India Dusts Off Goa's Colonial Past

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LOUTULIM JOURNAL

India Dusts Off Colonial Past, Says Come to Goa

By JAMES BROOKE

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/03/international/asia/03INDI.html

 

OUTULIM, India — Portraits of her ancestors stared mournfully from

parlor walls as Maria de Lourdes Figueiredo de Albuquerque sat in a

straight-backed teak chair and recounted her battles with tile-

thieving monkeys and land-thieving squatters to maintain her

family's 17th-century manor house, overlooking the rice and coconut

lands of what a generation ago was called Índia Portuguesa.

 

"Our ancestors were the greatest landowners of Goa," the lady of the

manor said, as her older sister, Georgina Figueiredo, nodded

approvingly, serving slices of mangoes. "But now our income is not

enough to live on for two months. So we have to look for other means

for our survival."

 

The two sisters believe they have hit on a renewal strategy:

heritage tourism.

 

"Fifteen years ago, what was Portuguese was considered colonial —

now it is considered identity," Ms. de Albuquerque said, smoothly

switching back and forth between Lisbon-accented Portuguese and

Indian-accented English.

 

As her syllables fell softly in the pre-monsoon heat, workmen next

door swept cobwebs and painted walls, refurbishing four rooms in the

1606 wing for the paying guests the sisters believe will soon be

wending their way here through the Internet.

 

On Dec. 18, 1961, Indian troops entered Goa, ending 451 years of

Portuguese rule of this enclave of beaches and coconut palms on the

Arabian Sea. Portugal angrily suspended almost all ties with India

for 15 years, and New Delhi moved quickly to "Indianize" Goa —

Portuguese statues were shunted into museums, for instance, while

statues of Nehru and Gandhi were erected in parks. English and Hindi

were introduced in schools.

 

Beneath the newer English-speaking overlay, however, the surnames,

the place names, the churches and many of the religious festivals

are Portuguese. And now, people here are realizing that, for

tourism, this unique embrace of India and Iberia differentiates Goa,

India's smallest state, from the 27 others.

 

This tropical land is dotted with 167 whitewashed Roman Catholic

churches. The bed and breakfast at the manor here is part of a state-

wide network of about 20 "heritage house" inns, an echo of a similar

system in Portugal.

 

Portuguese television programming, newly available by cable

television, is reviving Portuguese language skills among older

Goans. From Lisbon and a Portuguese Consulate here, an increasing

number of exchanges, scholarships and seminars link "Goa and Lisboa."

 

In addition, there is a brisk business in Portuguese passports,

available to anyone living here in 1961 — when Goans were considered

Portuguese citizens — or to their children and grandchildren. Since

Portugal joined the European Union 15 years ago, and union passport

holders now have the right to work across the 15-nation bloc, the

Portuguese passports are popular tickets out to coveted jobs abroad.

 

The highlighting of Goa's Portuguese history does not necessarily

reflect the taste of its politicians. Almost three years ago,

Manohar Parrikar, the standard-bearer here for the Bhartiya Janata

Party, India's governing Hindu nationalist party, became Goa's chief

minister, or governor, and vowed to block "foreign" foundations from

financing such projects as church restorations here.

 

Within months, however, he quietly dropped this stance.

 

"When they came to power, they tried to downplay the Portuguese

colonial thing, to cut off money to the foundations," said Dean

D'Cruz, a local architect. "Then they realized it was a selling

point. That they were killing the goose that laid the golden egg."

At least a quarter of a million European tourists visit every winter.

 

When the Hindu nationalists won power here, some demanded the

destruction of several Catholic churches built during the 17th- and

18th-century Inquisition on the foundations of Hindu temples. But

Mr. Parrikar, the state governor, shied away from culture wars,

devoting most of his time to cutting corruption, improving roads and

luring high technology companies. In late May, India Today, a

newsweekly, studied a host of indicators, including income, literacy

levels and investment climate, and then ranked Goa as "India's Best

State."

 

Catholics have steadily lost political power and population, and now

make up about 20 percent of Goa's 1.2 million people. Tourism

officials and their brochures maintain a studiously impartial tone.

 

"We want to put in very big headlines: Hindus and Christians never

fought in Goa in the last 500 years," said N. Suryanarayana, state

director of tourism, skipping over 250 years of anti-Hindu

Inquisition and Portugal's alliance with Hindu states in anti-Muslim

wars. "We are saying this is a unique blend of East and West."

 

In this interior village, almost lost among the green treetops, is

the tower of a chapel built by the great-grandfathers of the

Figueiredo sisters and of Mário Miranda, scion of another old

landowning family.

 

Mr. Miranda, who is also one of India's leading cartoonists,

recalled a visit with Mr. Parrikar, discussing official Goa's

ambivalence about its Portuguese past, and recalled telling him: "I

saw in Lisbon two statues of Gandhi and two Hindu temples. There is

nothing to fear. The Portuguese will never return."