This is in reference to the news item in Herald dated 25.12.17 under the title “MGP to unite, take minorities into its fold”.
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Minorities mainly the Catholicswill not be the Catholics if they don’t disown the MGP because MGP since its inception in 1962 always worked against the Catholics. In fact one of the purposes of MGP was to sideline the Catholics from the mainstream by falsely labeling Catholics as major beneficiaries of Portuguese rule in Goa I disagree with this view, in fact other than a few Catholics Bhattkars. overwhelming number of Catholics have not received any especial benefits from the Portuguese while the Hindu community have received. For example, almost the entire commerce and trade was in the hands of Hindus. The major mining industry was held by the Hindus, the import licenses for goods and commodities and other products were given by the Portuguese Government to the Hindus.
MGP when it was formed used this ploy of defaming Catholics to keep them as non-entities. By telling this type of false stories to their hoi-polloi supporters, MGP has brain washed their supporters who had no proper knowledge of Goa and its history. The first CM of Goa, Dayananda Bandodcar who was like a curse on Goa, wanted to liquidate Catholics from Goa but overwhelming majority of Goans did not subscribe to this view. It was even wrongly propagated at the top of their voices by the MGvadis that Christians were responsible for bringing Portuguese to Goa. However, I must correct this wrong opinion by saying that it was a non-Catholic Timoja the big man under Adil Shah who was responsible for the Portuguese conquest of Goa. It was they who brought Portugese to Goa.
Secondly, MGP falsely projected Goan Catholics as pro-Portuguese while they along with the majority of Hindus were Pro-Bharati. Here again I disagree with this view. Goan Catholics were known to have opposed the Portuguese presence from Goan soil vehemently much before others could do this. Much before others could raise their voice against Portuguese rule in Goa, Goan Catholics like Abe Faria, Pintos Revolutionaries, Dr. Francisco Luis Gomes and many more have indicated their patriotism towards Goa by opposing Portuese presence in Goa. the only thing which was common between Portuguese and Goan Christians was the Catholicism. But this common factor never made Goan Catholics to be dumb berfore the Portuguese. In fact, the greatest freedom fighters of Goa were coming from the Catholic community and they got themselves involved in freedom movement with the genuine feelings for freedom for Goa and not like many others whose motto was to convert Goa into a Hindu Raj. Those who stressed on the former ideology were not genuine freedom fighters but they were comunalists many of them have taken shelter in BJP now.
I hope all Catholics will subscribe to my view because as a young school going boy I know how much I have worked against this false tirade let lose by the Bandorkarists MGP and some of whom are still holding this view touching to their hearts because they are anti-Catholics. The MGP wanted to merge Goa with Maharastra not because they love Maharastra and Marathi but because they hated Catholics and to get Catholics dissolved among Maharastrians as unknon entiies. The MGPvadis were not perfect in Marathi languge but yet they preferred Marathi because they knew when Goa is merged with Maharastara, the Goan Catholics will be totally at a loss for not being conversant in Marathi. When Goan Catholics suffered MGPvadis enjoyed. The MGPvadis total anger on Goan Catholics was because they could not bear to see the development Catholics have made in their life. Though the MGPvadis would also suffer under Maharastra and among Maharastrians yet they prefer this but by all means they wanted to see Catholics crying. This is te deep rooted hatred MGPvadis have for Goan Catholics and this hatred will never exit from the blood of MGPvadis.
In view of what I said above, we Catholics should be very careful in front of MGP which means “ANTI CHRISTIANS – ANTI CATHOLICS”.
A.Veronica Fernandes.
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