Goan migration to a forgotten region
Published on: January 19, 2013 – 23:54
More in: Panorama
This is a story of de Souzas, Lopeses, D’Souzas, Menezeses, Farias and Reises, among others. In a word, it’s a Goan story set in a distant land, once a part of India and Bombay Presidency, but today a foreign country.
Early on in the book itself, author Mascarenhas gives us a hint that Goan migration to Karachi (“Kurrachee” then) did not happen in a vacuum.
General Sir Charles James Napier, Knight Grand Cross (1782-1853), known for having conquered Sindh (“Scinde”) for the British, had a battalion of Royal Irish Fusiliers, who were mainly Catholic, says Mascarenhas. The port of Karachi grew manifold and Karachi became an all-weather port with the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, and harbour improvements in 1873. In 1878, the North Western Railway line linked Karachi with Punjab and Delhi and “the city grew dramatically” (p. 2).
This is the story of migration into Karachi. The other side of migration out of Goa — would need to be looked at and completed from this end, obviously. It is still not understood.
Even if today largely overlooked and forgotten, we get a hint of the wider canvas of Goan migration into Karachi. St Patrick’s Church was built in 1878 “as more and more Catholics began to come to Karachi”. It was “no small church, for it could accommodate more than 700 worshippers” then too. It was, in turn, connected with the Discalced Carmelites, the Capuchin Fathers, the German Jesuits, and then the Italian, American and Spanish Jesuits.
If Goan Catholics are seen as largely lacking entrepreneurial talent back home, this was not the story there. Gaining good education from institutions like St Patrick’s High School and St Joseph’s Convent, they started small businesses like bakeries, furniture shops, and the leasing of horse-drawn carriages (gharries). Some even were behind prominent firms like Haydn Company, the Union Press and the often-mentioned The Indian Life Assurance Company (ILACO), that was later nationalised.
From a wider point of view, one very interesting story comes out in Appendix I (p. 157) which gives a copy of a document penned by A N Menezes, describing the “origin and history of the Cincinnatus Town” and dates back to 1914! It begins with the narration: “In February 1906, I along with D F Faria and Caciano Villa Reis, had gone to pay a visit to P J D’Mello, at his piggery in Garden Quarter….”
While some of this might appear as trivia at first glance, it is obviously playing the useful role of joining the dots and building a wider picture of Goan migration to a region now largely cut off due to the vagaries of history.
In its 15 brief chapters, the author looks at the start of St Lawrence’s Chaplaincy, its parish, and it’s sometimes troubled times. The founders of Cincinnatus Town “gave priority to the building of a church which they dedicated to St Lawrence”. They built this with their personal resources, and even the Catholic Mission got involved only at a latter stage. The church’s design is a “unique blend of Christian and Muslim architecture”. Other details might interest those who have a closer knowledge of Karachi.
But some chapters of this book focus on wider issues of relevance to anyone interested in the under-researched reality of Goan diaspora history, which clearly shaped the Goa of today. This comes incidentally at a time when the setting up of the Chair in Diaspora Studies at the Goa University has just been announced and is moving ahead.
There are chapters on Catholic Life in Pakistan (p. 75), and also the “Creation of Pakistan itself and its aftermath” (p. 69). Initially, Pakistan’s founder Jinnah told the Constituent Assembly in August 1947 that the “religion or caste or creed” people belonged to would have “nothing to do with the business of the State”.
But the tide turned. Services in the “Government of Pakistan, the Sindh Government, the defence forces and the police no longer attracted Catholics. They began to feel the effects of discrimination almost immediately after Partition.” (p. 81) In a way, they were the community that got caught in the crossfire. The collateral damage of religious intolerance on the subcontinent.
Yet, looking back, the history of Karachi, Sindh and what today is Pakistan, continues to have a long line of Goan names, even if the “migration syndrome” set in among the Catholic Goan community there too.
This book fills a useful gap in understanding various aspects of Goan life in Karachi. It is a simple but neatly-crafted title, and its subtitle makes its wider focus clear (“The Garden Area with the Settlement of the Christian Community”). One minor complaint is that its table of contents lacks page numbers, making navigation across the book a bit tough. It is also bereft of photographs, which could have really added value to this volume.
Priced at Rs 350 (Pakistani rupees, at that) it is nonetheless a worthy buy, but getting copies here, what with the international boundary that we have lived with over the last two generations, is not going to be easy. One anticipates that “Pakistani Goans” who are now back in Goa could, at best, ask relations or friends there to get back a copy during their annual pilgrimage home.
It is perhaps time for a more detailed book that tells the story of this distinct strand of Goan outmigration. And there are the skills that could easily do it — ranging from the Colva-linked Menin Fernandes (who runs the insightful goansofpakistan.org website), to others like engineer and civic and environmental campaigner Roland de Souza, or Deborah Santamaria (active as a community networker, and whom one met at Calangute) or our own Karachi-born recently-retired director of education and historian in Goa Dr Celsa Pinto.