alexandre afonso Profile picture
Jan 15, 2022 17 tweets 8 min read Read on X
A thread about how, sixty year ago, Portugal lost a 36-hour war against India.
In 1497, Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama discovers a maritime route to India via the Cape of Good Hope, providing an alternative to the trade routes to Asia by land controlled by the Ottoman Empire and Italian cities.
The Portuguese establish a number of trade posts in India through a combination of military battles and arrangements with local political leaders
In 1509, the Portuguese win the Battle of Diu against an unlikely alliance: the Sultan of Gujarat, the Mamlûk Sultanate of Egypt, the Zamorin of Calicut, the Republic of Venice and the Ottoman Empire (all eager to keep control of the spice trade via the Mediterranean route)
Goa, Daman and Diu on the Western coast of the subcontinent become part of the Portuguese Asian Empire, along with Macau (now China's Las Vegas) and East Timor (a sovereign state since 2002, after a 25-year occupation by Indonesia)
In 1930, a colonial act curtailing civil liberties in Goa is passed under Antonio Salazar, then minister of colonies
In 1947, India becomes an independent state. Portugal retains control of Goa. India becomes a democracy, Portugal stays an authoritarian regime. Building on local resentment against Portuguese rule, an independence movement gains steam.
Tensions between India and Portugal build up during the 1950s. The enclaves of Dadra and Nagar Haveli become Indian in 1954. India imposes an economic blockade. Nehru says that Goa should rejoin India either with full peace or with full force. journals.library.ualberta.ca/pi/index.php/p…
In December 1961, Indian troops retake Goa. It is a crushing defeat. 3500 Portuguese troops face 45'000 Indian infantry, Vampire fighters, frigates, etc.
The United States regret the use of force, India justifies its action by the obstination of Portugal to refuse any negotiated solution letempsarchives.ch/page/JDG_1961_…
Even if Salazar (who had never set foot in Goa) had ordered the Portuguese to fight to the last man, local authorities surrendered and troops were taken prisoners and sent back. Goa becomes becomes part of India
In Parliament, Salazar presents the annexation of Goa as "one of the biggest disasters of our history". It marks the beginning of the end for Portugal's colonial empire. Tensions are brewing in Angola, Mazambique, Guiné Bissau, starting 13 years of war. debates.parlamento.pt/catalogo/r2/da…
As retaliation after independence, Portugal funds undercover sabotage operations against India in Goa (plan Gralha and plan Namaste), bombing a school in 1964. It fails to stimulate trouble. timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/goa/recor…
Implicated in the operation: the infamous PIDE agent Casimiro Monteiro, who tortured people under Portuguese rule in Goa and is said to have been involved in the assassination of Humberto Delgado and Eduardo Mondlane (leader of the Mozambican independence movement
After the annexation by India, Portugal offered citizenship to Goans born before 1961. Decades later, this allowed many people born in India to gain access to an EU passport and move to Britain (20'000 in Swindon) hindustantimes.com/world/goans-go…
Many British citizens of Indian origin have Portuguese last names due to the Goan-Portuguese connection, such as the disgraced Labour MP Keith Vaz en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Vaz
1961 is also the year when the current Portuguese prime minister Antonio Costa was born. He is of Goan origin: his father was born in Mozambique in a family of Goan extraction, who spent his childhood in Goa

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More from @alexandreafonso

Sep 20, 2022
I am writing a book on immigration policy and the welfare state for @OUPPolitics. Here's a thread on how my own existence is due to immigration policy and the welfare state.
Up to the 1960s, Switzerland had satisfied a great deal of its labour needs with immigrant workers from Italy, so that it had become quite dependent on Italian workers. In 1960, 20% of the whole workforce were migrant workers, and two thirds of these were Italian.
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A couple of scatterplots on social class and yesterday's vote in France.
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And this is the relationship between the Macron vote and the percentage of "cadres" (managers & intellectual professions).
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Based on the projection and earlier polls asking about vote transfers, this is how voter flows in the second round of the French presidential election could look like. If this holds Macron should still win with 54%.
Source projection: ipsos.com/fr-fr/presiden…
Source expected vote transfers: ipsos.com/sites/default/…
This ignores the small candidates for whom I don't have declared preferences in the second round. It also ignores the "endorsements" for the runoff being made just now. Mélenchon just called not to give a single vote to Le Pen, even if he didn't name Macron explicitly.
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Mar 28, 2022
How Putinophile are voters of radical-right parties in Western Europe? A thread alexandreafonso.substack.com/p/1-radical-ri…
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But what about their voters? The Pew Research Center periodically asks respondents in 16 countries about their views on a number of global issues, and notably their trust in global leaders, including Putin. The last available wave is from 2021. pewresearch.org/global/2021/09…
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Mar 27, 2022
I guess it had to happen: I started a substack where I'm going to post some short pieces. You can subscribe here: alexandreafonso.substack.com
The first post is about radical right voters in Western Europe and Vladimir Putin. We know that Le Pen, Salvini and the AfD are very pro-Putin. Was it the case of their voters? alexandreafonso.substack.com/p/1-radical-ri…
I use data from the Pew Global Attitudes Survey collected in 9 countries in 2021 (n=9k). The short answer is that radical right voters were on average 3x more likely than other voters to have confidence in Vladimir Putin to "do the right thing in world affairs".
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