RAINHA DE DADRÁ E NAGAR-AVELI By Lucio Mascarenhas

The Indian Union is one of the greatest practitioner of moral hypocrisy in the world. It insists that states cannot be dismembered, on democracy and the right to self-determination, and in non-interference in other people's affairs. And yet, it has transgressed against these very same principles in the case of Portugal and its Ultramarine province of the "Estado da India Portuguesa" (E.I.P) or Goa. Goa or the "Estado da India Portuguesa" (E.I.P) has some four or five enclaves in the north, including the landlocked enclaves of Dadra and of Nagar-Avelim, part of the District of Damao, being located on the Sandalcalo River, upstream from Damao (India calls this the "Damanganga River"). The town of Silvassa is the headquarters; another major town is Dadra. The people of the Dadrá e Nagar-Aveli enclaves are Concannim tribals who had been among the peoples displaced when the Sorathians invaded from accross the Gulf of Cambay and settled in the Far North of the Concan, setting up the city of Surat. The tribal people are largely illiterate and socially not mobilized. Following the Luso-Maratha War, the enclaves of Dadra & Nagar-Avelim was confirmed by the Marathas in December 1779, as part of Portuguese India as a result of a treaty of settlement and friendship between the Maratha Kingdom and Portugal.

Since its independence, India had been eyeing the enclaves not under its control and had demanded that France and Portugal surrender them to it without permitting the citizens of these enclaves the right to decide the future of their lands. In order to achieve this, India even organized and armed and reinforced bands of terrorists who attacked and occupied the French enclave of Chandernagore in Bengal, in 1954. As a result, France began negotiations with the Indian Union and finally agreed to a plebiscite as a result of which it transferred the remaining French enclaves (Yanam, Pondicherry, Karaikal and Dependencies, Mahe de Labourdonnais) to the Indian Union. This was similar to, and a continuation of the Indian Union's policy by which it invaded and overthrew the legitimate governments of sundry princely states and occupied them.Seeing the resolute refusal of Portugal to entertain India's criminal intentions, India began to sponsor terrorist movements in order to overthrow and seize the Portuguese enclaves and to terrorize the local populations of these enclaves, just as it had terrorized the principalities of former British India to unthinkingly submerge themselves into itself. As a result, movements sprang up with mixed membership of Indian citizens and of EIP renegades. India provided them with arms and training. The principal organisations thus set up were India's ruling party, the Indian National Congress Party's subsidiary organisation, the "Sewa Dal" or "Army of Service," which had been ostensibly founded by Mohandas "Mahatma" Gandhi in order to render social service and to mobilize people towards this end; the "Azad Gomantak Dal" or "Free Goan Army" which became the most savage and brutal of the terrorist organisations; the "United Front of Goa", etc.

But the Dadrá e Nagar-Aveli of today is the product of Vanmalidas G. Bhavsar, Carlos de Cruz, Luler Gama, Appa Carmalcar, and others who lead the Terrorist AGD (Free Goan Army or Azad Gomantak Dal) organisation against the "Estado da India Portuguesa" (E.I.P). The program to seize the Dadrá e Nagar-Aveli for and on behalf of the Indian Union, sponsors of the AGD, was hatched at the Lavacha Ashram, in May-June 1954. However, they were to be pre-empted by a rival organisation. On 7th July 1954, the United Front of Goa, under the Goan terrorist and renegade Francisco Mascarenhas, and reinforced by regular Indian troops, invaded and occupied the enclave of Dadra. Thereafter, the AGD terrorists, reinforced by regular Indian troops, attacked the outnumbered "Estado da India Portuguesa" (E.I.P) forces and seized the Customs checkpost at Narolim on 1st August 1954, and marched forward planning to beseige the town of Silvassa, the headquarters of the Dadrá e Nagar-Aveli .

The heavily outnumbered "Estado da India Portuguesa" (E.I.P) forces under Fidalgo fought valiantly with all the arms at their disposal, throwing up a fierce artillery barrage against the terrorists and the invaders at the battle of Racholim, to which place he had retreated and encamped. The terrorists were routed and forced to fall back.This was only a brief respite. Under the relentless and shameless greed of the Indian invaders, the terrorists Nagarwala, Nanasaheb, Vishnu Bhople, Vasant Jajale and others in co-ordination with Indian terrorists pouring in from Pune and Goan renegades and terrorists sponsored by the Indian Union, launched, on 2nd August 1954, a new offensive to take Silvassa. Finally, after many days of fierce fighting, with the heavily outnumbered EIP Goan and Portuguese troops taking a heavy toll of both the terrorists and the regular Indian troops, the last remnant of the "Estado da India Portuguesa" (E.I.P) forces surrendered on 13th August 1954 at Silvassa to the terrorists and the invaders. Subsequently, the invading Indian government organized the terrorists under Lalbhai Naique of the Indian National Congress Party's "Sevadal Sainiks", as the "Administrator" of the occupied Dadrá e Nagar-Aveli and organized the terrorists as a "governing council" under the name of Varisht Panchayat or "Council of Elders."

None of the members of this puppet Government where elected, or local citizens of the Dadrá e Nagar-Aveli. It was this foreign body, composed of Goan and Indian terrorists and Indian citizens, which "appealed" to the Indian government to have the Dadrá e Nagar-Aveli, which is an integral part of the "Estado da India Portuguesa" (E.I.P), annexed and absorbed to the Indian Union. Basing upon this appeal by a body that was its own creature, the Indian Union thereupon announced the annexation of Dadrá e Nagar-Aveli with effect from 8th August 1961.