The crisis of Goa between Lisbon, Rio de Janeiro, and New Delhi (1947-1961) : the transnational destiny of an empire

Abstract

This thesis is about the crisis of Goa, a protracted dispute between Portugal and India over the sovereign rights of the Estado Português da Índia – a group of territories in the Indian subcontinent which had been under Portuguese colonial rule since the sixteenth century – which developed between 1947 and 1961. Although its origins dated back to (at least) the 1920s, and its repercussions were still being felt as late as 1974, the dispute came to a height in August 1947, when India finally became a sovereign state after approximately two centuries under British rule. The new leaders of India believed that the territories of Goa, Daman, and Diu were (and had always been) an integral part of the nation, and, therefore, that they should be liberated from foreign rule and (re)incorporated into India. Geographical proximity, but also the historical and cultural affinities between ‘Indo-Portuguese’ and Indians, were the chief arguments employed to validate such demands. Conversely, Portugal believed that while the Estado Português da Índia was indeed geographically part of India, it was socially, religiously, and culturally part of Europe, a product of more than four centuries of Portuguese presence and influence on the Indian subcontinent. Índia Portuguesa, moreover, was intrinsically part of the Portuguese nation and of its history, and thus altogether inalienable. Such contrasting views regarding sovereign rights culminated in the late 1940s, in a conflict that involved multiple dimensions (i.e. political, diplomatic, economic, religious, and military), several stages (i.e. a bilateral approach, followed by satyagraha, followed by an international approach), and various actors (i.e. diplomats, politicians, and freedom fighters). Eventually, this dispute came to an end following a military intervention by India in December 1961, which finally dislodged the Portuguese from the subcontinent.