Thread by @sheshapatangi1

Luís de Menezes Bragança – The Tilak Of Goa.

Menezes Bragança was the first person to call for an independent Goa and as such, was generally hailed as the "father of Goan unrest".

An outstanding journalist, politician and social activist who, because of the dexterity with

which he wielded the power of his pen to spark off the anti-colonialist movement in Goa, came to be referred to by people in the rest of India as “the Tilak of Goa”.
It suffices for me that Konkani is our mother tongue and that no other will do for us as a mother tongue, however

much we may learn them for culture's sake or for business' sake.
— Quote from his essay, Why Konkani?
Luis de Menezes Braganza (also spelt as Luis de Menezes Bragança) was born as Luis de Menezes in Chandor on 15 January 1878, into a wealthy Chardo family. His mother came from

another distinguished family from the same village – the Braganzas, whose ancestors were an educated and wealthy Hindu family named Desai who got converted to Christianity after the Jesuits came to Goa in the mid-16th century. Later, somewhere in the 19th century, because of

their dedicated services to the government of Portugal, the family was conferred with the name of the last royal house of Portugal, Braganza.

Soon after Luis completed his education at the Lyceum in Panjim, it became evident that he was an excellent writer. It was not

surprising therefore when he decided to make a career as a journalist. He was barely 22 years old when in 1900, together with another reputed Goan writer, Prof. Messias Gomes, he established the first Portuguese language daily in Goa – O Heraldo. The newspaper was transformed

into an English daily, The Herald, in 1987, and is currently one of the leading English papers in Goa.
In 1911, Menezes Braganza started yet another paper O Debate (The Debate) & used his sparkling wit & journalistic skills to jolt the political consciousness of his fellow men.

A few years later, he founded the Portuguese daily Diario de Noite (The Evening News) that brought news of the freedom movement underway in the rest of India to the Goan people, and covered cultural issues as well. He also regularly contributed insightful and hard hitting

articles to the Marathi-Portuguese bilingual periodical Pracasha (The Light), propounding freedom from suppression and upholding the right to freedom of expression. So even as Lokmanya Tilak was urging Indians to fight for freedom through the pages of Kesari and Maratha,

Luis de Menezes Braganza was fighting for the cause of self-determination, secularism, and independence through his fiery writings in Goa. A prominent journalist of his times, Menezes Braganza was one of the few Goan aristocrats to staunchly oppose Portuguese rule in Goa.

He advocated the impartation of primary school education in Konkani, and blamed the Portuguese authorities' preoccupation with denationalisation of the Goan people for its failure to encourage the language.
With his famous 1914 essay “Why Konkani?” Menezes Braganza began a

movement in defence of Konkani and received active support from Goan intellectuals. He campaigned for imparting primary education in Konkani and accused the Portuguese government of not supporting the growth and development of Konkani because of their obsession with the

denationalization of the Goan people.
In 1930, after the declaration of the racist Acto Colonial (Colonial Act) by the Portuguese Government, he made a powerful appeal on the floor of the Legislative Council in Panjim for passing a resolution advocating the right of the Goan

people to self-determination and tabled a motion that emphasized that the people’s right to guide their own destinies was “the birth right of their organic essence”.
However, Luis de Menezes Braganza’s vociferous demand for autonomy for Goa was ruthlessly turned down by

Salazar’s Estado Novo regime and his newspapers were closed down.
But not many know, his writings was 1 of the reasons for downfall of Portuguese across the globe.
Luis published in the newspaper Pracasha, that he edited, a collection of articles analysing and criticizing the

Salazar's dictatorship and Colonial Act and its imperial pretention that the dictatorship’s legislation was turning into a brutal, repressive and segregational reality.
Salazar’s Estado Novo regime and his newspapers were closed down.
But not many know, his writings was one of

the reasons for downfall of Portuguese across the globe.
Luis published in the newspaper Pracasha, that he edited, a collection of articles analysing and criticizing the Salazar's dictatorship and Colonial Act and its imperial pretention that the dictatorship’s legislation was

turning into a brutal, repressive and segregational reality.
Alongside, several chronicles from the Notícias of Mozambique were also published by Menezes Bragança at Pracasha as means to feed opposition to the Lisbon's regime. Signed by Goan and Mozambican writers, these

chronicles testify the beginning of a flow of intercontinental alliances that latter would gain form in African-Asiatic solidarity movements, finding their expression namely at the Bandung conference (1955), 1961 CONCP Conference against the Portuguese Empire in Casablanca.

In the context of first reactions to the dictatorship, Menezes Bragança was honored in Lourenço Marques and his collaboration with the Notícias continued until the ban of the Pracasha (1937).
It is thus the existence of these transversal nets that cross the Indian Ocean's part

of the Empire caused the fall of such empire, by communicating through the press, within the limitations of censorship, an anticolonial cultural and political discourse, that conscientiously demanded the right to self-determination of the peoples.
When this outspoken

nationalist Luís de Menezes Bragança died on 10 July 1938, Portuguese troops were stationed around his grave to prevent any homage by the Goan public and avert the eruption of any nationalist protests in Goa.
#ForgottenHeroes
#VANDEMATARAM