Lamberto's Hypocrisy

An Open Letter to 'Dom' Lamberto Mascarenhas
©Prakash John Mascarenhas. This page is Copyright.

Recently, an interesting post caught my eye. It is the GoaDESC's electronic transcription of a 'letter to the editor' in a Goan collaborationist newspaper, by a Lamberto Mascarenhas. The writer protests the Indian Government's announcement that it will make Occupied Goa the Indian Cannes.

Cannes, for those not in the know, is a city in France where every year there is a show of movies and the jury of the Cannes Film Festival awards those movies which in its judgment are exceptional.

While I made a wild guess, the writer himself confirms the fact that he is the same infamous traitor, Lamberto Mascarenhas, who led the Indian Army in its 1954 invasion and occupation of Dadra & Nagar-Avelim.

Message 11916, GoanCauses
From: Goa Desc [email protected]
Date: Thu Jun 19, 2003 12:13 pm
Subject: On Misplaced Priorities - Goa as venue for India�s International Film Festival.

Documented by Goa Desc Documentation Service & circulated by Goa Civic & Consumer Action Network (GOA CAN) [email protected] Ph:2252660. GOA DESC RESOURCE CENTRE. 11 Liberty Apts., Feira Alta, Mapusa, Goa 403 507. Tel: 2252660 [email protected] website: http://www.goadesc.org
On Misplaced Priorities
What is this news on June 8 of New Delhi talking about Goa being a venue for India's International Film Festival and the earlier news of the Goa government dispatching a delegation to Cannes with a view of replicating a smaller version of the Cannes Film Festival in Goa?

And why this silence from the Congress party, the people in general and from the ever-active, strident letter writers in the newspapers over this affront on Goa and Goans who seem to have been taken for granted by not being consulted or their opinion sought?

When there are deaths almost every day on the streets of Goa due to accidents, when people have to keep their house doors in the villages shut for fear of thefts and murders, when a number of young Goans are, like in Portuguese days, leaving Goa to seek employment in the rest of India and abroad, when prices of daily necessities are escalating and life in Goa generally is becoming difficult, the cheek of the central government and state government of transforming Goa into a Las Vegas or Pleasure Hunt already converted as such by the highly exaggerated concept of tourism as though it is the be-all end-all of Goa, is highly shocking and therefore unacceptable.

I hereby appeal to my freedom-fighter colleagues to raise their voices against these tourist-drawing configurations designed to turn Goa into non-Goa.

The cities of Margao and Vasco are already un-Goan. The Chief Minister must now tell us if by his blind assent to New Delhi's agendas and his own presumed clever prescriptions, he is trying to turn Goa into that 'ideal state' as claimed by his government and some Union ministers.

LAMBERT MASCARENHAS, Dona Paula, in a Letter to the Editor, The Navhind Times 18^th June 2003; page 10

So, tell us, Mr. Lamberto, what exactly you are shocked about, and why is it that you are not at all shocked or dismayed by the criminalities perpetrated against Goa by you and your fellow-terrorists and traitors, who have the insolence and cheek to describe themselves as 'freedom-fighters' (sic!).

Since your heart bleeds so much at this unwanted affront to Goa's self-respect, kindly inform us and tell us how you justify your black-as-coal actions that led to the occupation of my beloved Goa by the Indians, with your crucial aid and assistance, and as a result of which, Goa has been constantly since then been de-Goanized? If you claim that Goa is only now being de-Goanized, you lie! Goa has been de-Goanized constantly and by express intention since its occupation, and the occupation was deliberately organized for precisely that purpose — to de-Christianize us, de-Lusitanize us and to Indianize us.

Since your heart bleeds so much that Goa and Goans have not been consulted by your 'Chief Minister' Half-Ticket Parricar and your Indian Central Government, in the taking of this decision, I ask you to kindly justify yourself and how you allowed yourself to become a party to India's blase invasion and annexation of Dadra & Nagar-Avelim, in which crime you played a crucial and material, indeed, leading part?

And how you have not had your scruples awoken all these years in the face of India's insistent lies that Goa is become an integral part of itself without so much as a free and real referendum. I cannot see how you can justify India's blase annexation contemptously refusing to consult the constitutents of Goa by means of a genuine referendum, and then object to India taking ordinary, day-to-day decisions without consulting Goans. This seems to me to be purely hypocrisy — swallowing the Camel whole and with no sign of pain, and yet you strain at the gnat!

Kindly explain to us how you justified all these years this monstrousity, this occupation of Goa and India's pretended annexation of Goa without a free referendum, especially when India had granted referendums to the peoples of the princely states of Hyderabad, Junagad, Manavadar and Mangrol, in 1947-48, and to the pro-Indian Nepalese colonists in Sikkim in 1976, even while studiously denied to Goa in 1961?

Kindly explain to us, the moral basis, as you see it, of India's claim upon us, and of our obligation and loyalty towards India, which from my viewpoint, does not exist.

From my viewpoint, India's right stands upon nothing more than hypocrisy, main force and daylight banditry. You kindly explain to me how banditry can become moral or be exculpated. You kindly explain to me how bandits can claim any rights to my affections, my loyalty and my devotion.

Can we, the people of Goa, expect an honest and comprehensive answer? Or will we have to bear with more hypocrisy and treason on your part?

Awaiting your response,

Prakash John Mascarenhas, zoncar of the Communidade of Sangolda, Consuelho da Bardez, Estado da India Portuguesa.