His Majesty the king has ordered that there shall be no
Brahmins in his land and that they should be banished.'
'In the name of his Majesty I order that no Hindu can or
shall perform marriages'
'The marriages of the supplicants are superstitious acts
or functions which include Hindu rites and ceremonies as
well as cult, adoration and prayers of Hindu temples'
'I order that no Hindu temples be erected in any of the
territories of my king and that Hindu temples which
already have been erected be not repaired'
Anybody familiar with the brutalisation of Hindu customs
and practices, indeed Hindu faith and belief, could
mistakenly believe these extracts have been taken from
royal decrees issued during Muslim rule. The harshness
with which suppression is prescribed in these decrees,
the callous disregard that is advocated for the other's
sentiment, the cruelty that is so palpable in both
thought and action, suggest that these firmans could
have been issued by one of the "shadows of god" who
stalked this land, laying to waste Hindu lives and
property.
But these are not extracts taken from firmans issued
from the court of say, Aurangzeb. They have been taken
from firmans issued by the Portuguese who ruled Goa and
recognised no religion other than Christianity as the
legitimate means of communion with god. It was no
secular rule that they imposed, but a ruthless system of
pillage disguised as trade and a cruel administration
for whom the heathens, especially Brahmins, unless they
embraced Christianity, were nothing more than
"supplicants" to be crushed into submission or exiled
into oblivion.
The horrors inflicted on Galileo Galilei by the
Inquisition -- the Vatican has only recently admitted
that the Church was wrong and Galileo was right -- are
well known. Not that well-known, and tragically so, are
the horrors inflicted by the Goa Inquisition. Every
child reads about Galileo's trial and how it is symbolic
of the triumph of science over blind faith. But there is
no reference -- indeed, all reference is scrupulously
avoided -- to the brutal attempts of the Church to
triumph over Hinduism by seeking to destroy all that was
Hindu in territories conquered by the Portuguese in
India.
And this silence is not because there exists no
evidence: There exist, in full text, orders issued by
the Portuguese viceroy and the governor. There exist, in
written records and travelogues, penned not by the
persecuted but by the persecutors, full details of the
horrors perpetrated in the name of Christ. Yet this
silence has been maintained -- a silence willed by
secular historians and politicians; an illegitimate
silence legitimised by the popular belief that
missionaries and their patrons were, and remain, a
benign lot who could never hurt a fly.
Hindus who dared oppose the religious persecution by the
Portuguese administration or the Christian clergy, were
punished, swiftly and mercilessly. Those who were
fortunate, got away with being banished from Portuguese
territory. The less fortunate had their property seized
and auctioned -- the money was used, in large measures,
for furthering proselytisation. The least fortunate were
forced to serve as slave labour on the galleys that
transported loot from Indian shores to Portuguese
coffers.
Viceroy D Constantine de Braganca issued an order on
April 2, 1560, instructing that Brahmins should be
thrown out of Goa and other areas under Portuguese
control. They had a month's time to sell their property
-- it is obvious who gained from such distress sale.
Those found violating the viceregal order, it was
declared, would have their properties seized. Another
order was issued, this time by Governor Antonio Morez
Barreto, on February 7, 1575, decreeing that the estates
of Brahmins whose "presence was prejudicial to
Christianity" would be confiscated and used for
"providing clothes to the New Christians".
The attitude of the Portuguese administrators in India
and the Church hardened over the years, to a point where
each fiat, each decree, each order, each letter, became
an instrument of religious persecution. The Third
Concilio Provincial -- a gathering of bishops and other
clerics -- met in 1585 to review, among other things,
the progress of converting the "heathens" to the "only
faith".
The Concilio adopted a resolution which said, 'His
Majesty the king has on occasion ordered the viceroys
and governors of India that there should be no Brahmins
in his lands, and that they should be banished therefrom
together with the physicians and other infidels who are
prejudicial to Christianity, after taking the opinion of
the archbishop and other religious persons who have
experience in the matter. As the orders of His Majesty
in this regard have not been executed, great impediments
in the way of conversion and the community of New
Christians have followed and continue to follow.'
It is apparent from the resolution that the Brahmins
stood as an obstacle between the Church and the masses,
preventing the former from converting the latter by
exhorting the people not to discard their ancient faith
to embrace an alien god.
It is also evident from the operative portion of the
resolution that the Church had no compunctions about
using the administration to remove this obstacle. The
Third Concilio Provincial ordered that 'from now onwards
at certain times in each year the archbishop should
obtain information regarding Brahmins, physicians and
any other infidels who might be prejudicial to
conversion to Christianity, and in consultation with the
Christian priests, prepare a roll of their names which
should be signed by him. This should be presented to the
viceroy or the governor in order that the latter might
issue orders for banishing them from the lands of the
king, as His Majesty has ordered'
However, to the great dismay of the Church, threats of
banishment, loss of estates and forced slave labour on
galleys did not quite break the spirit of the Hindus.
So, the bishops, the viceroy, the governor and the
prelates had to come up with something more draconian,
something which would reduce the religion of the
heathens into one that could neither be practiced nor
preached. For this, they decided to ban all Hindu rites
and rituals.
One of the orders, issued on January 31, 1620, to
achieve this goal, declared that 'no Hindu, of whatever
nationality or status he may be, can or shall perform
marriages in this city of Goa, nor in the islands or
adjacent territories of His Majesty, under pain of a
fine of 1000 Xerafins.' The Hindus petitioned the king
and he agreed to let them conduct Hindu marriage rituals
behind the closed doors of their homes, but prohibited
Christians from attending these marriage ceremonies.
The Holy Office was incensed and wrote to the viceroy:
'The marriages of the supplicants are superstitious acts
or functions which include Hindu rites and ceremonies as
well as cult, adoration and prayers of Hindu temples'
The king hastily withdrew permission to Hindus to
conduct their marriage rituals even behind closed doors.
One could quote from endless such orders, dictated by
the Church and implemented by the state, that sought to
destroy the Hindu way of life root and branch,
supplanting it with Christianity. For instance, the
Third Concilio Provincial recommended a ban on the
traditional thread ceremony and the ban was imposed with
great vigour. Those who tried to beat the law by going
outside Portuguese territory for the ceremony were
prevented from doing so with the strength of a viceregal
order that said 'I hereby order that no Hindu subject
proceed beyond the borders of the state to celebrate the
thread ceremony'
Another order was issued prohibiting Hindu women from
wearing a bindi on their forehead. Yet another order,
issued by Governor Francisco Barreto, barred Hindus from
seeking employment -- all officials were instructed not
to 'utilise the services in any way whatsoever of any
Brahmin or other infidel in matters of his office.' The
most blatant abuse of state power by the clergy to
increase the number of its faithful was to issue an
order that allowed the Church to baptise all orphans.
Compare these excesses, these crimes against an entire
race and religion, committed in the name of Christ,
though not decreed by the man who Christians believe is
god's own son, with the shrill cry of denunciation we
hear today about 'excesses' against Christians. Compare
the record of the Goa Inquisition with the popular
belief, so assiduously fostered by our 'secular'
establishment, that the Church and its missionaries came
to India to preach the Gospel and serve the poor.
The history of Portuguese rule, and that of the Goa
Inquisition in particular, is nothing short of sustained
war against Hinduism and Hindu society. You may say that
all these terrible things happened hundred of years ago
and have little relevance today. But, it is precisely
such thinking that has enabled the perpetrators of
religious persecution in India in the name of Christ to
get away without even an apology. And, emboldened them
to make threatening noises against the government of
sovereign India over stray incidents of protest against
the revived zeal among missionaries who continue to
believe that the heathens need to converted -- an
official trade delegation from Portugal is believed to
have raised more than an eyebrow during a recent visit
to Delhi.
The Vatican has apologised for the agony inflicted on
Galileo Galilei. But the terrible agony inflicted on the
Hindus of India during the Goa Inquisition remain buried
in the carefully crafted history of the Church as a
benign institution. It is time India demanded and
secured an apology from the Vatican for the Goa
Inquisition. In fact, we should go a step further and
demand reparation from Portugal.