Talk:Portuguese India

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How prominent are Goan independence advocates? This article strikes me as being deeply POV. john k 06:11, 25 May 2004 (UTC)

Well, Portugal was under the dictatorial Salazar regime, which didn't let any of its colonies go, at the time, so I'm a bit dubious about independence being around the corner. At any rate, I don't think we should talk about independence movements without some sense of how large they are - how well do they do in Indian elections, for instance? john k 15:18, 25 May 2004 (UTC)

It would be useful to add to this article a little more description of what Portuguese India was legally, if not a colony. Most authorities seem to consider it so, and it seems not to have been on the same basis as for instance the French overseas departments of today, which use French stamps instead of their own, Euros for money, and have seats in the Assembly like any other department. Stan 23:58, 25 May 2004 (UTC)

A couple of points:

people in Goa presumably vote for some party. If not for separatist parties, for autonomist parties. I mean, I imagine the PKK in Turkey, or the ETA, don't participate in elections, either, but people in the Kurdish regions of Turkey, or in the Basque Country, vote for other Kurdish or Basque parties. Similarly, one would imagine that if sentiment were really so strongly in favor of independence, that people in Goa would vote for some sort of party that emphasized "Goanness", or some such. One might also note that independence movements in many countries do participate quite happily in elections - the Quebecois separatists in Canada, Sinn Fein in Northern Ireland, and so on and so forth. What evidence is there that Goan nationalists enjoy widespread support? #I agree with Stan that I'd like to know what the exact status of Portuguese India. According to rulers.org, it was a Portuguese colony from 1510 to 1946, and then a Portuguese overseas province.

I really dont believe in English content information about Portugal they are normally highly inacurrate(sometimes completly false), that's why I'm here in wikipedia. Some things are terrible. I think it was a vice-kingdom at first. -Pedro 02:37, 26 May 2004 (UTC)

I'd also like to know with greater accuracy what Portugal today recognizes as Goa's status. I have seen in various places that Portugal recognized the Indian annexation in 1974.
My point about the Salazar regime was not that they wanted Goa to become part of India. It was that I am dubious about your claim that Goa was on the way to independence under Salazar. Making it an "overseas province" hardly suggests preparing the way for independence. And the regime of Salazar and his successors was notorious for not giving any of its colonies independence. I see no reason to think that Goa was anywhere near being given independence in 1961. If not for the Indian invasion, one would imagine that Portugal would have held onto it until 1974, like they did with all their other colonies. john k 01:14, 26 May 2004 (UTC)

http://www.supergoa.com/pt/read/news_noticia.asp?c_news=461 (portuguese plans to give to India, Goa) About the recognition I'm not sure, i'll try to investigate, but I know that the wright for East Timor's independence was also given in 1974. But Portugal only recognized East Timor Independence in 2002. I'm not into Goan matters, but I think that the local government is autonomist. The fact is, unlike Indonesia, Portugal has normal relations with India. investigate your self, the article has links to independentist movements and they are in english. Abou the comparison with Spain, the basque autonomy was forbbiden to do a referendum in there, it would be about larger autonomy (or independence), If they would do it, they would go to Jail! And that was in early 2004! They can have an independentist party in government but it cant be really independentist. Spain is not what seems to you. Plenty of desinformation. Even the Portuguese Tv was advized not to show a documentary about the Basque guerilla, what the company accepted because it had insterrests in Spain. And the last drop you all know March 11th, that happens allways in that country! -Pedro 02:17, 26 May 2004 (UTC)

With respect to votes, I was just interested to know the extent to which Goans actually vote for nationalist/independentist parties. According to the Indian election results website, in the National parliament, the two Goan seats in the Lok Sabha were won by the BJP and the INC, respectively. In the 1999 state elections, the INC won 21 seats (of 40) and 38.6% of the vote; the BJP got 10 seats and 26.1 %. Parties with "Goa" or "Goan" in their name only got 4 seats and 12.7% of the vote, while another 8.5% when to "independents and others", who elected one person. The remaining four seats and 14% of the vote went to the "Maharashtrawadi Gomantak", which seems to be a regionalist party based on a Marathi identity. The current Chief Minister (since 2000) is BJP. He was preceded by someone from the "Goa People's Congress Party", who was in turn preceded by some ordinary Congress people. Before 1979, the aforementioned Maharashtrawi Gomantak party seems to have been in chargeAt any rate, the strength of the BJP and the INC suggests fairly strongly that the independence movement is not very strong. As to Spain, I have no idea. I was just pointing out that the presence of the nationalist movement is pretty clearly evident in the election results - Basques vote for Basque parties. This clearly isn't the case in Goa. john k 03:25, 26 May 2004 (UTC)

I dont know. I've eard it was autonomist. But not related to Portuguese Indian, specifically. But I know that Goa has large immigration from the rest of India - what the independentists complain. But, possibly, some are to get Portuguese citizenship. That's why the Indian inmigrant community in Portugal is getting big. The Portuguese government found that these inmigrants where not Portuguese Indians, and it has adviced India, to do a better control of whom was born in the territory before the annexation. That "Provincias Ultramarinas" where not colonies, where Part of Portugal, they had Portuguese citizenship, where "provincias" like those in Portugal. That's why we got large numbers of inmigrants from the former colonies, but Portugal is trying to control it.
For the record, and again with a Spanish example. I believe that many Galicians are very autonomists, but they have as president a spanish nationalist. Not voting in independentist parties doesnt mean that they are not independentists and MAYBE many are not Goans. As for the recognition of Annexation I'll try to search. I've never eard of that recognition. The only country that was recognized in 1974, was Guinea-Bissau, that had really fight for their independence. The rest was later, because Mario Soares is/was an Europeist and international pressures to do independence and not a federation, What was the idea before 1974 by Caetano. Nice to talk to you and thx for the info about Goan votes. And in Damão do you know something, the population still feels great connection towards Portugal, they can vote for independentist parties? They are not an Indian state... -Pedro 09:51, 26 May 2004 (UTC)
I'm environmentalist but i've never voted in that kind of Parties! -Pedro 09:57, 26 May 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for the information. As I've said, I'm not really sure - I'm certainly not an expert on Goa. Certainly the fact that Goa was ruled by a Marathi nationalist party for the first twenty years after it became part of India does not speak well for the strength of the independence movement. At any rate, there does seem to be a lot of Goan regionalist sentiment, based around the Konkani language. But there's a lot of that kind of thing all over India. I'd like to see some evidence that the independence movements have any real strength. I mean, in our Texas article we might have a lengthy discussion of Texan independentists, who believe that the US annexation in 1845 was illegal, and I would imagine that there are a few such people, and further that the US annexation in 1845 was quite possibly illegal (or unconstitutional). But that doesn't mean these people are significant enough to be discussed in an article on either Texas or the Republic of Texas. So I'd like to see some evidence that sentiment for Goan independence is more than a fringe movement. Obviously, the election results do not show that. As you point out, that doesn't disprove anything, but I'd like to see some positive evidence showing that this is a major force. john k 16:40, 26 May 2004 (UTC)

At first (1960s), I believe it was quit strong, but because many Goans left to other countries or to here -- I see many people that have an Indian look but somewhat Portuguese, because they speak portuguese and have portuguese lifestyle we normally dont treat them as different, I saw goans saying that in Portugal they dont form a community but rather mix with the population. Some independentists could be here. About that news above I learned that a famous politician was Goan, I never tought, but he has a slightly darker skin. But reading that websites, I see that they are everyhere, especially UK, and they dont seem so few, they have Portuguese names, are mixed and are christians, that makes a difference in their heads. In Senegal there is an Independentist guerilla, and they are descendent from Portuguese with Africans, and have Portuguese names and Portuguese lifestyle, they want their land independent, that's Casamance. About the konkani, its like Tetum (East Timor again), I believe, although an independent language it has many Portuguese lexicon words. But I still think the info shoulb be here, but with less importance. --Pedro 17:45, 26 May 2004 (UTC)

I agree that some info about these movements should be in both this article and the article on Goa. But it needs to be put into context - if not in context, it's essentially POV - we're giving these movements a legitimacy they don't really have. I'd like to have comment from somebody who knows more about it than I. (BTW ,the Goan government for decades after it became part of India was run by a Marathi regionalist party, which suggests that Goan regionalist sentiment was in disarray, at least, for quite a while after the Indian annexation. john k 18:25, 26 May 2004 (UTC)

Portugal did really recognized. I saw today info about that in the website of foreigner matters. -Pedro 00:33, 19 Jun 2004 (UTC)

The article needs to maintain NPOV. The external links were definitely NOT NPOV, and may provide the reader with a distorted version of reality. evolve 01:54, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)

NPOV requires that our text be neutral, but there can't be such a requirement on external links. After all, we have lots of articles on political parties, and routinely link to each of their homepages, which are by definition not neutral. Now if you want to argue that one or more of the extlinks are useless or uninformative, that's a different issue, but in the meantime I put back the links. Stan 04:51, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I agree that the NPOV for the content of the external links cannot be maintained by Wikipedia; however, the Wikipedia section on external links is definitely a part of the article, and what gets linked out to should be within the purview of the POV of the article, as this is an integral part of it. A reader of the article may consider the external links to be equivalent to a citing, or a cross-reference on the article. While a valid citing for a fact or an organization is fine, a citing which carries content of dubious or non-neutral POV may not be. At the very least, the external links need to be annotated as such, if necessary. I have not reverted the changes, as this needs to be discussed further. See the Wikipedia external link talk page which contains some discussion on this, along with a justification for the annotation. evolve 05:42, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Bear in mind that the meta page does not necessarily reflect current policy, and some of it is pretty old. The rules for external links are pretty loose; mainly that they carry relevant information not in WP (no link spamming). Links to partisan political sites are often useful, because they give insight into debates that we on the other side of the world didn't even know were going on. Annotations are OK, although tricky to phrase neutrally; better would be additional content in the article framing the issue, so that the reader can understand whether the partisan websites represent the views of 1, 100, or 10,000 people. Stan 13:27, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure if Pedro has spent any time in Goa. But let me enlighten him. I've spent most of my life in Goa. Talk of a separate GOa may be good pastime for a few of the old Christian elite, but the bulk fo GOans (Christian and Hindu) are perfectly happy being a part of India. Goans ethnically are Konkanis and speak a language descended from Sanskrit. THere may be a few Portuguese words in the dialect spoken by Christians, but the language spoken by the Hindu majority has no Portuguese influence at all. THe language has many similarities iwth Marathi, the language of neighbouring Maharashtra

Of the 11 talukas (divisions) in Goa, only 4, Bardez, Salcette, Mormugao and Tiswadi (Panjim island) have been with the Portuguese for 450 years. The rest were annexed only in the 18th century. SO Portuguese influence is relatively strong only in these 4 areas.

Please note that all the dynasties that ruled Goa before the Protuguese were actually based in other parts of the county and GOa was not really a separate entity. The dynasties which ruked Goa were Kadambas & Chalukyas (Kannada), Rashtrakutas (Maharashtra), Vijayanagara(Telugu & Kannada)and the Adilshah of Bijapur (Karnataka). THese dynasties have ruled Goa for about 1500 years before the Portuguese.

[edit] Reference to World Court

I have removed the reference to World Court arbitration. There was never any World Court judgment regarding the sovereignity of Portugal over Portuguese India. The actual case: Right of Passage over Indian Territory Case (Portugal vs. India), was regarding transit rights between Dadra and Nagar Haveli through Indian territory. The International Court of Justice ruled that transit rights existed for civilians, officials and goods, there were no transit rights in respect of armed forces, police and arms and ammunition and that India had not violated any such rights. --Manojb 10:21, 18 February 2006 (UTC)