The Republic of India annexed the Portuguese State of India, the then Portuguese Indian territories of Goa, Daman and Diu, starting with the armed action carried out by the Indian Armed Forces in December 1961. In India, this action is referred to as the "Liberation of Goa". In Portugal, it is referred to as the "Invasion of Goa". Jawaharlal Nehru had hoped that the popular movement in Goa and the pressure of world public opinion would force the Portuguese Goan authorities to grant it independence, but without success; consequently, Krishna Menon suggested taking Goa by force.
The operation was codenamed Operation Vijay (meaning "Victory" in Sanskrit) by the Indian Armed Forces. It involved air, sea and land strikes for over 36 hours, and was a decisive victory for India, ending 451 years of rule by Portugal over its remaining exclaves in India. The engagement lasted two days, and twenty-two Indians and thirty Portuguese were killed in the fighting. The brief conflict drew a mixture of worldwide praise and condemnation. In India, the action was seen as a liberation of historically Indian territory, while Portugal viewed it as an aggression against its national soil and citizens. Justifying the successful military action, Nehru remarked that the "Portuguese ultimately left no choice open to us."
Following the end of Portuguese rule in 1961, Goa was placed under military administration headed by Major General Kunhiraman Palat Candeth as lieutenant governor. On 8 June 1962, military rule was replaced by civilian government when the lieutenant governor nominated an informal Consultative Council of 29 nominated members to assist him in the administration of the territory.
Background
After India's independence from the British Empire in August 1947, Portugal continued to hold a handful of exclaves on the Indian subcontinent—the districts of Goa, Daman and Diu and Dadra and Nagar Haveli—collectively known as the State of India. Goa, Daman and Diu covered an area of around 1,540 square miles (4,000 km2) and held a population of 637,591. The Goan diaspora was estimated at 175,000 (about 100,000 within the Indian Union, mainly in Bombay). Religious distribution was 61% Hindu, 37% Christian (mostly Catholic) and 2% Muslim. The economy was primarily based on agriculture, although the 1940s and 1950s saw a boom in mining—principally iron ore and some manganese.
Portuguese government
During this period, Portugal was governed by the Estado Novo regime. This government was a dictatorship and a strong proponent of colonialism. The Estado Novo viewed Portugal's overseas territories as extensions of Portugal itself. Under the Estado Novo, Portugal tried to perpetuate a vast, centuries-old empire with a total area of 2,168,071 square kilometres (837,097 mi2), while other former colonial powers had, by this time, largely acceded to global calls for self-determination and independence of their overseas colonies.
Local resistance to Portuguese rule
Resistance to Portuguese rule in Goa in the 20th century was pioneered by Tristão de Bragança Cunha, a French-educated Goan engineer who founded the Goa Congress Committee in Portuguese India in 1928. Cunha released a booklet called 'Four hundred years of Foreign Rule', and a pamphlet, 'Denationalisation of Goa', intended to sensitise Goans to the oppression of Portuguese rule. Messages of solidarity were received by the Goa Congress Committee from leading figures in the Indian independence movement including Rajendra Prasad, Jawaharlal Nehru and Subhas Chandra Bose. On 12 October 1938, Cunha with other members of the Goa Congress Committee met Subhas Chandra Bose, the President of the Indian National Congress, and on his advice, opened a Branch Office of the Goa Congress Committee at 21, Dalal Street, Bombay. The Goa Congress was also made affiliate to the Indian National Congress and Cunha was selected as its first President.
In June 1946, Ram Manohar Lohia, an Indian Socialist leader, entered Goa on a visit to his friend, Juliao Menezes, a nationalist leader, who had founded the Gomantak Praja Mandal in Bombay and edited the weekly newspaper Gomantak. Cunha and other leaders were also with him. Ram Manohar Lohia advocated the use of non-violent Gandhian techniques to oppose the government. On 18 June 1946, now celebrated as Goa Revolution Day, the Portuguese government disrupted a protest against the suspension of civil liberties in Panaji (then spelt 'Panjim') organised by Lohia, Cunha and others including Purushottam Kakodkar and Laxmikant Bhembre in defiance of a ban on public gatherings, and arrested them. There were intermittent mass demonstrations from June to November.
In addition to non-violent protests, armed groups such as the Azad Gomantak Dal (Free Goa Party) and the United Front of Goans (UFG) conducted violent attacks aimed at weakening Portuguese rule in Goa. The Indian government supported the establishment of armed groups like the Azad Gomantak Dal, giving them full financial, logistic and armament support. The armed groups acted from bases situated in Indian territory and under cover of Indian police forces. The Indian government—through these armed groups—attempted to destroy economic targets, telegraph and telephone lines, road, water and rail transport, in order to impede economic activity and create conditions for a general uprising of the population. A Portuguese army officer stationed with the army in Goa, Captain Carlos Azaredo, stated in 2001 in the Portuguese newspaper Expresso: "To the contrary to what is being said, the most evolved guerrilla warfare which our Armed Forces encountered was in Goa. I know what I'm talking about, because I also fought in Angola and in Guinea (Portuguese Guinea). In 1961 alone, until December, around 80 policemen died. The major part of the freedom fighters of Azad Gomantak Dal (AGD) were not Goans. Many had fought in the British Army, under General Montgomery, against the Germans."
Diplomatic efforts to resolve Goa dispute
On 27 February 1950, the government of India asked the Portuguese government to open negotiations about the future of Portuguese colonies in India. Portugal asserted that its territory on the Indian subcontinent was not a colony but part of metropolitan Portugal and hence its transfer was non-negotiable, and that India had no rights to this territory because the Republic of India did not exist at the time when Goa came under Portuguese rule. When the Portuguese government refused to respond to subsequent aide-mémoires in this regard, the Indian government, on 11 June 1953, withdrew its diplomatic mission from Lisbon.
By 1954, the Republic of India instituted visa restrictions on travel from Goa to India which paralysed transport between Goa and other exclaves like Daman, Diu, Dadra and Nagar Haveli. In the same year, India instituted sanctions on Portugal with the aim of the annexation of Goa into India; the sanction would remain until 1961. Meanwhile, the Indian Union of Dockers had, in 1954, instituted a boycott on shipping to Portuguese India. Between 22 July and 2 August 1954, armed activists attacked and forced the surrender of Portuguese forces stationed in Dadra and Nagar Haveli.
On 15 August 1955, 3,000–5,000 unarmed Indian activists attempted to enter Goa at six locations and were violently repulsed by Portuguese police officers, resulting in the deaths of between 21 and 30 people. The news of the incident built public opinion in India against the presence of the Portuguese in Goa. On 1 September 1955, India shut its consul office in Goa.
In 1956, the Portuguese ambassador to France, Marcello Mathias, along with Portuguese Prime Minister António de Oliveira Salazar, argued in favour of a referendum in Goa to determine its future. This proposal was however rejected by the Ministers for Defence and Foreign Affairs. The demand for a referendum was repeated by presidential candidate General Humberto Delgado in 1957.
Prime Minister Salazar, alarmed by India's hinted threats at armed action against Portugal's presence in Goa, first asked the United Kingdom to mediate, then protested through Brazil and eventually asked the United Nations Security Council to intervene. Mexico offered the Indian government its influence in Latin America to bring pressure on the Portuguese to relieve tensions. Meanwhile, Krishna Menon, India's defence minister and head of India's UN delegation, stated in no uncertain terms that India had not "abjured the use of force" in Goa. The US ambassador to India, John Kenneth Galbraith, requested the Indian government on several occasions to resolve the issue peacefully through mediation and consensus rather than armed conflict.
On 24 November 1961, Sabarmati, a passenger boat passing between the Indian port of Kochi and the Portuguese-held island of Anjidiv, was fired upon by Portuguese ground troops, resulting in the death of a passenger and injuries to the chief engineer. The action was precipitated by Portuguese fears that the boat carried a military landing party intent on storming the island. The incidents lent themselves to fostering widespread public support in India for military action in Goa.
Eventually, on 10 December, nine days prior to the armed action, code named Operation Vijay, Nehru stated to the press: "Continuance of Goa under Portuguese rule is an impossibility". The American response was to warn India that if and when India's armed action in Goa was brought to the UN Security Council, it could expect no support from the US delegation.
Annexation of Dadra and Nagar Haveli
The hostilities between India and Portugal started seven years before the annexation of Goa, when Dadra and Nagar Haveli were invaded and occupied by pro-Indian forces with the support of the Indian authorities.
Dadra and Nagar Haveli were two Portuguese landlocked exclaves of the Daman district, totally surrounded by Indian territory. The connection between the exclaves and the coastal territory of Daman had to be made by crossing about 20 kilometres (12 mi) of Indian territory. Dadra and Nagar Haveli did not have any Portuguese military garrison, but only police forces.
The Indian government started to develop isolation actions against Dadra and Nagar Haveli already in 1952, including the creation of impediments to the transit of persons and goods between the two landlocked enclaves and Daman; the use of these economic warfare tactics by India caused a deep economic depression in Goa with subsequent hardship for the inhabitants and, in attempt to remedy the situation and with land travel precluded, Salazar established a new airline to communicate the enclaves of Portuguese India with its ports. In July 1954, pro-Indian forces, including members of organisations like the United Front of Goans, the National Movement Liberation Organisation, the Communist Party of India, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the Azad Gomantak Dal, with the support of Indian Police forces, began to launch assaults against Dadra and Nagar Haveli. On the night of 22 July, UFG forces stormed the small Dadra police station, killing Police Sergeant Aniceto do Rosário and Constable António Fernandes, who resisted the attack. On 28 July, RSS forces took Naroli police station.
Meanwhile, the Portuguese authorities asked the Indian Government for permission to cross the Indian territory with reinforcements to Dadra and Nagar Haveli, but no permission was given. Surrounded and prevented from receiving reinforcements by the Indian authorities, the Portuguese Administrator and police forces in Nagar Haveli eventually surrendered to the Indian police forces on 11 August 1954. Portugal appealed to the International Court of Justice, which, in a decision dated 12 April 1960, stated that Portugal had sovereign rights over the territories of Dadra and Nagar Haveli but India had the right to deny passage to armed personnel of Portugal over Indian territories. Therefore, the Portuguese authorities could not legally pass through Indian territory.
Events preceding the hostilities
Indian military build-up
On receiving Krishna Menon's order to initiate military action and capture of all occupied territories for the Indian government, Lieutenant-General Chaudhari of the Indian Army's Southern Command fielded the 17th Infantry Division commanded by Major General K. P. Candeth and the 50th Parachute Brigade commanded by Brigadier Sagat Singh. The assault on the enclave of Daman was assigned to the 1st battalion of the Maratha Light Infantry while the operations in Diu were assigned to the 20th battalion of the Rajput Regiment and the 5th battalion of the Madras Regiment.
Meanwhile, the Commander-in-Chief of India's Western Air Command, Air Vice Marshal Erlic Pinto, was appointed as the commander of all air resources assigned to the operations in Goa. Air resources for the assault on Goa were concentrated in the bases at Pune and Sambra (Belgaum). The mandate handed to Pinto by the Indian Air Command was listed out as follows:
- The destruction of Goa's lone airfield in Dabolim, without causing damage to the terminal building and other airport facilities.
- Destruction of the wireless station at Bambolim, Goa.
- Denial of airfields at Daman and Diu, which were, however, not to be attacked without prior permission.
- Support to advancing ground troops.