How the French and Portuguese territories merged with India

Express Research

EXPRESS RESEARCH

Dear reader,   Earlier this month, amidst the campaign for the state legislative elections in Goa, prime minister Narendra Modi took a dig at the first prime minister of India Jawaharlal Nehru, claiming that the latter failed to liberate Goa soon after Independence. Modi’s words were a reminder to the 15-year period after Independence of India when Goa remained under Portuguese rule. Much like the Portuguese, the French too had not left their colonies in India for a significant period after 1947.    Our story this week journeys back to the first decade after the Independence of India and the many negotiations between the Indian government and the French and Portuguese territories in India. Interestingly, the French and the Portuguese had remarkably contrasting ways of departing from the Indian subcontinent, which was rooted in the divergent nature of governments existing in the two countries at the time and their respective ways of perceiving a postcolonial world. France was already thinking of a federal union of its territories, while Goa had become a part of NATO and presented a more complicated problem.   Read the story:  How the French and Portuguese territories had contrasting paths to merger with India   Sincerely,   Adrija Roychowdhury

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