Tristão de Bragança Cunha's Birth Anniversary

 

Tristão de Bragança Cunha, alternatively spelled as Tristao de Braganza Cunha, born on 2 April 1891, in Chandor village, Goa, was a prominent Indian nationalist and anti-colonial activist from Goa (then part of Portuguese India). He is popularly known as the ‘Father of Goan nationalism’ and was the organizer of the first independence movement to liberate Goa from Portuguese rule.

He completed his school education in Panaji and then went to Pondicherry to the French College for pursuing B.A. and thereafter he went to Paris. There he studied at Sorbonne University and obtained a degree in electrical engineering. In Paris, Cunha entered the circle of Romain Rolland and helped publicize the Indian independence Movement generally, and the case of Portuguese India in particular, in the French-language press. Cunha returned to Goa in the year 1926 and set up the Comissão do Congresso de Goa (Goa Congress Committee) in 1928 to organize the Goan intelligentsia against Portuguese colonial rule. Pressured by Portuguese authorities, Cunha transferred operations to Bombay and in 1938, affiliated his organization with the Indian National Congress. He continued publicizing the Goan case in a stream of articles and books, denouncing Portuguese rule. Among his publications were booklets such as ‘Four Hundred Years of Foreign Rule’ and ‘The Denationalization of Goans’ (1944). Cunha was an advocate of Goan identification, political as well as cultural, with greater India. In 1946, Cunha helped organize the famous assembly in Margão, inviting Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia to address what was arguably the first and largest mass gathering, setting the Goa Liberation Movement in motion. Along with other organizers, Cunha was arrested by Portuguese authorities in 1946. He was kept in a dark damp cell at Fort Aguada. He was the first civilian to be tried by a military tribunal. He was court-martialed and sentenced to eight years imprisonment. He was deported to Peniche prison in Portugal.  After his release from Portugal in 1954, Cunha returned to Bombay. Cunha formed and headed the Goa Action Committee, to help coordinate the numerous Goan liberation organizations that had emerged by this time. He published a newspaper called ‘Free Goa’. Tristao de Braganza Cunha died on 28 September 1958; Loknayak Jaiprakash Narayan was one of the pallbearers. The Government of India issued a postage stamp in his honour. At the time of his death, in a condolence resolution, the Indian National Congress described him as ‘The Father of Goa Liberation Movement’. On that Occasion Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru said, “what is worth remembering is that a small territory has produced a relatively large number of men and women who have sacrificed much for the struggle. Among them, the name that stands out is that of Dr. T. B. Cunha”.