History of Goa

Early History

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Goa’s relative inaccessibility made her difficult to conquer, but her wealth of spices and dominance over the seas ensured that there was never a shortage of colonial trophy hunters who vied with each other to add this tiny region to their domain. Until a hundred years before the arrival of the Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama in 1498, Goa belonged to the Kadamba dynasty of kings and had been part of their territory for over a thousand years. The Vijaynagar kings from Karnataka, the Bahmani Moslems, and Bijapur’s Adil Shah also managed to wrest control for brief intervals of time before the Portuguese arrived.

Portuguese Colonization

In1510, the Portuguese admiral Alfonso de Albuquerque captured the port of Panaji (today known as Panjim, the capital of Goa) and heralded the beginning of 450 years of Portuguese rule. Albuquerque had briefly managed to gain control of Goa during an earlier invasion but had been thwarted by Adil Shah. The latter’s death gave the Portuguese another chance, and this time they managed to retain control.

Anger at the Moslems who had supported Adil Shah led to an inquisition and forced conversions to Catholicism became the norm. New laws banned the practice of faiths other than Catholicism, and literary works were censored. Many Hindus and Moslems left Goa for other parts of the country. This period of Portuguese occupation continued untll after Indian independence in 1947. The Goan freedom movement mounted a tough resistance to Portuguese rule and owed its success not just to the initiatives of the Indian government, but also to the untiring efforts of its freedom fighters, prominent among them Menezes, Braganza, and Dr. Cunha.

In 1961, India’s Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru sent in troops in defiance of a United Nations resolution. Codenamed “Operation Vijay” the offensive met with little resistance and lasted for exactly two days before the Portuguese were defeated. Goa thus became a Union Territory of India and stayed that way until 1987 when it was integrated into the Indian Union as a full fledged state.