Goa government leader Pramod Sawant said the eastern Indian state wants retrieve all historical documents of the region that are currently in possession of Portugal.
According to the Indian news agency IANS, Goa’s chief minister on Monday advised the state Department of Archeology to “visit Portugal and bring these documents” to the region.
Alternatively, the Department of Archeology can still ask for help from the Indian Ministry of Foreign Affairs to “try to recover all the documents related to Goa,” he added.
“Many documents from Goa are still in Portugal,” said the politician, who stressed that the documents related to the Goa forts, Damão and Diu can be fundamental for the research of academics and students on the history of the region.
Sawant was speaking during a ceremony to commemorate the coronation of Shivaji Maharaj, the 17th-century leader of the Marathi Empire, who ruled much of the territory that is part of modern India and is considered a hero by Hindus.
“Shivaji Maharaj ruled Goa. Many have tried to erase this history. The Portuguese ruled Goa for 450 years in certain ‘talukas’ [divisão administrativa] from Goa. They ruled in eight ‘talukas’ for some years. If we look at history, we will know that the Portuguese did not rule all of Goa,” said Sawant.
Sawant is part of the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Hindu nationalist party of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, regularly accused of discriminating against minorities, especially Muslims, who make up around 14% of the population.
The so-called Portuguese State of India was annexed by the Indian Union in December 1961after a military intervention that lasted only three days.
Goa is one of the 28 states of the Republic of India. Despite the survival of Portuguese as a minority language, the official language is Konkanim, a language spoken in ancient Concão, the region of India where Goa is located.
Source: Observadora
