Glory to the Triune God.
 |
| His Grace Alvares Mar Julius (of blessed memory) |
November 16th
is celebrated as National Press Day in India to commemorate the establishment
of the Press Council of India. This day personifies a responsible and free
press in the country even though we live in an age where the fourth pillar of
the democracy is seen with a questioning eye as a major chunk seems to be the
mouthpiece of the ruling establishments rather than being the voice of the
people.
Roughly 150
years back there lived a saintly man who used the medium of press to fearlessly
expose the ills and shortcomings of the authorities- whether it was government,
ecclesiastical and spoke for the rights of the common man. The Orthodox bishop-
His Grace Alvares Mar Julius (of blessed memory), who also donned the garb of a
journalist along with his episcopal duties and whose unorthodox, non-conformist
stance on Roman church and Portuguese rule earned him the ire of the
authorities.
Bishop
Alvares was born and raised in Goa- a state we now associate with beaches and
vacations only. Goa hardly comes to our mind when we are asked about
independence movement against colonial powers. This tiny state of Goa has produced
over 300 journals in a span of 140 years with a focus against colonial
occupation and was home to several notable freedom fighters.
Alvares
Thirumeni’s stint with journalism started somewhere in 1876/77 when he took
over the editorship of ‘A Cruz’, a weekly started by Fr MA de Carvalho, as Fr
Carvalho was struck with pulmonary tuberculosis. [Alvares Thirumeni is also
credited with publishing a booklet on the treatment of Cholera].
Not
the one to mince words Fr Alvares wasn’t afraid to call a spade a spade. For
e.g. writing scathing pieces against the excesses of the Portuguese
rule, he said thus about the arrival of Vasco da Gama and the conquest of Goa by
Albuquerque;
“The banditry
and piracy through which the rich city of Goa—the celebrated empire of the
Orient—was taken, has no justification in the laws of divinity or of humankind.
All manner of oratory and poetry are unable to render holy, just, and right,
what was in fact the work of piracy”.
Speaking
against the brutal plunder and oppression of the Portuguese, Fr Alvares said
that though India was invaded many times, all forces apart from Portuguese were
naturalized. Such statements were considered blasphemous in those times!
Fr Alvares
critiques didn’t go well with the Portuguese ecclesiastical hierarchy and he
had to soon bear the brunt when the new Archbishop Dom Antonio Sebastio
Valente, known for authoritarian mindset, through a pastoral decree banned A
Cruz. Fr Alvares appealed to the Crown and though he got a favorable ruling
from the Goa High Court, A Cruz had lost its readers because of Archbishop’s
orders which forced Fr Alvares to start another weekly- A Verdade wherein he
carried his fight on what he felt was the truth (Verdade means truth).
Fr Alvares
is also credited to bring out the first journal to experiment in English (in
Goa)- ‘The Times of Goa. For a renaissance of the Goan political environment,
he suggested to have a ‘journal in English-which is today almost a universal
language’.
Fr Alvares
was also a vocal opponent of the economic policies of the Portuguese. Citing
the miserable economic situation of the common man, he declared that ‘a
middle class Goan with land had about 650 rupees in hand annually, after paying
all dues and taxes. This was scarcely sufficient to meet the needs of a family
in 1877’ and that the Portuguese economic policies had strengthened
Portuguese as well as British markets. In 1895 he tried to initiate a campaign
to boycott all Portuguese imports.
In Alvares
Thirumeni’s periodical 'O Brado Indiano' one finds the beginning of genuine Indian
protest as indicated in its title. In one of its editorials in 1895, it cried
to drive the beggars (the Portuguese) out from the country and proclaimed independence.
Through his
newspaper Alvares Thirumeni conducted a determined campaign against the corrupt
and negligent officials of the Portuguese administration of Goa. It was only a
matter of time that Alvares Thirumeni’s periodicals and newspapers would become
subject to state surveillance.
In the July
1985 issue of O Brado Indiano, the newspaper carried an article which invited
its readers to identify the corrupt government official with the help of riddles.
The administrator of Ilhas- Manuel Gomes DaCosta, thoroughly offended by the article,
slapped sedition charges on Alvares Thirumeni. In the evening of 19th
August, 6 policemen in disguise stopped Alvares Thirumeni on his way back home,
took advantage of his poor health, forced him into their car and took him to
the police station. He was kept in a filthy, dark cell without ventilation which
was 3 metres long and 1.5 metres wide. After questioning Thirumeni, the judge
soon released him as he noted that the police hadn’t adopted the correct
procedure. Thirumeni was arrested following evening on the charges of apostasy and
to humiliate him, Thirumeni was stripped of his episcopal attire and paraded to
the court in his undergarments.
In the month
of September, the same year, the sepoys of the Portuguese Indian army staged a
mutiny protesting the orders of moving to Mozambique. Gomes da Costa had blamed
prominent Goans like the Viscount of Bardez (the mayor)- Mr. Ignacio Caetano de
Carvalho and Alvares Thirumeni for instigating the sepoys and the general
public to unite and fight for the cause of “India for the Indians.”! Mr.
Carvalho was a Goan employed in the judiciary
and owned and edited a number of newspapers in Goa (all of these were
anti-establishment papers). Mr. Carvalho published a pamphlet in Bombay in defense
of himself and Alvares Thirumeni stating that the rebellion had nothing to do
with newspapers but had been prompted by bad governance and callousness.
The Viscount of Bardez lamented thus when writing
about the unlawful sedition charges against Alvares Thirumeni-
“In all governments that are not absolutely corrupt,
the functionaries are obliged when questioned, to justify themselves through
legal organs and through the press. In Goa, things proceeded directly to the
contrary…The attitude of the administration in India will pull back Indian
society by more than 400 years”. Seems so true in today’s times!
This article just gives glimpses of Alvares Thirumeni’s
stint with journalism in Goa and is not an exhaustive coverage of his works. He
lived in an era with press restrictions and where harassment was a norm when one wrote against the authorities or questioned them. Even when faced with great tribulations there are
fearless men and women who like Alvares Thirumeni bring truth to the public and
fight on their behalf. May our Lord bless them!
May the memory of Alvares Thirumeni be eternal and may
his prayers and intercession be a source of strength and refuge to the ‘truth-informers’
of our country!
In Christ,
Rincy John
****************************************
Some details about Alvares Thirumeni's publications/periodicals/newspapers in Goa are as follows:
1)
Name: O Progresso de Goa
Periodicity:
Weekly
Duration:
Began and ended in 1883
2)
O Brado Indian(The Indian Cry)
Periodicity:
Weekly
Duration: Dec. 15, 1894 to Oct.
12, 1895 (10 months)
3) Name: A
Cruz
Periodicity:
Fortnightly
Duration: July15, 1876 to July18,
1882.
Editors-Fr. Manuel Agostinho de
Carvalho and Fr. Antonio F. X. Alvares
4) Verdade (A)
Periodicity:
Weekly
Periodical
Duration: July 16, 1882 to Dec.
31, 1885.
5) The Times
of Goa
Periodicity:
Weekly
Duration: Sep. 21, 1885 to 1889
References:
- Rochelle Pinto,
BETWEEN EMPIRES: Print and Politics in Goa, Oxford University Press, New Delhi © Oxford University
Press 2007, Pgs 37, 40, 49, 146-9)
- Rochelle Pinto. (2005). A Time to Publish: Pamphlets and Politics in Colonial Goa. Economic and Political Weekly, 40(9), 877-885. Retrieved from www.jstor.org/stable/4416278
- Carmo Azevedo; ‘Public Life in Goa (1867-1887)’; Patriot and Saint- The Life Story of Bishop Mar Julius –I Page 19-23, Panjim 1988
- Rekha Mishra, History Of The Press In Goa, Doctoral Thesis, Goa University, 2004- http://irgu.unigoa.ac.in/drs/handle/unigoa/3905; Accessed on 03 September 2019.
- Uma Página Negra dos Annaes da História Colonial Portugueza, , Nova Goa, 1895, Pg 118- 120 (translation from Portuguese to English were done using google translate).
- Pratima Kamat, Mutiny in the Portuguese Indian Army, Pg 92, Link here.
- Pratima Kamat, H.G. MAR JULIUS ALVARES METROPOLITAN OF CEYLON, GOA AND INDIA: AN APOSTLE OF ‘FAITH, HOPE AND CHARITY’, Link here.
- Henry Scholberg, Journalism in Portuguese India 1821-1961, Link here.
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