Independence Struggle, Beyond 1947

Freedom at Midnight does an awesome job of describing the events leading upto and following India’s independence and partition. By the time India became a Republic on 26th January, 1950, writes Sanjeev Sanyal in Land of Seven Rivers:

“India’s borders were recognizably like those that we know today.”

The keyword there is “recognizably”.

 

Because there were still some things to wrap up, says Sanyal:

“The Indian government now turned to the tiny enclaves along the coast held by other European powers.”

France, for examples, still held 5 enclaves, as scattered as Pondicherry and Karaikal (on the TN coast), Chandannagar (north of Calcutta), Yanam (on the Andhra coast), and Mahe (on Kerala’s coast)! The French were reluctant to hand these over, but the writing was on the wall: their holdings were too tiny and too scattered. And so, unlike the brutal way they tried to hold on in Algeria and Vietnam, the French handed their 5 enclaves to India by 1954.

 

That now left the Portuguese holdings: Goa, Diu, Daman, Dadra and Nagar-Haveli. Unlike the French though:

“(Portugal) saw no reason why they should leave just because India had been declared a Republic. The Portuguese dictator Antonio Salazar condescendingly declared that Goa represented the ‘light of the West in the Orient’.”

In 1954, some local activists simply took over in Dadra and Nagar-Haveli. But they weren’t immediately absorbed by India, and thus technically, they were (for a brief period) an independent country!

 

You’d think the Portuguese would realize it was a lost cause if just local activists could take over. But no. They chose to bolster their remaining holdings with African troops, and arresting thousands. Nehru had hoped to resolve all this by negotiations but by 1961, patience had run out. On 18 December, the Indian Air Force bombed out Goa’s airport, and simultaneously, troops poured in from 3 directions while the Indian Navy closed in from the sea. The lone Portuguese warship in Goa decided to fight on against these impossible odds, before they had to give up. The Portuguese Governor General who surrendered unconditionally (who wouldn’t have?) was promptly court-martialed when he returned to Portugal and exiled.

 

Western hypocrisy (and racism?) at these events was blatant: the US and Britain tried to pass a UN resolution against India, which was promptly vetoed by the USSR. Time magazine called Nehru a hypocrite who used force at home while preaching for peace abroad.

 

Clearly, getting the British out hadn’t been the end of our Independence struggle.

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