Friday, July 19, 2013

INDIA IMPOSES COLONIAL LEGACY OVER GOA by Johny Rebello

India has not learnt bitter lessons from her repressive colonial past by the British and instead on her own imposed the same colonial legacy over Goa under a cynically derogative terminology called ‘Liberated’ as if Goans were ever slaves  Unlike the Indians the Goans have never seen slavery in their history and even during Portuguese Era were never differentiated and were treated equally and on merits and at times in preference over their own and were allowed to attain and be elevated to the highest positions in the Portuguese hierarchy like governors of their distant colonies which have unlike Goa have now become fully fledged independent nations.
 
The very term ‘Liberated’ denotes a connection to slavery when at its height the term came to be used commonly by slave masters referring a connection to those of the likes who were transported naked across the seas and sold and where this term came into wider and intensive usage and evolved into a related meaning. Therefore, those who concede themselves as ‘Liberated’ concede to have been slaves at some time of the likes of those sold naked.
 
When Nehru said that the Goans are ‘Liberated’ it was a cynical derogative reference drawing analogy to those naked slaves shipped across the seas and, also as based on his limited knowledge when he referred to Goa as “nation of cooks butlers and nannies” little forgetting that he was a product of the most ruthless and worst kind of colonialism unleashed on the planet by the British by taking them as junglis (uncivilized).
 
Perhaps he forgot that British treated Indians most inhumanly killing them like flies in millions including those who were dragged to fight her own war against the Germans.  As indentured labourers, unlike Goans, Indians were substituted by the British to replace slaves and in their thousands to toil in equally harsh conditions to develop their far flung colonies in Canada, West Indies, Mauritius, South Africa, Fiji etc.
 
The Indians were dehumanized in their own country to such a degree to that of sub-human dignity with some hotels in India displaying such notices to say “DOGS and INDIANS not allowed” much what the Russians must be revving at to prefer and lavish to do the same in Goa under the present Indian rule with similar notices that say “DOGS, GOANS and COWS not allowed” thereby declaring their domain thus independent something they denied to Goa by their own action at UN. 
 
Declaring oneself to be ‘Liberated’ is tantamount to calling one self ex-slave of the origin of those sent naked across seas or calling upon one self and his generation the stigma and bear a complex that somewhere he was a slave when Goa, in reality in the past has never had a history of slavery.
 
All those including the Freedom Fighters who cherish to claim themselves to be ‘Liberated’ concede themselves to be ex-slaves of that category. No wonder Goa has been still lingering for 52 years past in a voluntary colonial slavery.

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