Menon, Nehru, Portugal, and the USA
This is a hotly debated topic and as always, there are many
sides to it, with the pro-Portuguese lobby, mainly the descendants of the
Portuguese, against the liberation and the pro-Indian lobby which strongly
supporting its accession. Then there is the argument on why it took so many
years to throw out the Portuguese. On top of all that, many have used the topic
to take potshots at somebody they don’t like, and this would either be VK
Krishna Menon or Jawaharlal Nehru. It is a subject covered in a few books and
many newspaper articles. But as none of them are quite complete or fully
accurate, I thought it best to open the room and bring in some fresh air,
especially around the geopolitical developments and the final decision-making, plus
the precipitation with action.
As the British EIC and later the crown took over the reins
of the country, isolated pockets of major foreign domination remained at
Pondicherry, Mahe (French), Goa, Daman & Diu (Portuguese). After India
gained independence in 1947, the de facto transfer of the French Indian
territories to India took place in 1954 with Pondicherry becoming a union
territory (transfer treaty signed in 1956 and finally ratified by France in
1962). Portugal on the other hand, refused to negotiate on the sovereignty of
its Indian enclaves. Let’s now take up the story of Goa, from this point.
The Western world was by now in the grip of the ‘Cold War’.
In Portugal, the strongman dictator António de Oliveira Salazar dug in his
heels and redefined the colony of Goa in 1951 as a Portuguese overseas province
so that it could come under the NATO umbrella and be legally construed as part
of Portugal. As Portugal had become a NATO member, they assumed that they would
have NATO support in the case of Goa. Nehru was aware of this complication and
did not want the situation to become a global hot point. On 11 June 1953, the
Indian delegation in Lisbon was closed, and diplomatic ties were formally
severed. Mass rallies addressed by Nehru put a spotlight on the Goa issue. Nehru
however, reiterated that no coercion would be used to join India.
From then onwards, the discussions meandered on, and the Portuguese
refused to move out of Goa and vacillated. Various nonviolent means were launched,
led by the Goa Vimochan Sahayak Samiti during 1954-55. Nehru’s government,
fearing a backlash on innocent and unarmed satyagrahis, banned Indians from entering
Goa. The resulting deportations to Portugal and several violent incidents did
not provoke Nehru since he believed that non-violence would solve this issue.
The Portuguese then sealed the borders and cut off the rail links. In response,
the Nehru government imposed an economic blockade. Nehru argued that the Goans
were Indians by every standard and that Goa was a colony ruthlessly
administered by a racist and fascist colonial regime, "just a pimple on
the face of India".
In October 1961, the seminar of the Portuguese Colonial
Possessions in New Delhi resulted in the African leaders requesting Nehru “to
show the way”, so that their freedom could follow. At the Chowpatty rally in
Bombay in the same month, Nehru spoke for the first time about the need to use
“other methods” to solve the problem.
Patel and Goa
Let us check how Sardar Patel viewed the situation. Though
many feel that Patel may have acted forcefully if he were in charge, he was not
quite bothered but had aired some strong views on the matter. In a meeting
involving the approval of the Navy’s 10-year plan, Patel had asked Vice Admiral
Krishnan (then the Captain of INS Shivaji) if the Indian Navy could push out
the Portuguese. Krishnan replied in the affirmative and stated so in his
reminiscences.
KPS Menon recounts a cabinet meeting in an Akashvani article,
involving Patel – Britain has left India, and France is on the point of
leaving its Indian settlements. Portugal, however, is determined to hang on to
its settlements, Goa, Daman, and Diu. The Foreign Affairs Committee of the
Cabinet meets in order to discuss what measures should be taken to compel
Portugal to relinquish its hold on Goa etc. Apart from myself as Foreign
Secretary, the Home Secretary and the Commerce Secretary are also present. We
make certain proposals for bringing pressure to bear on the Portuguese
administration in Goa, such as a curb on remittances from Goa to India,
restriction on the employment of Goans in India, etc. Nehru is inclined to
approve these proposals. Rajaji takes an astonishing line. He asserts that the
Goans after all are our brothers, that nothing should be done to harass them
and they should be won over by love. The discussion goes on and on. Sardar
Patel seems hardly interested; he seems almost asleep. Suddenly he wakes up and
says: “Shall we go in? It is two hours work”. Nehru is shocked at the
suggestion. How can we use force in Goa, he asks - we who have been condemning
the use of force and insisting that all international issues should be settled
through peaceful means? Sardar Patel does not press his point, and Goa remains
a Portuguese settlement for another two decades. Eventually, repression in Goa
passes all endurable limits, India's patience is exhausted, and by the merest
show of force, Goa is integrated into India. Sardar Patel gives way over
Nepal and Goa because they pertain to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, of which
Nehru is in charge. In matters connected with his own portfolio, he is adamant.
I feel that Patel would have abstained since the Portuguese
were founding members of NATO in 1950. India-USSR rapprochement had started
only after 1955 with Krushchev’s accession.
Indian positioning between Russia and America was a careful balancing
act and as a Non-aligned country, much care had to be taken to not tilt it
either way. How complicated the game was will become clear in the following
paragraphs, though when viewed today, it tends to get oversimplified.
NATO, USA, Portugal, and Goa
While India was concerned about Goa, America was carefully
nurturing its relations with Portugal due to its need for military bases in the
Azores, a Portuguese-administered archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean, much
needed to track and hunt German U Boats. The earlier pact between them which had
been renewed in 1951 would now expire in 1956. The Azores was now needed as the
location to install an early warning system in the event an atomic war erupted,
and it was of even bigger strategic importance.
America had refused to make any public statement condemning
the action of the Indians in preventing passage during the episode Dadra and
Nagar Haveli in 1954. US-Portugal relations cooled due to this US reluctance to
take Portugal’s side on Goa.
The Portuguese government suspended negotiations for the
renewal of the Azores base until the Eisenhower administration approved the
so-called Dulles - Cunha memorandum, prepared in 1955 after the visit by Paulo
Cunha to the United States. A joint statement referring explicitly to the
existence of ‘Portuguese provinces’ - instead of colonies was released. The
subtle distinction was crucial for the Portuguese, who claimed they did not
have an empire or any colonies in Africa or Asia, but instead possessed ‘overseas
provinces’ with the same constitutional status as ‘continental provinces’.
Dulles stated that Goa was always considered a ‘Portuguese Province’ and
belonged to Portugal for more than four hundred years. Later, when Dulles was
asked if his declarations were a sign of ‘support of the United States to the
position of Portugal in the controversy about Goa, he declared only that the
United States was interested in seeing the problem solved by ‘peaceful means’.
I must add also that there were rumors (ominous whispers) of
a NATO base being planned at Goa, and Nehru addressed this in a Rajya Sabha
speech in 1957. According to the
Economic Weekly report, Sept 21, 1957 - Pandit Nehru issued a clear warning
that any attempt to form a base in Goa "would be an unfriendly act to
India, and every country that helps or supports that move will thereby be
committing this unfriendly act against India, and India will not tolerate it,
whatever be the consequences". He added that Portugal and her NATO allies
can no longer be in any doubt about India's firm policy to Goa. India has tried
all possible means, short of war, to settle the problem of Goa.
When JFK became the US president in 1960, the equations
changed, for he supported an anticolonial policy. Portugal then led by the
71-year-old dictator; Oliveira Salazar was worried. During the 1961 Angola
matter, America formally took a position that it would not support Portugal’s
colonial policies. This was one of the reasons why a decision was taken by
Nehru in 1961 to act, and why nothing had been done until then. As is obvious,
these Cold War equations and behind-the-scenes parleys are not obvious to the
lay reader. Now there is also the aspect of non-alignment and Nehru’s image
getting slighted, left to be discussed, and I will get to it shortly.
India finally decided to force the issue, in 1961, just as
the window opened slightly. But the situation changed again in 1962, as the Azores
became even more important due to the nuclear crisis, and the US delegation
started to abstain from such UN resolutions. An excellent article by LuÃs Nuno
Rodrigues explains all these succinctly.
Pakistani and NATO Intrigues
Nevertheless, other events troubled the Indian decision-makers.
As matters were heating up and Nehru was discussing the situation with Kennedy,
Salazar started discussions with Pakistan. While NATO powers did not get
involved, and Britain who had a direct pact with Portugal vacillated, there
were some intriguing incidents mentioned in the accounts of the military
officers – namely those at the helm of affairs, BM Kaul, and DK Palit.
Kaul mentions how a Canberra flying to Cochin from Bombay
was buzzed by a supersonic fighter, though he does not mention whose plane it
could be. He writes - Air Marshal Engineer, the Air Chief, reported that
when one of our Canberra’s, flying at a speed at about 600 miles per hour, was
carrying out a certain mission, on our side of the border, its pilot saw on his
radar screen, that he was being chased by a supersonic jet, flying at about
twice the speed of our Canberra, from which he broke contact at once and
returned to base. This account baffled us all. Whose plane could it be, with a
mach-2 speed (about 1,500 miles per hour)? Did the Portuguese keep such planes
in Dabolim/Goa? Or were they being assisted in the air by one of their allies?
If so, who was this ally? These questions, however, remained unanswered.
We also received reliable information that Pakistan
proposed exploiting this situation. They concentrated their forces
threateningly along our Punjab borders. They were holding a big exercise which
was significantly prolonged to coincide with this period. Families of their
officers and other ranks were evacuated from certain areas. Leave to their
service personnel was canceled. These reports convinced us of a collusion
between Portugal and Pakistan against us. Menon informed Nehru of all these
developments. It was the desire of both Nehru and Menon to solve the problem of
Goa peacefully. But the Portuguese were forcing their hands.
DK Palit adds - Late that afternoon (29th Nov
1961), while the CGS and I were discussing the results of the visit to Nehru,
Air Chief Aspy Engineer telephoned to say that he had some startling
information he would like to discuss with the CGS. That morning one of our
Canberra bombers on a photo-reconnaissance mission over Goa had been tailed by
two unknown fighters even before it had crossed the Goa border. Warning of the
presence of the fighters was received, that evasive action had failed to shake
them off, and as the Canberra began its photo run, the fighters began to close
in. When they had approached to within 1,500 metres the Canberra broke away and
escaped, but not before its radar had indicated a burst of fire from one of the
fighters. Engineer said that in his opinion, based on the rate of close-in,
the fighters were probably F-86 Sabre jets, and so could have been from
either the Portuguese or the Pakistani air force. The results of the
photo-recce mission indicated that Dabolim, Goa's only airfield, had recently
built two hangars that could possibly have sheltered fighter aircraft; it was,
however, later ascertained that the Portuguese had at no time stationed fighter
aircraft at Dabolim. The mystery was never solved, but in all likelihood,
fighters from Pakistan had temporarily operated from Dabolim. The plan to go
back and try to lure the fighters out was nixed by Menon and deferred to a
later date.
Then there was the case of the mystery submarine and Palit explains
- An interesting item of information given us was that on 7th December
our anti-submarine frigate had reported positive identification of a submarine
off Goa and had fired a depth charge at the target. Years later I learned that
when some of our naval ships made a courtesy call at Singapore sometime in
1963-4, they picked up dock gossip that a damaged British submarine had limped
into port at Christmastime for repairs, to what appeared to be bomb damage.
Operation Vijay
On 18 December, a Portuguese request was made to the UN
Security Council for a debate on the conflict in Goa. The request was approved
when seven members supported the request (the US, UK, France, Turkey, Chile, Ecuador,
and Taiwan), two opposed (the Soviet Union and Ceylon), and two abstained (the
United Arab Republic and Liberia). In the ensuing debate, the US delegate,
Adlai Stevenson, strongly criticized India's use of force to resolve her
dispute with Portugal, stressing that such a resort to violent means was
against the charter of the UN.
Interestingly, Salazar had asked Vassallo Silva to hold on
for 8 days, as he wanted to send Portuguese naval support to Goa. But as it
turned out, Egyptian President Nasser refused passage for the Portuguese ship
carrying men and ammunition to Goa, because the war in Goa was a liberation
from foreign rule.
By the evening of 18 December, most of Goa had been overrun
by advancing Indian forces. Orders delivered by the Portuguese President demanded
a scorched earth policy—that Goa was to be destroyed before it was given up to
the Indians. Despite his orders from Lisbon, Governor General Manuel António Vassallo
e Silva took stock of the numerical superiority of the Indian troops, as well
as the food and ammunition supply available to his forces, and decided to
surrender.
The official Portuguese surrender was conducted in a formal
ceremony held at 20:30 hours on 19 December when Governor General Manuel
António Vassallo e Silva signed the instrument of surrender formally ending 451
years of Portuguese Rule in Goa. As expected, the Portuguese government severed
all diplomatic links with India and refused to recognize the incorporation of
the seized territories into the Indian Republic.
Relations between India and Portugal thawed only in 1974,
when, following an anti-colonial military coup d'état and the fall of the
authoritarian rule in Lisbon, Goa was finally recognized as part of India, and
steps were taken to re-establish diplomatic relations with India. On 31
December 1974, a treaty was signed between India and Portugal with the
Portuguese recognizing full sovereignty of India over Goa, Daman, Diu, Dadra,
and Nagar Haveli.
The decision-making process.
Now let us focus on the actual decision to attack. Who was
involved and when/how was it taken?
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. Menon explains to Brecher in an interview -
When the ship passed through these waters and was attacked, the Prime
Minister told me once, ‘I am sure that the time has come; we have to stop
this’. He said, ‘We should push them off these islands; the Navy and others
should do this.’ …. We knew Pakistan was negotiating with them. Panditji was
quite clear that the Portuguese must go. He would not put up with them shooting
at our ships. But he was undecided about what steps to take. We fixed a date
[to march into Goa], and the Americans got hold of the news; I believe they
passed it on to the Portuguese, their NATO ally....Then the Americans put
pressure on us to cancel or postpone our plans. My Prime Minister said, ‘Yes,
we will postpone it.’ He did so to give the Americans an opportunity to advise
the Portuguese. We postponed it for a few days. We fixed another date: I am
afraid I did not tell even the P.M. this time because I feared he would think
it his duty to tell others...
An interesting aspect to keep in mind is that on the night
before the attack, BM Kaul had invited American Ambassador Galbraith and the
British HC Gore-Booth, for a dinner. He did not cancel it but left Delhi,
raising much suspicion and a mad dash by Galbraith, who sensed something was
afoot, to confront Nehru.
On D-Day, Galbraith tried to put pressure on Nehru, to
accept the US proposal that India do nothing for six months and the U.S.A.
would see what they could do about it. Nehru told him something to the effect
that India might perhaps consider it. Menon adds - When he told me this, I
said, ‘I am very sorry: the troops have moved.’ When Brecher asked Menon if
it was Nehru’s consent or acquiescence, Menon replied in the negative and added
- Nehru wanted something to be done.. Somebody has got to try and draw the
other people’s fire. Nehru was most anxious that it should not be interpreted
in the world that India was going in like conquering heroes.
Many in the Indian press and America mentioned that Nehru
and Menon had decided on the timing to help Menon win the elections in Bombay.
Menon retorted to Brecher - That is a canard put out by the United States
press, probably inspired. Some of the critics said that Krishna Menon did it to
gain votes in Bombay. There is only a handful of Goans in my constituency.
There was nothing new in it because it was Government policy, and people around
here are sensible enough to know that all this was propaganda against the
Government and the country designed by interested parties to shake our firmness
in remaining independent.
While it is admirable that Menon admitted to taking a
unilateral decision in the 1964/65 Brecher interview, was it entirely, correct?
As it turns out he did not know that behind his back, BM Kaul and Nehru had a
meeting on the very subject. Kaul and Palit, both mention it in their memoirs
and point out other aspects.
Palit mentions - Nehru sent for Kaul on the morning of 5
December to tell him that he wanted D-Day to be put forward to 7 or 8 December
in order to forestall any move by the United Nations to prevent the occupation.
Kaul firmly resisted this, saying that the date of invasion could be advanced
by perhaps one or two days, but not by a week; furthermore, he would have to
consult the GOC-in-C Southern Command and the task force commander before he
could agree to an earlier date. Nehru withdrew his request and we heard no more
about it. The CGS (Kaul) summoned me to his office at 5 p.m. and directed me to
bring with me a letter addressed to GOC-in-C Southern Command ready for the
Chief's signature, but with the date of D-Day left blank. Thapar was waiting with
Biji (Kaul) in the latter's office. With uncharacteristic melodrama, he took
the message from me without saying a word and in his own hand inscribed the
date: '18th December'.
On the 15th Nehru sent for Kaul to discuss a possible deferment
of the operation. The cabinet had not been consulted; in this instance, even
Krishna Menon seems to have been short-circuited by the extraordinary procedure
of a PM-CGS consultation on a matter of high diplomatic policy. Kaul told me
after returning from the Prime Minister's office that it had taken him a good
half-hour to convince Nehru that with troops poised for action 'no other course
was open to us now' - unless, of course, Portugal was to undertake to evacuate
Goa within an acceptable time limit.
Kaul writes - I, therefore, suggested that we should
ignore foreign advice in a matter which we had fully considered and in which we
had taken a firm decision. Nehru paced up and down in his room, took a few
puffs at his cigarette, and appeared to be undecided. Whilst his people
expected him to take stern action in this matter, he was worried that many
important countries in the world disapproved of this step. Moreover, he
personally disliked using force to solve any problem. He was in a difficult
position, as heads of Government usually are, on whom rests the weight of heavy
responsibility. After thinking for a while, Nehru reluctantly agreed that we
should go ahead with our present orders. He was perhaps finally swayed to take
this decision because he realized his people expected him to liberate Goa. He
thought that if he failed to act on this occasion, both the people and the
armed forces might lose faith in him.
Aftermath
General Vassallo e Silva who surrendered to avert the
massacre of the men under his command, and who bravely disobeyed his president's
order to burn the palace, went back to Portugal together with many others, via
Pakistan. He was stripped of his rank and expelled from the army. However,
after Portugal's dictatorship fell in a military coup in 1974, he was
reinstated as a General amid tributes to his moral courage in defying Salazar.
He passed away in 1985.
The many letters exchanged between Kennedy and Nehru explain
the mental agony that Nehru was going through. He must have felt (I don’t know
if he heard) terrible when Kennedy remarked to BK Nehru that the Goan affair, after
all the preaching of nonviolence and non-alignment, was akin to a pastor/town
preacher getting caught in a brothel! And JFK’s question - why India did not act
decisively 15 years earlier like any normal country would have done, instead of
preaching nonviolence, must have jarred him.
Nehru explained in his letter to JFK - Any action we took,
even though otherwise justified, was likely to have consequences in other
fields that would be undesirable. It was mainly this consideration which kept
us from taking any action during the last many years because we felt even the
right action should be avoided if it had any such consequences.
It is all water under the bridge, I suppose, but I thought
it a good idea to go over the related events & facts, for those interested in
the background.
References
India and world politics: Krishna Menon's view of the world – Michael Brecher
War in the High Himalayas, The Indian Army in Crisis 1962 – DK Palit
Ambassador’s journal – DK Palit
Correspondence – JF Kennedy & Jawaharlal Nehru
Goa’s Struggle for Freedom – PP Shirodkar
Salazar: A Political Biography - de Meneses, Filipe
And many more…
