A chronicle of conflict

Aradhika Sharma

This is a semi-historical account of the suffering of the Goans at the hands of their conquerors, the Portuguese. The arrival of Portuguese in Goa in the 1500s is a dark chapter in the history of Goa. The marauding armies of foreigners defeated Adil Shah and brought terror to the peaceful shores of agrarian Goa.

Mahabaleshwar Sail’s book depicts colonial atrocities in graphic detail. Written in Konkani and originally titled Yug Sanvar, it has been translated in English by Vidya Pai quite beautifully. The book recounts as to how the annexation of the region by the Portuguese changed its culture and even its religion. Apart from exploiting the natural resources to strengthen their economy, the colonisers took some draconian steps to introduce, nay force, Christianity on the largely Hindu natives. This caused the exodus of the native Goans to other places, leaving their homeland behind but saving their gods in the process.

Although the book deals with life in Adolshi village, we first come across the impending changes in Goan life in the village of Shirvaddo, the home of the Nayak community, where a young man, hounded out of his own village, comes looking for shelter to his cousin. The boy has been thrown out of the village and cast out of his faith, just for eating a roti and fruits offered by some Portuguese person. However, he doesn’t get shelter in Shirvaddo either and the next day his dead body is found floating in the village stream.

While the Hindu rituals and ceremonies rule the lives of the villagers, the Portuguese are on a conversion rampage. We read about episodes where people, by trickery or coercion, are forced to eat beef and per force get converted to Christianity. After eating beef, they are shunned by their own people and if, as Christians, they try to observe any Hindu custom, they are tortured and punished. Suddenly, Europe that seems far and unreal, is frighteningly close by and lives change never to return to ‘normalcy’ again.

Temples are defiled; shrines violated and the rural gods that are supposed to protect the villagers are destroyed by the ‘red demons’. Conversions are done by deceit or force — and those who convert are given greater powers over property and the people in their village. Not that the Goan society itself is a perfect one, Sail exposes it as having many drawbacks. There is overriding blind casteism, discrimination, untouchability and primitive and inhumane practices like Sati are widely practiced. After the advent of the Portuguese, there’s a new untouchable caste in the village, the Hindu who converted to Christianity. This person is shunned even by his closest relatives, not allowed to enter the threshold of his home and left to die when ill or injured and deprived of the last rites because no one will go close to him. Even a small child who has accepted some food from some kind Portuguese woman is to be rejected.

Sail, a retired Army officer, recreates the spirit of the time and place and reconstructs history with episodes that happen in the lives of individuals. However, many episodes are repetitive and one loses track of the characters.

One person, though, stands out — the wandering priest, Simao Peres. He alone seems to be the lone voice of reason in the age of frenzy, who speaks about the love of God and brotherhood of man. He feels that only those who are willing should convert rather than being forced to. He feels the pain of his fellow mortals, even if they are the fearful, suspicious villagers who often shun him. The Portuguese also are suspicious of him because he does not subscribe to their roughshod ways of forced conversion. Ultimately, the priest must face the dreadful inquisition which rules that “He would be confined to his cell in the inquisition prison till the Day of Judgment when he would be burnt at the stake”.

The book is an account of conflict — of differing faiths, gods and belief systems. The author keeps his own morality out of the narration, but puts across in detail, the turmoil and the suffering which the struggle of religions can bring.