Table of Contents

Introduction Goa Inquisition Onset of Bloodiest Conversion ... Goa Inquisition Bloodiest conversions by Christians ... Goa Inquisition Resistance by Hindus Part-III 3 4 7 13

Introduction
This ebook is an compilation of blog posts published back in August 2011 at my blob KrishiDesh. The book is loosely arranged in 3 chapters as per the blog posts. The chapter heading is linked to the actual blog post. Request: If you come across any thing non-relevant with the facts (provided that you have proof), mistakes please inform me at @SandeepShelke or @KrishiDesh on twitter. Disclaimer: I've mentioned the references wherever possible. If by mistake missed any please let me know. I would be happy to include. I used the contents available on internet. I've no intention of copying any proprietary content and if you find I'm violating any of your terms please drop me a tweet or leave a message on the post.

Regards, Sandeep Shelke.

Goa Inquisition Onset of Bloodiest Conversion by Christians Part-I

It was the time when Vasco Da Gama, a Portuguese wanderer searching foe new trade routes, discovered a sea route to Bharat in 1498. He reached the shores of Goa for the purpose of trade[?]. Portuguese traders took about 4 decades to convince local populace that their intent is trading and not proselytizing. Whereas their masters in Portugal, the Catholic Church, were anxious and forcing them to start proselytize(forcible conversion)[Ref]. [Read how Spanish could force Portuguese]
The conversion of Jews to Christianity was a marriage decree signed between Portugal King and Spain Princess Many of these New Christians publicly followed Catholic rituals but maintained some Jewish religious and cultural practices in the privacy of their own homes. These Conversos or crypto-Jews were also known as Marranos, a pejorative term meaning pigs; the Court of the Holy Office often accused them of apostasy.

Catholic Church in Portugal threatened the traders that they will open the routes to Asia for all catholics. And under the fear of losing trade benefits those Portuguese trader here in Goa started proselytizing. So the Catholic Church formed Archdiocese of Goa, an administrative body to administer Goan Island under archbishop, in 1534[Ref]. The Catholic bishops were giving rice to the poor, good jobs in colonies and military support to local rulers in lieu of conversion. In 1542 Francis Xavier, co-founder of Society of Jesus, landed in Goa to look after proselytizing activities. Francis Xaviers Letter of 1543[Ref]
These children[converts], I trust heartily, by the grace of God, will be much better than their fathers. They show an ardent love for the Divine law, and an extraordinary zeal for learning our holy religion and imparting it to others[idolaters]. Their hatred for idolatry is marvellous. They get into feuds with the heathen about it, and whenever their own parents practise it, they
4

reproach them and come off to tell me at once. Whenever I hear of any act of idolatrous worship, I go to the place with a large band of these children, who very soon load the devil[idolator] with a greater amount of insult and abuse than he has lately received of honor and worship from their parents, relations, and acquaintances. The children run at the idols, upset them, dash them down, break them to pieces, spit on them, trample on them, kick them about, and in short heap on them every possible outrage

In 1545 Xavier sent request letter to Portugal King about the converts not following Christianity but are following old rituals at home and thought that they are the threat to purity of his belief, Christianity. So he requested for Goa Inquisition.

Inquisition Chamber
The inquisition simply mean the rigorous investigation. But here by Inquisition Xavier was requesting for Spanish Inquisition which accepted by Portugal in a marriage decree. His intent was to exterminate native faith believers in Goa i.e. Hindus using Goa Inquisition. [And Hindus today go to see his unburied remains at Basilica of Bom Jesus in Gao from all over the Bharat, and not just that they even attend the prayer. SHAME and DISGRACE. If Hitler's name gets banned in Germany by his own for brutality on Jews how come we go and worship a venom spewing missionary who ushered havoc in barbarian ways on us?] Some[?] argue that the inquisition was not installed in Xaviers life but they easily forget that the Co-Founder of Society of Jesus had requested Goa Inquisition. And the same Society of Jesus is involved in Evangelization and apostolic ministry worldwide since formation. In his letter he says The second necessity for the Christians is that Your Majesty establish the Holy Inquisition in Goa because there are many who live according to the Jewish Law and according to the Mohammedan Sect, without any fear of God or shame of the World. And since there are many Hindus who are spread all over the fortresses, there is the need of the Holy Inquisition, and of many preachers. Your Majesty should provide such necessary things for your loyal and faithful subjects in the Indies.

P.S. All occurrences of India are replaced with Bharat.

5

Goa Inquisition Bloodiest conversions by Christians Part-II

Inquisition was the court:[Ref: pg80 of Crimes against India]

Established by catholic government for search of and punishing the heretics. This justification for cruelty, mercilessness and corruption was called Holy Office. The judge appointed was not accountable to anyone except Lisbon and was free to fix the punishment as he deemed fit. The inquisition had been established in Spain in 1481, Portugal in 1541 and Goa in 1560. Not only Hindus but Syrian Christians too were targeted in this inquisition.

Francis Xavier could not live to see the fruits of his request to King for Goa Inquisition. The inquisitors came and started installing their barbaric law to dissuade Hindus from their faith.[Ref] Man to be burned The first act was to forbid any open practice of Hindu faith like marriage, worship. Orphan Hindu children were taken up by state for the upbringing under catholic practices. Hindus were obliged to attend periodic preaching in the church. In order to increase the converts count the bishop used force to feed beef to the Hindus which would leave the person with the only option to
7

convert into Christianity. Hindus were deprived off employment with Portuguese. Fasting was prohibited, Bathing before cooking forcibly stopped, Wearing Dhoti by men and Choli by women was not possible. Christians were not allowed to work under or to employ Hindus in any circumstances. Christians first converted Hindus and then banned the converts from working under Hindu farm owners in order to isolate the local Hindus socially and economically. But those who succumbed to pressure and accepted Christianity awarded with 15 years of tax exemption, good official jobs. The orders to torture, frighten and reduce Hindu populace were introduced at regular intervals by Royal Decree. First in 02 April 1560 then in 27 November 1563 followed by regular enactments in 03 April 1582, 13 March 1612 and 31 January 1620. These all barbaric inhumane proselytizing activities were supported by Lisbon as long as they were able to expand Portugal kingdom. In 1566 under the plan to torture Hindus Viceroy Antano de Noronha issued an order applicable to the entire area under Portuguese rule.[Ref]
I hereby order that in any area owned by my master, the king, nobody should construct a Hindu temple and such temples already constructed should not be repaired without my permission. If this order is transgressed, such temples shall be, destroyed and the goods in them shall be used to meet expenses of holy deeds, as punishment of such transgression. [So much in the name of secularism, equality, tolerance?]

Missionaries did not stop at forcible conversions but led to iconoclasm. Prior to them barbaric Muslim invaders destroyed so many temples and built mosques out of it. Then these Christian missionaries carried forward the legacy with more vigor and hate.
In 1567 the campaign of destroying temples in Bardez met with success, at the end of it 300 Hindu temples were destroyed. In 1583 Hindu temples at Esolna and Kankolim were destroyed through army action.

Auto da fe
8

In June 1684 they issued an order to eliminate Konkani language from Goa. This resulted in the total cleansing of natives. Natives lost their faith, land, symbols and now language. Those who spoke Konkani, even in private, were dealt with toughly.

Archbishop said
The post of Inquiry Commission in Goa is regarded as Holy. So no one except Lisbon which is a Catholic rule can question the commissions decision at any point.

Big House used from 1560 by Inquiry Commission:

It is a palace where inquisition was conducted behind closed doors. It had 200 cells for prisoners and tools of torture to inflict pain on the idolaters and force them to accept true religion of love, Christianity. Those who would die in jail were buried and later exhumed and carried along with the prisoners condemned to death to burn in auto da fe, a ritual fire to burn all sacrilegious things/objects.

Glimpse of torture by Inquisition: An instance of torture using Vigil Eyelids were sliced off and extremities were amputated carefully, a person could remain conscious even though the only thing that remained was his torso and head. Daughters raped and sons killed in front of their parents and parents couldnt even close eyes since eyelids were sliced. Huts were burnt of those converts who would resort back to worshiping ways of their fathers. Arms tied behind and strung up by wrist to keep hanging for hours to suddenly drop near floor only to pull back quickly to dislocate joints. Water torture, where prisoner was laid across iron bar and made to ingest water non-stop. This would create pressure on stomach and
9

sometimes they would beat stomach with stick till it would burst. Torture by fire: Hung over fire to be roasted alive with animal fat coated on feet to ignite and burn feet. Metallic glove to roast the hand over fire. Some tools to break legs and shins. Disemboweling a person of the rack. Sharp knives to cut off ears of ones head. An instrument to tear the womens breast from her body. Women were put into jail for resisting their bestial instincts and burnt alive as heretics after raping them in jail. Idols of respect were kicked and broken in order to insult Hindus.

Sasetti, who was in Bharat from 1578 to 1588, wrote [Ref]

The fathers of the Church forbade the Hindus under terrible penalties the use of their own sacred books, and prevented them from all exercise of their religion. They destroyed their temples, and so harassed and interfered with the people that they abandoned the city in large numbers, refusing to remain any longer in a place where they had no liberty, and were liable to imprisonment, torture and death if they worshiped after their own fashion the gods of their fathers.

In 1684 Qualificadors were appointed by Portuguese Catholic rulers of Goa to examine all the literature in Marathi, Konkani and Sanskrit.
Qualificadors had submitted the report against Galileo for presenting the theory of Stationary Sun. For which Galileo faced heretical charges from Church in 1616.

This was to make sure that nothing is written against Catholic faith. A list
10

of prohibited books was maintained and scores of such books were burnt as and when found while punishing the possessor. Catholics were at par with the barbarian attacks by Muslim invaders. Muslim invader burnt Nalanda University Library for not having any copy of Quran whereas Catholics here burnt literature with fear of anti catholic writing. Alexandre Herculano wrote in book Fragment About the Inquisition:
The terrors inflicted on pregnant women made them abort There were days when 7-8 were submitted torture.

A French traveler Gabrial Dellon mentions in his book LInquisition de Goa published in 1687[Ref];
He was an eye witness to the atrocities, cruelty and reign of terror unleashed by priests. While he was in jail he had heard the cries of tortured people beaten with instruments having sharp teeth.

After British stationed their troops in Goa the brutalities came to a halt finally with British pressure. The Big house was demolished to remove all traces of barbarian tortures by catholics on non-catholics and secret Hindus. And the person Francis Xavier is still worshiped for what, his gift of Inquisition? There is no official account of victims of the brutality by Portuguese Christians since all the records destroyed after closing the Goa Inquisition in 16 June 1812. But imagine the lives taken by brutal torture in the name Jesus for 262 years without any murmur of regression from Portuguese rulers and Christians. The number could be in hundreds of thousands since 262 years definitely means big population.

In June 1897 Archbishop of Evora said in Cathedral:

The inquisition was infamous tribunal at all places. But the infamy never reached greater depths, nor was more vile, more black and more completely
11

determined by mundane interests than at the tribunal of Goa, by irony called the Holy Office. Here inquisitors went to the length of imprisoning in its jails women who resisted t heir advances, and after ha ving satisfied their bestial instincts there, ordering that they be burnt as heretics.

Dr. Trasta Breganka Kunha, a Catholic citizen of Goa writes[Ref]

Inspite of all the mutilations and concealment of history, it remains an undoubted fact that religious conversion of Goans is due to methods of force adopted by the Portuguese to establish their rule. As a result of this violence the character of our people was destroyed. The propagation of Christian sect in Goa came about not by religious preaching but through the methods of violence and pressure . If any evidence is needed for this fact, we can obtain it through law books, orders and reports of the local rulers of that time and also from the most dependable documents of the Christian sect

Even today Vatican has not rendered apology like it did to Galileo for the agony inflicted on him.[Ref] This inquisition to me is The bloodiest state sponsored terrorism in the name of Christianity. The question is why our books dont teach us bitter truth? Why are we deprived off the true history and instead fed with disillusions of colonial British? The nation which welcomed all with open arms today too remains in the despair for the mistakes of few greedy fools, when are we going to learn to self respectful. There is this teaching in Vedas, which we have forgotten unfortunately:

(Dharma protects those who protect it) For the nation which forgets history, HISTORY repeats itself for them. PERIOD. If you dont trust this just look at the Kashmir issue 1990, Deganga riots 2010, Baraily riots 2010. Zimlers book Guardian of the Dawn talks in details about Goa Inquisition. His interview Goa Inquisition was most merciless and cruel. P.S. All occurrences of India are replaced with Bharat except book names.
12

Goa Inquisition Resistance by Hindus Part-III

Portuguese Catholic Christians in Goa were blinded by their love for Christianity and were committing heinous crimes one after another soon after conquering Goa in 1510. As mentioned in first 2 parts of this series Christians tortured Hindus, burnt their houses, killed near ones, raped women, destroyed temples, broke idols. Upon installing the Inquisition in Goa in 1560 the Jesuits under Viceroy Dom Constantino started their conversion work bravely in Sashti(Salcete) in order to create small Christendom. But villagers of Sasthi region did not pay heed and attacked the Jesuits and their assistants throughout the region.[Ref] They attacked their horses too. Christians called this as indecent reception of fathers and decided to avenge. So under the encouragement of Viceroy Don Antano De Noronha, in 1567, they started destroying temples in Sashti and elesewhere too. This led to destruction of 300 temples. Which included the most socia-economic-spiritual place of Cancolim too. But devout Hindus rebuilt the burnt temple(the temple was burnt in the fire dedicate in the name of Jesus as per Gomes Vaz) upon returning back. In this period Sultan of Bijapur upon invitation from the local populace led siege on Goa for 10 months in 1570. But he could not succeed in capturing Goa since the supplies couldnt be stopped. Finally Sultan gave up the battle since could not hold on to the siege for any longer. There was first violent revolt against atrocities of Christians in Goa. In 1583, in the Cuncolim village 20 Christian priests got the dues:[Ref]
In 1583 five priests got orders to intensify conversions in Sasthi (Salcete) region. So these priests decided to start with Cuncolim. Since Cuncolim had been resisting all possible attempts of conversion for long time. Natives were so deep-rooted that they constructed the destroyed temple even after orders not to do so from Portuguese authority. This was good enough reason for these Catholic minds to start their work in Cuncolim. On 15 July 1983 these 5 Jesuits (members of Society of Jesus) gathered and 13

progressed towards Concolim. They had decided to erect a cross and select a ground for building Church. Villagers upon getting this information reached the spot where the 5 Jesuits and 15 other converts were. Here the villagers, must have, warned Jesuit about consequences, but one of priests attempted to confront crowd with Gun and that led to killing all the Jesuits and converts there. 20 of them were killed there. This incident did not go well, as expected, with Captain-major of Portuguese Army stationed at Assolna fort. He decided to avenge the death of all Jesuits. He ordered army to raid and destroy orchards of village. He unleashed series of atrocities on the Hindu villagers by torturing them in all means possible. The Captain invited the 16 Goankar (owners, caretakers of the village) leaders for the discussion at he Assolna fort on the river Sal. Here the Portuguese killed the leaders treacherously even after promising safe measures before invitation. One of the leaders escaped through toilet into Karwar of Karnataka. Upon receiving the news of treacherous killing of leaders by Catholics the villagers of Cuncolim, Velim, Assolna, Ambelim and Veroda refused to pay taxes. As a result their lands were confiscated and entrusted to Condado. Conversions started in full swing with more brutal force now. Some villagers shifted to other parts along with their places of worship too.

Memorial in the name of the leaders of Cuncolim. In 1603 and 1640 Dutch had given tough naval fights which cost Portuguese the spice trade route. Dutch took over the spice trade and as an alternative Portuguese found Brazil as new spice trade base. Which eased the influx of Jesuits in Goa substantially reducing their religious fanaticism in Goa since they got one more place to proselytize. King Shivaji: In 1660-61 he attacked Portuguese for primary reasons of There was need to have control over coastal area for defending the
14

attacks from sea and controlling the trade. To relieve the oppressed Hindus under Portuguese territory. It was known to King Shivaji that under Goa Inquisition Christians are torturing Hindus brutally to accept Christianity. And King Shivaji could not stand by the brutality against his own people in their own land. So he decided to retaliate.
Catholic christians were against any sort of agreement with Hindu King since it was considered apostasy in Inquisition. So failed to reach agreement Chatrapati Shivaji launched attack on Dicholi(Bicholin). Where in Vathadeo they had possession for some time which led to agreement between Marathas and Portuguese. And here Portuguese agreed to treat Hindus at par with Christians without any bias. Portuguese or Marathas never declared it as state of war. Some Goans were unhappy that they couldnt be part of Maratha empire whereas some were satisfied that at least they wouldnt be treated unfairly after peace. But Portuguese kept on facing uprising every now and then against inquisitors.

Chatrapati Sambhaji: After Chatrapati Shivaji his son Chatrapti Sambhaji too attacked Portuguese at various times from 1681 to 1683 in order to keep them under control. Mughals supported Portuguese when Chatrapati Sambhaji had almost claimed all Goan territory in 1683. In December 1683 Ch Sambhaji conquered the Chapora Fort by defeating the Portuguese without firing a single bullet and made this place base camp for Maratha forces and it became the northern outpost of the Old conquests. The win was so close that the ruler Count De Alwor and his ministers were praying for their safety to St. Xavier by taking out his body from church. And then surprisingly Aurangzeb sent 100000 troops to attack on Maratha Kingdom which made Marathas leave Goa by signing treaty with Portuguese. Which Portuguese never maintained. Thereafter too Chatrapati Sambhaji kept on attacking Portuguese with Goans support. In 1717 won back the Chapora Fort from Maratha forces and renovated it. Portuguese lost the fort again to Marathas in 1739 after 2 years bitter fight by Portuguese.

15

In 1741 Marathas almost took over the Goa city but an unexpected reenforcement from Viceroy Marquis of Lourical and defeated Marathas in this battle. But it made them lose some territory. But by this time Portuguese were facing constant attacks and that left them with the choice of reducing the conversion efforts in order maintain civil unrest. Because all these attacks were possible because locals never supported these barbaric Inquisitors. After Losing the war of Panipat Maratha Peshwas lost control over Goa. Later Portuguese added many more cities to its ambit but by that time Portuguese had expunged Jesuits in 1749 since they felt Jesuits are puppets of Pope of Rome. This eased the religious tension in Goa since Jesuits were the Inquisitors in Goa; Jesuits (Catholic Christians) were behind all brutalities. In 1797 British army occupied Goa and started acting against Inquisitors sternly. Finally in 1812 inquisition was abolished in Goa and soon after that in 1813 British withdrew their army from Goa. Jai Bharat! Chapora Fort

16