Fw: Luso-Indians article in Global Goan

[Gilbert Lawrence]

Happy Easter.

This is an interesting dialog on Diaspora Goans that is likely to interest many diaspora Goans.  

Hence please share this with you relatives and friends.

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From: Antonio Menezes 

The Global Goan, April '21 issue edited by Frankey Fernandes contains a very interesting article ''Luso Indians'' by Philomena and Gilbert Lawrence.

It is a beautifully well written article  about the contribution of the Goan community to the British economy whether in India, East Africa or Gulf from 1870 onwards. All Goans should read this article  and feel proud of their contribution  to the British economic wealth.

I am of the opinion that all Goans should not have been described as  ''Luso Indians '' The word Luso implies that all Goans  have some Portuguese blood in them  which is not true. I shall speak only of Salcete. Besides a small number of families  in Margao, Benaulim, Guirdolim, Macazana, Curtorim, Raia, Rachol, Loutulim and Verna , the great majority of families in Salcete are of pure Indic blood who have nothing of Luso in them

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Response:

Thank you Antonio and others who read our article in Global Goan, an e-magazine from Australia. Compliments to the editor and staff of the Global Goan for an excellent publication.  I appreciate Antonio's comments about the article and join him in encouraging all to read it; specially the diaspora Goans.  Likely they should share it with their British friends and colleagues; as the article may garner even more regard and respect for Goans.

More importantly, the article should be shared with our children and grandchildren as it is a history of what our/their parents and grandparents went through as they migrated from Goa. 

For those who may have overlooked the post here is the link:

https://online.fliphtml5.com/kdhdu/wvdh/?fbclid=IwAR3_oXEMN2xVrIzKEWLz6hFCBcAzVHkQ4Kcj5Zn18x9v-Com4QhvXshUFlM

In response to  the other points you raise in your post, here are our views.

The mixed-blood Indo-Portuguese are called Mestizo!  

Likely you are equating Luso-Indian to Anglo-Indian where there is a genetic mix.  However I am using the American system of hyphenating cultural backgrounds like Irish-American, Japanese-American, etc. This is a cultural mix. 

By our definition (right or wrong) Luso-Indians (L-Is) are people who have a mixed CULTURE of  India and Portugal.  This includes  SOME or many common cultural features - history, geography, language, religion, dress, diet, names, lifestyle, festivals and other cultural traditions  and practices, music, art etc.  All the people from villages you describe above are "over-flowing" with Luso-Indian culture. Perhaps you (or others) may have a better term/name to describe people who display a hybrid of cultures.  I will be glad to hear your suggestion.

The point of  the original article is that Goans are not the only Luso-Indians - a term that should apply to residents of all Portuguese enclaves in India (about 12), given Lusitania's footprints in India at one point or the other. And of course L-I will also include the mestizos; and frankly should include the descedentes (Portuguese born in India) and even those who came to India and absorbed Indian culture.   

Goans and other L-Is should give credit to our forebears for their finesse to have fusion of their cultures, just as they very skillfully fused the cultures of Hindus and Catholics. This hybrid is termed as "the melting pot."  Today, many sociologists and TV pundits claim that is not possible; and are using the term of "tossed salad."  They could learn from Goans, especially from the 

residents of villages you describe.

In the current shrinking world, I am of the opinion that we should know about other L-I groups, to better understand the Pintos, Fernandes, Aguiar etc etc. from Goa, Bassein, Mangalore, Daman, Kerala, Madras, Bengal, etc.. and now from USA, UK, Australia, and Portugal.  So look forward to my future articles on other Luso-Indians like East Indians, Mangaloreans, and Luso-Indians in Portugal.  A short article: Why did Goans emigrate from their land? will be next.

A Portuguese translation of the Global Goan article will shortly be appearing in Casa de Goa publication in Lisbon.  It is nice to see us-all L-Is getting on the same page in knowing their history and appreciating the achievements of different groups of L-Is.  Credit to the editors of various Goan publications across the globe. 

Once again to repeat, the article should be shared with our children and grandchildren as it is a history of what our/their parents and grandparents went through as they migrated from Goa. 

Thanks for reading our post and giving us an opportunity to expand.

Regards,  Philomena and Gilbert Lawrence

Authors of "Insights into Colonial Goa"

The e-book from Kindle / Amazon can be downloaded in India

The paperback is also available in USA, UK, EU, Australia.

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[Eugene Correia]

Would we call those who were under the French rule and those of the present generation who have some of the French influences as Franco-Indians? The past Africams and the Goan community didn't fancy using the label, Afro-Brit-Goans or Brit-Afro-Goans. Some Goans who were involved in the African freedom movement identified themselves as having their loyalty to Africa and then to India. 

Labelling people under colonialisation is not very favourable sign. Goans would be well-advised to avoid termed as Luso-Indians, as we have a term for those born of mixed Portuguese and Goan marriages. Stay the course. No sociatal rumblings, please.

Eugene Correia

[Eugene Correia]

Just happened to see the article on Francisco Luis Gomes, from Outlook magazine of 2013, written by Aravind Adiga, author of the acclaimed novel, The White Tiger, made into a film, where he says that Gomes was more inclined towards India, obliquely meaning Hindu India. If a giant of a man identified with his mother nation, rather than being a Luso-Indian, tells us lot about the man who thunder in the Portuguese parliament when even there was no thoughts of Goa's freedom from Portuguese rule.

On Prof. Armando Menezes's birth anniversary today, I was going through some pages of the book on the noted professsor by Edward de Lima and found that the fierce poet/writer/educationist, in later years of his life, was more adapt to Indian culture and influences that Portuguese ones. One cannot say he was "Luso-Indian", but an India through-and-through.

Bury the thoughts of getting Goans back into the Portuguese trap, or rather claptrap.

Eugene Correia

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[Eugene Correia]

The title of the essay by Adiga, was The Lusitanian in the Hind. it's three-page article that must have given the readers, more so the vast India readership, a deep understand that there was a man who stood out in the Lusitanian empire to show his true colours. That's an "insight" into colonial Goa, if you know what I mean. 

Eugene Correia