Introduction and Context
The intellectual biography of a newspaper calls for the definition and delineation of its editorial approach: the reasons that motivated its promoters to act through writing; the thought processes that lay behind that action and determined it, not only within the cultural and political context of the specific time, but also within the broader historical context; and the audience for whom it was written, with the aim of gaining readers and supporters, especially through the development of polemics and debate with its rivals and opponents. This particular type of talent for making its opinion public, as a means of intervening in reality, characterizes the intellectual profile of the Goan newspaper Pracasha in relation to its surrounding colonial context.
The intellectual notion of democracy that was conveyed by the newspaper was rooted in the international context of the turn of the nineteenth to the twentieth century, a period which saw the birth of various cultural and political tendencies. Such movements need to be understood within the global context from which they emerged, i.e., they need to be viewed as part of the shared histories of the peoples, races, classes, castes, and genders that made the dichotomies between oppressed and oppressor, or colonizer and colonized, even more complex (Cooper, 2014:5). It would be an error of interpretation to assume that theorizations of democracy would be limited to the west, and that this concept, such as it is today, should not incorporate the whole history of revolutions, battles for freedom and the achievement of independence-both in the world of colonial empires and in the post-colonial world (Gandhi, 2014:1; Cooper, 2008:56).1 These actions caused a series of chain reactions across the world, and led to the emergence of a notion of liberal democracy that, at the beginning of the twentieth century, was centered on the social question and was intellectually allied with socialist movements. It is within this global context that we must account for the exchange of world views that existed on so many different levels in the colonial world, and by using this approach, we can seek to understand the contribution to the theorization of democracy deriving from the struggles for autonomy and independence enacted at the heart of the different empires. The circulation of intellectual elites from the colonies resulted in the dissemination of the latest cultural and political commonalities that, as a consequence of the attitudes of authoritarian regimes, led to a greater rapprochement between anti-fascist and anti-colonialist movements in various latitudes of the globe. This aspect of an intellectualized and self-reflexive democracy that could serve as a redemptive space freeing subalterns and reforming colonizers shaped the debate in that epoch by opening it up to the diverse topics and solutions introduced into the political agenda of the time by the colonial question and minority groups (Gandhi, 2014).
Of course, the imperial subjects/citizens as defined and legislated for in the various spaces of European colonization did not enjoy political equality in terms of their so-called citizenship rights. This was one of the key points to be noted in the insurgencies: the native elites’ flawless knowledge of their individual and collective citizenship rights and responsibilities gave them a precise framework for comparing their own citizenship with that of the citizens living in the metropolis. On the other hand, those metropolitan citizens who had spent much of the nineteenth century fighting unsuccessfully for the right to universal suffrage now discovered fresh sources of inspiration and other reasons for their struggles in the concepts of “minority” and the “subalternity” of gender, race, and class. In the colonized world, the comparison between citizens and imperial subjects led to the incorporation into this latter group’s fight of the right to full citizenship as a promise of equality (Jayal, 2013), while factors of identity and belonging shaped various opposing nationalisms.2 In other words, what degree of balance and juxtaposition between citizenship and national identity as a political category is permitted in a colonial society? Or, indeed, between an idea of citizenship and multiple cultural identities?
In response to the authoritarian, centralizing, and expansionist model of colonial empires, the novelty that was ushered in with the twentieth century was specifically a sense of willingness, while it was possible to construct political unities/equalities within a context of cultural diversity and social differences (Harvey, 2004). This clash molded the evolution of the idea of democracy, and there was a growing understanding that it was only through praxis, or the exercise of democracy, that real citizenship and responsible citizens could be generated. In the various progressive quarters outlined in the foregoing discussion, the idea came to be questioned that political democracy-defined as the right of everyone to participate in the public sphere and to elect or to be elected as representatives-was a process with several stages of education for citizenship. These groups believed that only the expansion of political equality could guarantee and reveal the natural vocation of democracy as praxis. In this sense, and for those intellectual currents, democratic experience was incompatible with the existence of the colonial situation.
Just like the idea of democracy, the idea of citizenship is similarly not watertight; rather, it is a fluid concept. This means that agents and decision-makers shifted over time, just as the discourse that defined them in relation to their narrative also altered (Cooper, 2008). After the history of kings and the history of civilizations, the history of peoples started to be written with all the alterations in their roles that were brought about by the masses as a product of the collective. The figure of the intellectual imbued the cultural and political intersections of connected histories with a necessary consistency, creating expansive networks of intellectual dialogue which extended far beyond the professional world or the university because they enabled the sharing of ideas and the constitution of movements of a reformist nature. Such movements acted in defense of causes that were considered just, such as the foundational example of the Dreyfus affair (Machado, 1999). It is important to remember that the intellectual groups formed in the transition from the nineteenth to the twentieth century were drawn from all parts of society. They mirrored the broad profile of the main liberal, socialist, and conservative political forces. While some maintained their political independence (Benda, 1927), others functioned as ideologues at the service of the various regimes as specialized consultants or engaged activists.3 For these groups, the periodical press was their principal means of affecting reality (Machado, 2018), and they expressed themselves through a manifesto that was successively unfolded from the first to the last issue. The agents of these manifestos, whether operating as individual intellectual elites or through the combined force of their efforts, did not recognize imperial borders and engaged in multi-directional relationships of support, opposition, and resistance. Whether though freedom of choice or reciprocal exchanges with the metropolis, the colonized were deeply engaged from the start, and this gave rise to equally strong opposition and resistance from their intellectual networks. Such networks provide clear evidence of the beginning of the end of the colonial empires, and are the focal point for this study.
By contrast, the idea of the Portuguese colonial empire as such, along with the empires of other European powers, was born from an expansionist desire that ultimately led to the creation of rules for the occupation of the colonized geographical space (Alexandre, 1993). The historical occupation of the territory favored the Portuguese, but these factors were definitively substituted at the Berlin Conference by the obligation to ‘civilize’ and to promote the economic development of the spaces under their colonial tutelage. As a result of these imperial rivalries, and under pressure from the United Kingdom and Germany, the Portuguese constitutional monarchy lost a large part of its African territory, namely the whole of the area between the colonies of Angola on the Atlantic coast and Mozambique on the shores of the Indian Ocean.
The Berlin Conference had several political consequences in Portugal. The first was the nomination of António Enes as Minister of the Navy and Overseas Empire. With him, various legislative measures were introduced, from a perspective that was intended to be imperial, to ensure Portuguese sovereignty over its colonies (Silva, 2009). In that period, the regulations and laws relating to indigeneity (indigenato) marked a shift in Portuguese colonization that was not universally popular, as will be explained later on in this article. This shift prefigured the dictatorship and its colonial model, and led to Enes’ posthumous decoration with the Order of the Colonial Empire (Ordem do Império Colonial), created by the dictatorship in 1932.
A further notable consequence of the Berlin Conference was the opposition that was stirred up by republicans in the name of a liberal democracy, and which was grounded in the incompetence of the monarchy to protect national sovereignty in the colonies. The republican movement-in the form of the Portuguese Republican Party (Partido Republicano Português)-was realized on a wide front, and brought together people with diverse political sympathies, including socialists and anarchists. It gained strength and votes under the banner of its patriotic fight for the maintenance of the national territory against the British and European offensives in the dispute for colonial occupation and influence. As a result, the revolution of October 5, 1910 successfully brought about a change of regime in Portugal, and the republic was installed. The republican regime established certain structural changes in the relationship between the metropolis and the colonies. It embraced its civilizing mission, at least in theory and in its presentation to the other European powers, adopting (or not) a policy of assimilation of the natives at the same time as it initiated a process of administrative decentralization (Silva, 2016). Some republican currents of thought, which were echoed and supported among both European and native colonial elites, argued for processes that would lead to the complete autonomy and independence of the colonies, which may or may not be framed within an idea of an empire that would consist of a confederacy of provinces. This was one aspect of republican idiosyncrasy, along with the laicization of society and the freedom of conscience and religion. In Goa, this dynamic process included the discussion of the colonial question that had been initiated by central government and parliament. At the level of local colonial power, it translated into organizations such as the Council of Government (Conselho do Governo), which came to have more members elected locally than those who were nominated by central government. This process meant that a large proportion of the Goan intellectual elite supported the liberal democratic ideal and believed that a significant change to colonial relations was underway (Lobo, 2013). As a consequence, and although they did not lose sight of the fight against the British empire in neighboring India, Catholic and Hindu elites believed that they were on their own path to democratization and the freedom from colonial power that would result from this. The coup that later installed the dictatorship rapidly extinguished this hope and the political ambitions that united diverse groups of Portuguese and Goan intellectuals. Contrary to what the new regime desired, however, the colonial legislation that followed the 1926 coup reinforced cross-sectoral alliances. In Goa, this led to specific shared initiatives between Catholics and Hindus, for which the newspaper discussed in this article served as a mouthpiece. Pracasha provides an example of the culture of opposition and resistance that those dictatorial measures provoked, to some extent, across the whole empire.
Pracasha, or the Light at the End of the Tunnel
The newspaper Pracasha was published in Goa from 1928 to 1937. It was born of the necessity to respond to the various attacks perpetrated by the Portuguese dictatorship installed after the coup of May 28, 1926, and which were reflected, above all, in centralizing, authoritarian, and segregationist legislation that came to be summarized soon afterwards in the 1930 Colonial Act (Acto Colonial), forcibly imposed across the various colonies of the Portuguese empire. The 1926 coup interrupted the process of democratization set in motion by the First Republic of Portugal, bringing an end to the ideas of autonomy for the colonies that a large number of Goan intellectual elites had begun to debate and argue in favor of, in parallel with what was happening in British India. The centralizing nature of the dictatorship put an end to any form of colonial representation in the Portuguese parliament, and proceeded progressively to dismantle forms of representation within local colonial power structures, thus concomitantly also bringing an end to the space of negotiation that they permitted.
Venctexa V. S. R. Sar Dessai was the director of the newspaper, and Luís de Menezes Bragança became its chief editor. Both were reformists and moderate in their beliefs and politics. They turned Pracasha into a force that united liberal, democratic, and republican doctrines and principles. The main focuses of opposition and resistance to the Salazar dictatorship and the Portuguese colonial regime also found that the newspaper provided a place for participation, turning it into an important landmark within the network that gave substance to these values.
The intellectual agenda of that time and its manifold developments ran throughout the newspaper, with direct calls being made for action that would surpass cultural and religious differences.
It is the tendency towards indifference, the intellectual blindness, and the aberration of our educated, thinking folk that contributes to the current deplorable state of [Goan] society. This must all be corrected. It is urgent, therefore, that young people should unite now in a reformist league, and that, without becoming discouraged, they should undertake cultural, educational, and social reforms, correcting past errors and doing away with obsolete formulas and superstitions, organizing lectures, reading groups, and healthy, intense, and continuous propaganda to this end, through an appropriate intermediary organization created specifically for this purpose; and each member of that league should, in turn, take a solemn oath to strictly comply with the clauses that are stipulated. It is essential that this league should mercilessly combat religious fanaticism and the prejudices that derive from it, promoting the approximation of all religions and instilling feelings of equality and fraternity in everyone.4
Serving as a vehicle for the opposition to the dictatorial regime that had been installed in Portugal, Pracasha sought to establish itself within a European and global network of cultural and political currents fighting against the expansionist and anti-democratic forms of power exercised by the Europe of colonial empires, and, in doing so, it provided an educational opportunity for its readers. It also denounced the economic imperialism that regulated the world in the period after the First World War without the obligation to establish the effective possession of, or sovereignty over, territories. The Goan freedom fighter Tristão de Bragança Cunha was a contributor to the newspaper in the early years of its publication. In relation to the worldwide reality, he sought to clearly present the connections between colonial empires and the new forms of international power that he called super imperialism, linking these to the appearance of multinationals as forms of expansion and global political influence.
One of the essential features of the present epoch is the intense economic and financial colonization of western Europe for the benefit of the United States of America. Within a short space of time, not only did the great European powers find themselves obliged to renounce the global predominance that they had enjoyed for more than a century, but they also rapidly became dependent upon the American colossus […] All of the European countries that were involved in the last war have become financially dependent on the Dollar-King […]. There is no shortage of people ready to explain the unusual stability of the Portuguese military dictatorship as being due to the financial support provided by American capitalists in exchange for advantageous concessions in Africa, and especially in Angola.5
At the same time, the newspaper sought to deconstruct this conception of imperialism, and to theorize and debate the multifaceted overhaul that was needed in order to create the egalitarian institutional scene of democracy. A Pracasha editorial that was taken from a Mozambican newspaper run by the Portuguese opposition to the dictatorship pointed out the incompatibility of the ideas of imperialism and democracy, and maintained that only democracy could liberate the people.
Portuguese Colonial Empire! How supremely ridiculous. […] Imperialism today means subjection to the strongest. And between the Motherland and the Colonies, it is the former that is the stronger, so that the latter must accept imperialism as a tendency to absorb. Let us counter the idea of imperialism with the idea of democracy. […] Anyone who knows a little history has no right to ignore that the colonies, like all organisms, are subject to the fatal law of evolution. […] Once these have achieved an appreciable level of development, what right has the Metropolis to want to keep them bound to it, to its interests, to its mentality? None. […] The idea of dominion can only survive as long as the population has no possibility of making itself heard. The people must surely make themselves heard in the very near future.6
This fight for democracy and the secular values that it transmitted created several transnational connections that were disseminated by the newspaper. Pracasha opened its pages to intellectual currents such as the freedom movement in India and to its mentors, debating the exercise of democratic political power served by institutions that would respect minorities in an independent India.
Compatriots [Goans]! May we learn to extract from the hidden depths of our legacy the ideal that we are lacking, and to defend it as the most essential of all rights: the right to honor our past and to direct our destiny according to our own wishes and feelings. If we already have it, let us defend it with full force, and if we do not have it, let us win it, but without the help of a humiliating guardian, without the admonishment of being favored by this influential figure or that powerful man, with only the strength of our own arms, the force of our own principles, the firmness of our character, and the justice of our cause! This is our foremost duty as men.7
In the Pracasha editorial of January 12, 1929, Menezes de Bragança, writing under the pseudonym of Lucifer, commented on a speech given in Calcutta by Motilal Nehru:8
The author of these lines stated, just a short while ago, in this very newspaper, that the dominion status9 is the solution that, at this moment in time, is least divisive for India, while independence pure and simple is the solution that is most appealing for the public spirit. Put simply, the first is far from resolving the political problem of India, just as it is far from falling as a gift from the hands of the English. The other is not yet visible on the horizon of what is feasible, making it necessary, as one of those who support it has said, to create the mentality that the idea involves, by means of a systematic and sustained propaganda campaign.10
The defense both of Goa and the rights of Goans in the light of the dictatorship, its repressive legislation, and the prior censorship of the press united those who directed the newspaper. Dessai was the leader in Goa of the Hindu reform movement,11 which had been founded in British India by nationalist sympathizers. The movement, known as Shuddhi,12 argued for the end of the caste system and encouraged the reconversion to Hinduism of Christian and Islamic converts, thus creating discontent among orthodox Hindus and Catholics (Pereira, 2009; Kamat, 1996; Nagordkar, 1988).
Today, the reasons are no longer in force that led the old Brahmins not to mix with the other castes, to consider some of them untouchable, to prohibit others from reciting the Vedic mantras, to the extent that, if they were to continue along this path, soon there would not be one who would recite them. It was necessary to react under pain of the total and fatal extinction of their uniquely ancient race, culture, creed, and civilization. […] Let there be no confusion. The danger is there, but it is in religious fanaticism…13
The agendas of the aforementioned men were rooted in the defense of democratic values and genuine citizenship for Goans:
In Portuguese India, the rage of Catholic intolerance […] contributed to the asphyxiation and atrophy of the Hindu class, whose regeneration finally commenced on the auspicious date of October 5, 1910, when the Portuguese Republic was proclaimed and the principles of liberty, equality, and fraternity were established.14
Pracasha simultaneously followed the arguments put forward by Indian nationalists and the political tendencies of Hindus and Catholics who believed in the rise of a Goan nationalism. The newspaper asserted the key idea of the liberation and emancipation of colonized peoples, and claimed such solidarity as being an inherent part of the fight against the Portuguese dictatorial regime:
What I know is that neither this newspaper, nor any other, has made the kind of assertion that, at the session of the Council of Government this past July 4, I myself made on behalf of the elected party, repudiating the unacceptable tenet that underlies the Colonial Act, and demanding for my country a right that nobody can refuse-the right of peoples to direct and govern their own destinies, in the fullness of their individuality, without guardianship or interference from anybody […] I read, not long ago, the forceful pamphlet by Dr. Bernardino Machado. A vibrant protest, and, at the same time, a well-produced critique of the Colonial Act. What a formidable lesson for the youth of my land!15
The newspaper was open to reflecting on and constantly updating the democratic debate taking place among the multiple currents of thought that traversed the various nationalisms. It made the different reasons for agreement and divergence clear to its readers, but always demonstrated great respect for maintaining an open debate and for the tolerance of different beliefs.
In its fight for democracy and freedom of conscience waged against the dictatorship imposed by Portuguese colonialism in Goa, as well as against all forms of colonialism, Pracasha identified the developments taking place on various fronts, which it communicated through debate or by agreement with other newspapers and magazines, whether in relation to the issues with which it was concerned locally,16 or in relation to subjects that connected it to the rest of India and to other continents.17 The newspaper thus demonstrated multiple aspects of cultural and political contact that made the world smaller, because these questions could be read about in the pages of Pracasha, where the most relevant events and intellectual production from other continents were reported.
As an intellectual newspaper, the editorial line adopted a critical position that went beyond political parties and existing powers, and demonstrated a coherent link between thought and action, acting as an intermediary and demanding that privilege be given to the greater good of freedom and emancipation in the face of the colonial empires.
Pracasha was born in an environment that was truly hostile to the ideology of Freedom when the cross entrusted to the sword sought to prevent the spread of the religious convictions of a great number of citizens of a republic that itself claimed to be founded on the irrefutable rock of Democracy. It was born, therefore, to fight, and, in its battle for Truth, Justice, and healthy Democracy, […] Pracasha has been struggling fearlessly for the purity and integrity of the true ideal of Democracy. Certain as it is that Democracy will one day triumph gloriously in every part of the world, Pracasha highlights for its readers the dangers that might tarnish its luster, and when one day healthy Democracy arrives in these lands to unfurl its glorious flag, Pracasha will show it the scars that cover its chest, and will take refuge under its standard, not as an adherent, but as one who has the right to a place of honor […]. Pracasha, then, faithful to the very meaning of its name, continues to cast its feeble light along the paths of destiny of this land.18
Within the newspaper itself, Pracasha put its guiding principles into practice, using a democratic model for the management of its internal affairs, which was clearly manifested in the pages of the publication, as, for example, in Menezes Bragança’s article published in one of the early editions during the election for president of the regime. The election of the sole candidate, Marshall Óscar Carmona (who had been interim president since 1926), inaugurated the period known as the National Dictatorship (Ditadura Nacional). Menezes Bragança’s reflections became the subject of discussion and defined the newspaper’s political stance in favor of democracy and secularism.
I read your newspaper with interest. I find the religious faiths quite strange, and I am not interested in the topic of conversions, nor, as I am sure you will understand, in that of reconversions, which is causing much agitation in this swamp. However, I am interested in it as a manifestation of religious freedom, and because of the dangerous and deplorable types of reaction that it has produced in this environment, laying bare the intolerance that dominates people’s minds. Religious freedom, in a civilized country, has just one boundary that it may not cross. And that is the civil supremacy of the State, which cannot be restricted by the hegemonic pretensions of any other power, whatever titles it might invoke to affirm its superiority. Unless the State transforms itself into a theocracy that enslaves minds. There is no doubt that the Republic established the principle of religious neutrality and equality of creeds in its Constitution [1911].19
In that presidential election, Carmona won with a large share of the votes cast in the municipalities of the so-called New Conquests (Novas Conquistas). Menezes Bragança expressed his unhappiness with this fact because, according to rumors, this vote represented a rejection of the Shuddhi movement, whose leaders had called upon voters to abstain. On the other hand, that same call had given the journalist a reason to criticize the movement. In fact, this article by Menezes Bragança received support from several Hindus. One of them, F. S. Molcornencar, requested that the director of the newspaper respond, which he did in a subsequent issue.20 Dessai retorted that the Shuddhi movement was non-partisan in nature, and that in the case of the election in question, with its sole candidate, they were completely indifferent to the result. In response, Menezes Bragança confirmed that the attitude of indifference was responsible “for giving democracy a good kicking.”21 It seems uncommon for a newspaper director and a contributor-who was a future editor himself, no less-to debate so freely in the pages of a newspaper. The discussion continued with several interlocutors and, soon afterwards, Sar Dessai and two other Hindu intellectuals, the Viscount of Perném and Vamona Naique Carandé, helped to found Gomantaquia Hindu-Sabha in Goa. This was a nationalist association that, although it continued to be a part of the Shuddhi movement, sought to go further in bringing about social and political reform in Goan society.
Luís de Menezes Bragança also professed his opposition,22 presenting in the newspaper a coherent critical assessment of the various efforts and errors of the First Portuguese Republic, which had inevitably led to the dictatorship.23 With this analysis, he asserted that he no longer believed in the possibility, or even in the advantage, of Goan autonomy being achieved within the framework of the Portuguese empire-an autonomy that had been thought through and planned during the period of parliamentary democracy, being designed to mirror the so-called British Dominion status that had been granted to the British colonies of Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. The position advocated by the Goan journalist had many followers, who recognized that the future of Goa was necessarily linked to the future of the rest of India.
In spite of its importance for Goa, there will be few who have considered this aspect and dared to ask themselves what the political status of our country will be when the rest of India has been granted independence […]. Goa is watching. It is what Goa has done for centuries. But let us not exaggerate. The young blood of Goa was already inoculated with the new virus. The names of Indian heroes are on the lips of its new generation. The young people of Goa, whether in Portugal24 or in the land of their birth, display in their press, and by their political attitude, their ardent sympathy with, and enthusiasm for, the Indian cause. Their political vision stretches beyond the borders of Goa […]. Nor should it be claimed that a free India would result in a return to barbarism. Independence, on the contrary, will make us equal to the free nations among which we will occupy a position of perfect equality, having to solve problems of an internal nature that are shared by them all.25
At the same time, in each issue of the newspaper, a contributor demonstrated the importance of maintaining a global dimension in the cultural and political discussion, which would leave nobody out:
Independence is worth nothing if we do not conquer it for ourselves and show that we are worthy of possessing such a valuable thing. This is the reason why Goa must alter its political perspective. Goa needs a new and more intensive civic education that will prepare it and instill in it the spirit of self-determination.26
Although the Indian cultural dimension, in the broadest sense, was missing from education in both Goa and British India, it was never forgotten in Pracasha, just as the newspaper always included contributions from other latitudes that circulated globally. By way of contrast, it was argued in the newspaper that democracy would be nourished by an inclusive nationalism, while the dictatorship strengthened itself by means of exclusion and through all kinds of discrimination and pathetic hierarchies. It was this perspective that united some Catholic and Hindu Goan intellectuals.
Pracasha gave voice to Jawaharlal Nehru’s speech in Bengal, further lending its own support through a commentary by Menezes de Bragança, in which he summarized the key ideas that were pursued by the newspaper:
In order to love our own country, we need not despise foreign lands. Nationalism does not involve, as an essential feature, hatred, or disdain for everything foreign. Just because we love our own family, we are not going to loathe other families. It is true that there exists the nationalism of imperial peoples, which is oppressive, regressive, absorbing, exclusionary. It lives by breathing war and it is the enemy of popular emancipation. It serves as the leitmotiv of dictators, who use it to hypnotize the masses with dangerous dreams of expansion, and to silence the impetus to revolt against their power, which oppresses freedom. It feeds on the vanity of dead blond men when it sees that there is no ground for conquest. It is anti-internationalist. But there is a nationalism of the people who believe themselves to have the right to a free life, and who work to achieve it. They do not hate other peoples for being free. They merely claim an equal right. Their nationalism is only a starting point, let us say, for internationalism.27
At the same time, the leader of the nationalist opposition to the Portuguese dictatorship, Tristão Bragança Cunha, proceeded to publish in the newspaper his argument in favor of India’s project for independence from colonialism.28 He founded the Goan Committee of the Indian National Congress in Calcutta in 1928, along with various others who opposed the Portuguese regime, including Menezes Bragança.29 Several news reports on the progress of the committee, including the election of its executive board, were published in the newspaper. T. B. Cunha gave a lucid summary of the reception afforded to this event in Goa, and of its detractors.
The formation, in Goa, of a Committee of the Indian National Congress, and some statements made by myself, in my role as member of that Committee, have provoked solemn and verbose protests on the part of a certain press outlet. […] Never have I harbored the slightest illusion as to the character of one section of our press, which, for some disingenuous folk, represents the opinion of the people of this country. The sheer hostility manifested by them now towards Indian nationalism merely serves to confirm what the public has long suspected […]. The Goan Committee only expresses the opinion of those who, not being domesticated and having pride in their Indian origin, aspire to achieve for their country a situation of perfect equality among the great free nations of the world.30
In 1930, after the suspension of Pracasha by the censors at the end of 1929, Menezes Bragança continued his journalistic work with the newspaper Pradipa, which was directed by the Goan nationalist Balcrisna V. Sacardandó. It was later published in Bombay after having been prohibited in Goa.
At the end of that year, the alliances came to be more clearly demarcated around the opposition to the Colonial Act, whether in the press31 or in protests in Bombay and Calcutta.
The Goan Union has taken the initiative of organizing a rally in Bombay, with the patriotic and very laudable aim of stating the feelings of the Goan Community about the political and administrative regime installed through the Colonial Act that now forms part of the Portuguese Constitution, having been passed into law through a plebiscite, something that is absolutely unheard of in the history of public law in civilized countries. […] For as long as the Colonial Act remains in force, the principles from which the regime of discrimination and administrative centralization emanate will remain intact. […] The Bombay rally will be the mouthpiece for our land. Whether they listen to us or not, we shall state that the offending clauses of the Colonial Act and of the bills and acts dictated by those principles cannot remain in force […]. In short, we shall say aloud, without obstacle or hesitation, that only through liberal principles can India live decently under the shadow of the Portuguese flag.32
This dispute that was initiated by Menezes Bragança is well known.33 In the years that followed, he managed to unmask in Pracasha all the measures that were inspired by and resulted from the Colonial Act. These measures simply restated the subalternity of the colonies and their respective natives in relation to the metropolis and metropolitan citizens, whose essential nature to colonize and civilize others was constitutionalized as law. A few issues later, after a close reading of the revision that was made of the Colonial Act at the time of the introduction of the new constitution in 1933, Menezes Bragança radicalized his argument. Although he acknowledged the period of the First Republic as a time of missed opportunities, he now announced his complete disbelief in a return to a version of Portuguese colonialism on a pathway to political liberalism, and he turned his attention once more to neighboring India.
I confess that until now I had not read, article by article, the new and revised version of the Colonial Act, in the form in which it is incorporated into what, in a crassly inappropriate way, is called the Constitution and which would be better named Rules of the Dictatorship […]. But to speak of “Portuguese political liberalism” today is nothing more than pure sarcasm. Political liberalism was killed by the Salazar-Carmona regime. To contrast our political situation with that of our neighbors is to close our eyes to reality. In order not to shock the sensibilities of the dictators, they even deny us the right to openly display our revulsion at the Colonial Act.34
For as long as it survived, Pracasha denounced all the attacks directed against democracy and the democratic principles of citizenship that were perpetrated by the dictatorial government and its idea of a colonial empire, and the newspaper suffered the consequences.35 It scrutinized the subsequent measures for segregation in the army and in the colonial public administration, which sent out a clear message: the negation of the culture of the other as barbaric and uncivilized throughout the so-called imperial space.
I do not know if there are only citizens and natives [indígenos]. In the legislation generated by the Colonial Act, there also appear assimilated people [assimilados]-an intermediate category […]. The critical spirit that is the greatest characteristic of European culture has torn up the blindfold with which sectarian prejudice obscured the medieval mind […]. Today there is not just one civilization. There are civilizations and cultures. And nobody more than the Portuguese has the historic duty to acknowledge this superior fact of the history of the last three centuries […]. Ultimately, what matters is the Colonial Act. It is the new testament, inspired by an integralist ideology, which relegates everything that does not conform to the standard of “official civilization,” viewed in accordance with ultra-nationalist, absorbing, and exclusivist criteria, to a level of civil, political, and social inferiority.36
Once it had been ratified, the Colonial Act also represented the end of room for negotiation that had previously been permitted between colonized peoples and the colonial power in local terms. Instead, a colonialist leadership was created, headed by puppets who received their orders directly from central government, and, from 1933 onward, from the dictator himself, to be more precise. As such, even the governors of the colonies were totally dependent on the central government of the metropolis. At the level of the local power and its respective hierarchies, Article 30 of the Colonial Act was categorical about the role of the governor, who was prohibited from taking any initiative, legislative or otherwise, without first engaging in prior consultation with the Minister for the Colonies.37 Furthermore, in relation to the hierarchical structure, the factor of racial discrimination came to be considered a legal criterion.
One entirely new provision has been incorporated by those who revised the Colonial Act, and approved by the illustrious dictators with their official seal. It is yet another unequivocal demonstration of the prejudice of racial superiority that impregnates this magnum opus of political regression, with which Salazar sought to force the gates of history. It is Article 32 of the new version. The text says: “Local and municipal administrative institutions are represented in the colonies by municipal councils, municipal boards, and local committees, according to the importance, level of development, and European population of the respective district.” Where there is no European population, there cannot be municipal councils or boards, nor local committees. It is not an alternative condition. It is a cumulative condition.38
The year 1935 saw the final update in this process, with a unilateral constitutional revision of the already unilateral 1933 constitution. On that date, a number of refinements were made to the Colonial Act that exacerbated the imperial concept of the “colony,” with the Supreme Council of the Colonies being replaced by the Imperial Council. This was a question of semantics, without doubt, given that the end of the elected representation of the colonies had already been decreed, but it clearly demonstrated the rise of Salazarism, the progression of which mirrored certain developments taking place elsewhere in Europe. The icing on the cake of the constitutional revisions was the end of lay education and freedom of conscience with an article that stipulated the teaching in public schools of Christian morality, which was established as the tradition of the metropolitan country and imposed throughout the empire.39
Through its contributors, Pracasha never ceased to fight for the rights of colonized peoples. In 1934, the newspaper published a series of articles in which members of the European republican left theorized on democracy. In his introduction to one of these articles that analyzed the European situation, Menezes Bragança reflected on the fact that not all republics were democratic, denouncing, as he did so, the cases of Nazism and fascism while observing that history had demonstrated that only democratic, liberal republics served the people.40 The newspaper also published a range of articles from diverse political and cultural perspectives, written by world-renowned intellectuals,41 including members of the Portuguese opposition to the Salazar dictatorship.42
The following quotation from the French intellectual Romain Rolland summarizes the message that the newspaper sought to disseminate through the works of the intellectuals whose writing it referenced and published. In this article dedicated to the Indian National Congress, Rolland’s position is inextricably linked to that of the editors of Pracasha:
We know too well in the West the errors and crimes of a monstrous Nationalism, so that we desire for India that she should escape the deadly wheel that is crushing the people of Europe and America. May she rise even further until she reaches that stage of the Future of humankind, in which, through the harmony of all faiths, men will bring about the cooperation of all forces, and the union of all nations, for the well-being of all humanity.43
The Sunday edition created a space of reflection for literary criticism that was transcribed from foreign newspapers, and, in the same vein, it also allowed for the dissemination of contemporaneous economic thought and socio-political theory. Cultural, philosophical, and historicist trends were also represented in many of the pages of the Sunday edition of Pracasha. One of the newspaper’s most prominent columnists, the writer and poet António Ayala, usually published his opinions under the byline Repórter Z. In an ironic column about the terrible battle that he had waged with his pen (quill), he drew an analogy between writing and resistance, observing that the pen wanted to place literature at the service of resistance, and that he had tried to impede it, even by force, but with little success.44
In 1934, an article by Menezes Bragança was censored from the respective edition of Pracasha although it had previously been published in Goan newspapers in British India, such as the Bombay-based Anglo-Lusitano. It had also been published in the Catholic newspaper Oriente in Mozambique. The article entitled “33.000 rupias” (33,000 rupees) argued against Goan participation in the colonial exhibition in Porto. The praise given to the writer and journalist in Calcutta, Bombay, and by Lourenço Marques demonstrated beyond all doubt the network of resistance and opposition that had been made irreversible by the Colonial Act and the whole imperial apparatus.
Imperialism, gentlemen, is imperialism: the British imperialist, the German Junker, and the Italian fascist with ambitions of a colonial empire, all have the same mentality, the same notions of expansion, the same aspiration to dominate other peoples, the same prejudices about race and color. Let there be no doubt about it! […] India is weary of pompous speeches and florid rhetoric, and we in Goa are more tired of it than anyone. The time has come for us to translate ideas into actions and facts. And, in order to do so, something more is needed than the fleeting enthusiasm of meetings and speeches.45
In its final year of publication, the newspaper continued to denounce the Portuguese dictatorship46 while also maintaining its energetic political and cultural criticism, its openness to debate and the sharing of ideas, and its demonstrable solidarity with all the victims of dictatorship around the world. This stance shaped the intellectual mission of the newspaper.
Another page of this newspaper has been turned. Pracasha is another year older [it would be the final year of its publication]. It could have an existence as placid as the smooth surface of the swamp, without turbulence, only creasing from time to time with the effect of a slight breeze, amid smiles and the doffing of caps, and ultimately gaining the respectable position of an “organ of opinion.” Instead of these easy and comfortable advantages, it has chosen to lead a difficult life. It has opted for a minority position, going against the grain of the models that are in fashion, and consolidating around itself the disagreeable reputation of being suspicious or undesirable.47
Notable features of the newspaper throughout its long existence were its close attention to all democratic ideas as globally constructed values, its reports on the progress of the freedom fighters of British India,48 and the empathy that it showed on innumerable occasions toward Gandhi’s resilience, the cultural and political tolerance of Tagore, and the political discourse of J. Nehru. All of this serves to demonstrate that when Pracasha finally fell in 1937 as a victim of censorship, it landed on its feet.
Conclusion
In the specific historical context of the 1920s and 1930s-part of the interwar period of great debates on revolutions and the emancipation of the people-the editorial stance of Pracasha revealed a newspaper produced by informed intellectuals positioned in the vanguard with regard to global political and cultural debates. Throughout the years of its publication, the newspaper adopted various stances in terms of its interventions, clearly justifying its reasons for expressing support or opposition. Internationally, it was opposed to Nazism, fascism, and all forms of dictatorship, and announced its solidarity with the opposition and resistance movements, especially in Spain, Italy, and Germany. It supported participatory democratic solutions, such as the French Popular Front (Front Populaire) or the left-wing struggle in the Spanish civil war. This battlefront opened directly onto the fight against the Portuguese dictatorship and colonialism at the same time as it gave voice to the thought and actions of diverse oppositions spread across the empire and in exile. In a direct connection with the right of populations to emancipation, British India emerged as a space for debate between various political perspectives that cut across the diverse religions and minorities. This was followed closely by Pracasha in Goa, both as an example and a means of opening up and expanding the debate as far as censorship would allow. Finally, in keeping with the newspaper’s main target audience, it proved possible to observe the existence in Goa of an intellectual network that organized itself as an opposition and resistance, and engaged in dialogue and discussion with those who were undecided, while standing apart from supporters of the regime by means of its criticism. The Colonial Act served to broaden the range of discontent and stimulated and clarified the separation of the different sides, because, as we have seen, it created an obligation for clearer choices to be made between explicit support or opposition within the Goan political system. It also promoted and reinforced alliances among a substantial portion of the Catholic and Hindu intellectual elites.
The newspaper was structured around the idea of democracy and the ideals of democratic thought, which would only be achieved in full citizenship and with freedom of conscience and religion. Accordingly, it sought to establish partnerships in Goa and further afield, expanding and disseminating the debate that was already underway. By opposing fascism, Nazism, and imperialism, it created room for other discussions in the democratic field and among democrats, asserting its editorial position and its contributors’ points of view. Indeed, at a time when parliamentary democracy was being attacked as a failing system from various political angles, and was losing popular support due to the wave of financial crises after 1929 and their social consequences, the newspaper’s reflections on democracy encompassed all of the global reality of revolutions in progress and the struggles for independence against the colonial empires, which served to modernize ways of thinking about and participating in democracy, and were means of fighting and guarding against the autocratic tendencies to which they were opposed. The intellectual profile of the newspaper that has been described in this article was framed within this tendency toward participatory globalization, and it engaged with the dynamic construction of ideas of democracy and national independence. In the context of the historic processes of Portuguese colonialism and the dictatorship, the newspaper chose to defend individual and collective rights and made its mark through the establishment of a public space for anti-colonial opposition and resistance. The cultural history of democracy in Goa, as seen through the eyes of the press and its agents, brought together here in this discussion, would remain incomplete without the intellectual biography of the newspaper Pracasha.