Referring to the Herald Café dated May 22, 2020 for bringing out a full sketch of the life of the renowned Goan Agnelo Gomes who died recently in USA at New Jersey.
No doubt the sketch highlighted all the activities he undertook except his clear views on Goa where he was misunderstood. Being closely associated with me for my contributing to his website, he was one of the early Goans immediately following the annexation of Goa by India to raise his voice against the policies formulated hurting the interest of genuine Goans. He was a great lover of Goa and as such I can call him the great Goan patriot. He wanted Portuguez to leave from Goa but definitely not the way they went. They taught us many best qualities already ingrained in our blood. He was not ready for Goa to get fully and unconditionally integrated with Bharat because as he said culturally, historically, traditionally, linguistically and in many respects we Goans are totally different and are a distinct identity from other Indians.
Besides we are not a militant race, we are very peaceful community and even Nehru acknowledged this fact and precisely because of this he speaking in the Parliament somewhere in 1956 saying somewhat like this, “Goa is like a small dot on the face of Mother India and once Portugal is ousted we will not force you Goans to join India, you will have all your freedom either to join us or not etc.”. Here Mr. Agnelo Gomes started putting more stress demanding real freedom for Goa and a referendum to solve this matter and not the Opinion Poll which did not solve the Goa’s case permanently, according to Mr. Gomes. Further he went saying that Opinion Poll was hoisted on us only to give a semblance that Goa’s case is over with the merger of Goa with Maharastra but unfortunately mergerists lost the Opinion Poll keeping the Goa’s issue unsolved.
A.Veronica Fernandes.