The Illustrious Bragança Cunha’s of Cuelim, Goa At the very edge of the village of Cuelim, near the foot of the hill of the Chapel of the Three Kings, and overlooking the fields to the east, stands the ancestral Bragança Cunha’s family mansion with an imposing gate in front. In this now mostly uninhabited and unrecognized house (shown below), once lived intellectuals - doctors, priests, patriots and world travelers. Among these men were the famous brothers: Professors Francisco and Antonio Vicente; engineer turned patriot, Tristão de Bragança Cunha, and Placido, a Lecturer in Portuguese at the University of Calcutta, four illustrious sons of Dr. Logorio da Cunha, a prominent medical practitioner and editor of the journal Nacionalista, and his wife Filomena de Bragança from Chandor. The most famous of these is Tristão, recognized today as the Father of Goan Nationalism. Except for Vicente, who married Alice de Sousa from Siolim, none of the others were married.

Tristão Bragança Cunha’s house in Cuelim, Mormugão taluka, Goa

Entrance gate to the house

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The section with a balcony at one end of the house was added by Tristão, from this vantage point of the scenery in front, he conducted his intellectual pursuits. At the other end is the family chapel for the use of the noted orator, Fr. Isidoro, the brother of Dr. Ligorio Cunha. Antonio Vicente Valente de Bragança Cunha was born in Cuelim. After his early education in Goa, he left for London in 1905 and graduated in Portuguese literature and, later taught at the University. As a prolific writer, he contributed several articles to journals, like Review of Reviews, the New Age, The Times of India, Modern Review and O Anglo Lusitano. In 1915 he was invited by the University of Bombay to organize a conference on Portuguese literature. On returning to Goa he edited the periodical A India Portuguesa. From 1919 to 1922 he served as the first President of the newly-formed Municipality of Mormugão, and later as the Administrator. In 1934 he left for Paris but during the World War he went to Portugal, a neutral country. He died in Lisbon on 2.10.1943. Some of his publications are: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Eight Centuries of Portuguese Monarchy: A Political Study, Stephen Swift, London, 1911. Portuguese Colonies in India. Their Fate, A.C. Sarkar at B.M. Press, Calcutta, 1911. Also in Modern Review, October 1916. Literatura India Portuguesa:figures e factos, Bombay, 1926. (Copy in the Library of Congress.) Revolutionary Portugal: 1910-1936, James Clarke & Co., London, 1937. (also in the Library of Congress.) The “Carta Constitucional”: Its Centenary 1826-1926, in The Indo-Portuguese Review, Vol. VIII, 1925-26. The New Spirit in Portuguese India, in The Indo-Portuguese Review, Vol. XI, 1928-29.

Francisco de Bragança Cunha was born in Cuelim on 11.1.1887. After studying in India, London and Paris, he taught literature at the Universities of Sorborne and Moscow (1925-1931). Fluent in many European languages, in 1953 he accompanied Rabindranath Tagore during his tour of the European capitals. As an Indologist he also lectured at the University of Santiniketan, founded by Tagore. He died in Paris is 1954. One of his publications is: L’Inde et l’avenir de l’Europe, Denoel, Paris, 1942. (A copy is in the Library of Congress, Washington.)

Tristão de Bragança Cunha, the third son of Ligorio, was born at his maternal grandparent’s place in Chandor on 2.4.1891. After he completed his Lycem in Pangim and B.A. from the French College in Pondicherry, he left for Paris where he studied electrical

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engineering at the University of Sorborne. Initially, he worked as an engineer in France, but was soon influenced by the ideologies of Lenin and Mahatma Gandhi and began writing and reporting on the Indian struggle for freedom. Sardar K.M. Panikar, the first Indian Ambassador to China, described him as a nationalist and India’s first unofficial ambassador to France, because through his writings he generated awareness among the Europeans of India’s struggle for freedom. After living abroad for 14 years he returned to Goa in 1926 and continued the cause for freedom by arousing the consciousness of the people towards the struggle against Portuguese imperialism. In 1928, he founded the Goa Congress Committee, affiliated to the Indian National Congress, for the liberation of Goa, Damão and Diu. The Goa Congress Committee received messages of solidarity from Jawaharlal Nehru, Dr. Rajendra Prassad (later to become the first President of India and Subhas Chandra Bhose among others. Through his publications like, Four Hundred Years of Foreign Rule and Denationalization of Goans, he succeeded in promoting the cause among the other intellectuals. The political objective was later promoted by publishing the fortnightlies, Azad Goem and Free Goa, from Belgaum. In August 1940, when the record-breaking torrential rains inundated the coastal areas of South Goa, Tristão took the initiative of organizing a committee – comprised of Jose Maria Furtado from Chinchinim (President), Francisco Maria de Souza from Velção (Treasurer), Dr.Antonio Ozorio Saldanha from Arossim and Vinaik S. Coissoro, as members and himself as the Secretary, for a relief campaign to help the victims of the many mud houses that had collapsed. Through a leaflet entitled; The Great Destruction of the Mud Houses, the Committee appealed to the government and other organizations for immediate help. He tried to arouse the social consciousness of the public by pleading that: “Contrary to charity, social solidarity is not based on kindness, but on social justice, on the intelligent understanding of the mutual dependence of the interests of the diverse elements of the collectivity. It is not inspired by a sentiment of compassion, but by a high sense of common responsibility…” The money collected was distributed to the victims all along the coast from Velção to Cavelossim. The struggle for the liberation og Goa reached its climax during a civil resistance movement (satyagraha) in June 1946, when Tristão, accompanied by the Indian Socialist leader Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia and others entered Goa in defiance of Portuguese government orders and the leaders. Many were brutally treated and on June 18th Dr. Lohia was hit on the head with the butt of a rifle on the Municipal grounds. On July 12, following another meeting, Tristão was arrested at the Margão Railway station, jailed in Fort Aguada - the first civilian to be tried by a military tribunal and sentenced to eight years of imprisonment. On July 28th he was secretly on board of the Portuguese ship s.s. Lourenço Marques and imprisoned in the Fort Peniche, Portugal. Four and half years later he was released on parole and was restricted to the city of Lisbon. He soon obtained a passport and a visa through his sympathizers and opponents of Salazar regime. With his full name of Antonio Sebastião dos Remedios Tomé Tristão de Bragança Cunha on his passport, he passed unrecognized at the border crossings and escaped to Paris and stayed with his brother Francis. On September 4th 1953 he returned to Bombay, gave up wearing the tie

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and coat, and continued with his fight for the freedom movement through the Goa Action Committee, public speeches and the editorship of the fortnightly publication, Free Goa. He died in Bombay on 28-9-1958 – three years before Goa was integrated within the Republic of India. In a condolence resolution, the Goa National Congress described him as the founder of the Goan Liberation Movement. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru wrote, “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 that stand out is Dr. T. Bragança Cunha.” In 1959, the World Peace Council at Stockholm posthumously awarded him a gold medal for his contributions to the cause of “Peace and Friendship among his people.” The mortal remains of Dr. Tristão de Bragança Cunha, the “valiant hero of Goan fight for freedom,” are now enshrined in the pavilion (shown at left) at the center of the Azad Maidan in Pangim, replacing the statue of Afonso de Albuquerque, the conqueror and the first Governor of Goa. In 1998, India issued a 3-rupee postage stamp in his honor. A bronze bust of him is prominently placed at the Cansaulim market and the newly-built T.B. Cunha Sports Complex in Cansaulim, was inaugurated by the Chief Minister, Pratabsingh Rane, in March 2006. References and Notes: 1. Aleixo Manuel da Costa, Dicionario de Literatura Goesa, Vol.1, Instituto Cultural de Macau – 2. 3. 4. 5.

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Fundação Oriente, 1997, pp. 122-124. P.P. Shirodkar, Trial of T.B. Cunha, Goa Gazetteer Department, Government of Goa, Panaji, Vol 1, 1991. Goa’s Freedom Struggle (Selected writings of T.B.Cunha), Dr. T.B. Cunha Memorial Committee, Bombay, 1961. http://www. goacom.com/culture/biographies/tristao.html In June 1946, this writer was a student at Loyola High School. From the vantage point of higher grounds in front of the Capela de Batalhão (since rebuilt and converted to a Church), and standing behind the machine-gunner, along with several other students he witnessed the confrontation on the grounds in front of Margão Municipality. The author is grateful to Anne de Bragança Cunha, daughter-in-law of Vicente, for information about the family and permission to photograph the interior of the house.

By Themistocles D’Silva

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