double standard even in this matter?
Harbans Singh: You refuse to recognize them (Goans serving in the Indian Union's Forces, and who played a leading role in the Invasion) as Goans and dub them as "People with Goan parentage and not Goans themselves".
Response: I would suggest that you go to Norway and ask them what their attitude towards Mr. Quisling and the others who collaborated with the Nazis is. Go to Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Austria, the Czech Republic and Poland, and ask them the same question.
The name Quisling has gone down in history. And that is the name we apply to these collaborators of our own flesh: They were Goans, but Goan Quislings. Traitors to their homeland. Traitors who deserve to be executed, hanged like dogs!
Harbans Singh: (Reference to different scenario faced by the Indian Union's Forces during the Invasion of Goa and the Chinese Invasion.)
Response: I once happened to read an interesting American book on the Sino-Soviet Disputes. It shows how as the natural differences between Mao and Krushev developed, it resolved into the Foreign Enclaves issues, with the Soviet taunting the Chinese for failing to use military force to expel foreigners from their enclaves, Hong Kong & Macao, as the Soviets had done in 1920-22 in Eastern Siberia. The Chinese replied that this was unnecessary and foolishness, military adventurism.
To show up the Chinese, the Soviets moved their Indian Union (notice how India came to ape the Soviets by changing from the Indian States to the Indian Union?) to act against the EIP. The Chinese punished India shortly after. Well deserved, I say; you had it coming!
This version is supported by the relation of the sequence that led to the occupation on 18 & 19 December 1961, as related by the pro-Indian Union site, GoaCentral.com:
Response: We wanted to be free from Portugal and we want to be free today from you and your despicable thieving Indian Union. We never wanted you, we don't want you, so can you pack your bags and get lost?
Harbans Singh: This is particularly unacceptable after the Goans, on their own free will have adopted the Indian Constitution and sworn allegiance to it, not once, but on a number of occasions since liberation. Ever applied for a passport or voted in an election or held a public/government post? In India, I mean!
Response: For more than a hundred years you and your ancestors traveled on British passports. For a thousand years before that, you traveled on Mughal, Tughlak, Lodhi, etc. passports. But you refused, in your heart, to give these 'governments' your loyalty, and you did well. In likewise, I have an Indian passport, although, bub, believe me, what I would love most of all, is to be holding today, not your dirty Indian passport or a Portuguese passport, but an Estado da India Portuguesa (EIP) passport!
And you demonstrate the greatest lack of intelligence, the most obtuse stupidity, to claim that by taking up jobs with the Indian Union and its passports, we "swear allegiance" to it, and ratify its criminal activities against our own country! What of the Frenchmen, Belgians, Dutchmen, Danes, etc. under Nazi Germany? Did they not travel under Hitler's passports? Did that give Hitler and Germany rights over them and their countries? Did that legitimize the criminal invasions and occupations of their countries by the Wehrmacht and the Schutz Staffen?
Harbans Singh: The Portuguese policy of granting citizenship of their country to all Goans even after that date (18 December 1961) is devoid of all international norms.
Response: Hahahahahah! This is uproariously funny! Portuguese Communist terrorists took advantage of the death of Salazar to seize the Government and they signed a treaty with India ceding the EIP without reference to International laws, norms and morality. The legitimate Portuguese governments since have ALWAYS refused to recognize this treaty - which is precisely why they continue to treat the EIP as a constitutional dependency of Portugal, which in fact, it still is!
The treaty is against all international norms, against law and against morality. There was a time, when states sold and purchased territories and their peoples, but that time was over since the Second World War. Since then, International Law recognizes that no transfer of territory can be undertaken without the consent of its people. This treaty lacked the consent of the people of the EIP, and is therefore null and void. Its only value is toilet-paper.
You are a monumental ass for misconstruing this as "psychological warfare" - if the Portuguese wanted to do any such thing AGAINST India, they would have been indiscriminately handing out Portuguese passports to any Indian citizen who asked for it! Rather like the USA's policy towards Soviet citizens during the Cold Wars!
Harbans Singh: NATO at that point in time was primarily controlled by ex-colonial powers who had innate sympathy for the Portuguese. I think, "The Non aligned Movement" was too strong at the time to let it happen anyway.
Response: Some more fantastic nonsense. NATO is and was a WASP club - meant to dominate and reduce the Catholic states of Europe, among other things. Spain and Portugal were strong-armed into NATO, as second-class members. NATO always acted to frustrate Spain and Portugal under Franco and Salazar. Once some Portuguese terrorists hijacked a cruise ship to the US, but they refused to either extradite them or punish them themselves, despite Portugal being in NATO Again, NATO refused to aid Portugal, as it should have, by legal obligation, against the Indian Union's brazen brigandry!
Harbans Singh: Let unity be given a chance! I am not talking of a unitary state. I am talking of a federation of states like the USA with a strong center and full freedom of the states to grow to their maximum potential where every individual can live in harmony, peace & prosperity.
Response: An obscene joke. India is not a federation, but a de facto unitary state. According to its constitution, it is a 'nation' with a 'national language.'
Pray tell me why, in your native Punjab, the Akali Dal is pressing for the Anandpur Sahib Resolution to be accepted and implemented? Some federation, this!
Harbans Singh: In any case, 500 years ago there was hardly any worthwhile culture in Europe. On the contrary, at the time of the Portuguese occupation, the entire Indian subcontinent had a well developed, rich, ancient and varied culture of its own.
Response: This is the greatest hogwash I ever heard. Europe uncultured five hundred years ago! An, by contrast, India had a rich culture! You make me vomit!
Hindu culture is not, I repeat, not Indian culture. And I see Hindu culture - Manuwadism - as being profoundly evil, barbaric, inhuman and misanthropic. But while Indian Culture is the composite of many contributions, including those of the Aryans, it has, to a large extent, except among the Manuwadis, survived being absorbed and typified by Hindu culture. And Portuguese culture, for all its faults, five hundred years ago, was definitely better than your miserable mess.
Hindu culture has been reformed from without, by force. And in response, Hinduism has thrown up its own movement for reform. However, this reform is only cosmetic: It does not address the radical cause of Hindu misanthropy. And now that external pressure has come to an end, you revert, happily revert: The dog returns to its vomit, the sow returns to the muck!
Harbans Singh: (Jose Colaço wrote: The vast majority of Goans do NOT live in Goa�) No sir! This is a patent misstatement. The vast majority of Goans live in Goa.
Response: If we consider Portuguese Law, because the EIP is still legally and constitutionally a Portuguese dependency, then all those who are were Goans are still Goans, and so also their descendants. This is similar to German law. But if we consider the law of the Indian Union, then only those who are 'domiciled' in Goa are Goans. But precisely we are not interested with what the Indian Union legislates, no more than we are interested in Chinese legislations, for example. Therefore, though you may be resident in the EIP, you are not a citizen, and though I am not resident, I still am.
Moreover, this is also Goan customary law. I am still a zonkar of my father's village, just as the Colaços are zonkars of their village in the Ilhas... You will never be a zonkar, even if you lived a thousand years in Goa. Period.
Lastly, if we take your version (or more properly, perversion) of the facts then most Goans are Goans because they are not Goans but settlers from the Indian Union. And these "Goans" do not speak Konkanni, but a variety of languages, such as Punjabi, Telugu, Kannada, Tulu, etc., etc.
Harbans Singh: (Jose Colaço wrote: The vast majority of Goans have Lusitanian influence on their lives�) This is quite right. However, I hope the Spaniards are not planning to lay claim over Goa through the Lusitanian connection?
Response: Huh? What was that? What have the Spaniards got to do with Lusitania? Have you got a brain? Or is it that you have confused Iberia with Lusitania? Anyway, if it will help, I can assure you that not only the Spanish, but also the French, the Germans, the Numidians, the Rhaetians, the Helvetians, the Dacians, the Sarmatians, the Romans, etc, are going to try to lay any claim on the EIP (or your Punjab) through any Lusitanian connection.
Harbans Singh: It was basically the riches and the trade which attracted these �Adventurers� to India. In addition, these �so called adventurers� found a rich & varied culture beyond their wildest dreams. That unleashed the saga of European �Adventurism� and the age of naked plunder, followed by subjugation & slavery (& all other unspeakable ills that go with it) followed for centuries to come. It would be interesting to find out the extent to which the Portuguese culture has been transformed due to their interaction with the Goan or Indian civilization. Genes & culture seldom flow only one way.
Response: Yup, the thing does sound familiar. Yes, where was I? Okay, how about this: The Indians went out and conquered and colonized Ceylon, Malaya, Singapore, Sumatra, Java, Cambodia, Thailand, Champa & Vietnam, Bali, etc., etc. President Meghawati Sukarnoputri. Sounds like she must be having some Indian genes? And King Rama IX or X or XI (who cares!) of Thailand? So, what's the point? I seemed to have missed it.
Harbans Singh: On hind sight, this can however be dismissed as the Non Aligned movement under the leadership of Pt. Nehru was far more influential where it mattered in the western world to let Mr Salazar succeed in his grand design.
Response: Like if NATO wanted to, it could have made chutney of the Indian Union in 1961, no? Like England and France did of Egypt during the Suez Crisis, or as England did to Argentina in the Malvinas-Falkland War. Do you really think that you would have fared better than Argentina?
Harbans Singh: Portuguese influence was minimal in the western world.
Response: Glad to have you admit it. It was because of NATO treachery that Portugal was unable to help us to throw you out in 1961.
Harbans Singh: The popular political liberation movement from the Portuguese rule had attained its peak Hence the operation in 1961.
Response: Which book of mythology were you reading when you wrote this? And when did we ask you to come and enslave us, without even the courtesy of a Plebiscite?
Harbans Singh: Let it be known that any act of indiscipline on the part of the armed forces personnel results in a summary trial or court martial. The military justice is swift and the punishments much harsher than the same offenses committed by the civilians. So if any body thinks that the soldiers who indulged in the looting and rapes (if at all) during the Goa operation in 1961, have been left free? NO WAY! Exemplary punishments are meted out to avoid recurrence of similar nature.
Response: Put your money where your mouth is, and furnish open evidence that there was any attempt, even cursory, by the Indian Union's forces to bring its culprits to book. Can you do that? I am dying to see the evidence. If you can produce even a shred of evidence, you will prove that you are not entirely a dishonest man.
Harbans Singh: There is no difference of opinion in the family model of your postulation. Apart from all the sentiments and good wishes expressed by you, It can only succeed provided that we Goans consider ourselves as equal members of the Indian family.
Response: For starters, despite all your loud protestations, you are not one of us, a Goan, and cannot ever become one, because your heart is black and turned towards evil and evildoers, to those who have wronged us. As for lack of differences, this is the greatest Punjabi joke I had throw my way! Go tell that to the Akali Dal with their Anandpur Sahib Resolutions. Go tell that to the Dravidian parties. Go tell that to the Telugu Desam Party. Go tell that to Kanshi Ram and Mayawati. Go tell that to the Assamese and the Manipurese. But don't try to sell us this fable!