The much-maligned Portuguese Goan

The Brexit issue has suddenly turned the spotlight on the Portuguese passport holding Goan, and most discussions have shown them in a bad light. But it is not so

Selma Carvalho | MARCH 26, 2016, 12:00 AM IST

Photo Credits: EDIT main

For the past three weeks, there’s been a spate of writings about the Portuguese Goan and his fate if Britain should decide to leave the European Union. Much of these writings seek to cast the Portuguese Goan in poor light as if he was finally to get his just desserts for having the audacity to claim a European passport.

There was a local newspaper-cum-TV channel debate whose panel displayed not only a marked ignorance about Europe but also an uncomfortable absence of anyone holding Portuguese citizenship. The fact that these discussions take place in a vacuum where the very section of society most affected remains unrepresented shows the disdain with which we hold this section of society.

Firstly, let’s get some misconceptions out of the way. Because of the poorly worded but much-touted Oxford Migration Observatory report, major publications have interpreted it to mean Goans are arriving in the UK at a rate of 20,000 per yearly quarter or in other words, 80,000 per year. This is impossible, given that Goa has a total population of 18 lakhs according to the last census. If this had been the out-flow of migration from Goa, since the Maastricht Treaty of 1992 allowed for EU citizenship, then Goa would be practically emptied of people. The correct interpretation of the figures put out by the Oxford report is that up to the first quarter of 2015, some 20,000 Goans residing in Britain are accounted for as Portuguese citizens.

This figure is miniscule when compared to the vast number of Goans who work in the Gulf region or on board ships. Goans avail of a Portuguese passport in exactly the same fashion as they would avail of a Gulf visa or a Seaman’s CDC. It is simply a vehicle to finding gainful employment. So let us not conflate matters of economics with matters of patriotism. Like any progressive nation, India should allow for dual citizenship to more competently accommodate the needs of the 21st century. Instead, we wallow in shallow discussions about people’s conflicted loyalties in the event of dual citizenship.

When we’re not discussing the patriotism of Portuguese Goans, we feel emboldened to parody the austerity and struggles of their lives in Europe. We as Goans have short memories. Goans left in their thousands as soon as the Western India Portuguese Railway was completed in 1878. Most settled in Bombay, then part of British India working on board British India ships or the railways, but others travelled further to the port towns of Karachi and Calcutta. By the mid-19th century, the cooks, the stewards, the dhobis, the bakers, the butchers, the carpenters, the shoe-makers and most renowned, the tailors – made their way to the port towns of Zanzibar and Mombasa and then to the interior of East Africa. Decades later, the ‘houseboys’ of Kuwait and Bahrain began remitting huge savings making Goa’s per capita income the highest in India. Goa has been built on the backs of Goan Catholic labour working abroad. Those who don’t know their history are doomed to devalue it. The sons and daughters of these people are today doctors, teachers, lawyers and bank managers. We all start from somewhere.

It is this same section of society which now seeks its fortunes in England. Why shouldn’t they? They are subjected to painful class and caste prejudice in Goa. What social mobility does Goa offer them? The ruined school system, by insisting on making vernacular languages the medium of instruction, has so far ensured that they remain ever more deprived and disenfranchised. The standard of education, particularly in rural areas, is so poor even high-school students are barely literate.

The government should take note that the most cited reason for leaving Goa is the education of their children. People are willing to suffer the worst deprivations life throws at them, if there is even a remote chance that the next generation will have a better life than them. Goa cannot offer them social mobility. England can. Their children study in the best schools completely free of cost. All of them compulsorily finish high-school. Some are proceeding to university.

Even if by sheer dint of hard work, their children graduate in Goa, what sort of jobs does the economy offer them? Most are forced to take up employment in the hospitality sector. With the influx of migratory workers in Goa, wage compression at the bottom is severe. Goans find it almost impossible to compete with the wages out-of-state workers are willing to work for. They are not protected by minimum wage or even by trade unions; the hospitality industry does its best to stripe wages to the bare minimum.

The Portuguese Goan is not Goa’s enemy. He is that hardworking, God-fearing, law-abiding individual who has for the past two centuries, buffered Goa’s economy by pumping money into it. Let us not cast aspersions on his loyalty. Wherever he is in the world, one thing is never in doubt; his deep love for Goa.

Selma Carvalho is the author of A Railway Runs Through: Goans of British East Africa, 1865 - 1980. Between 2011 - 2014, she headed the Oral Histories of British Goans project in London

Share this