Portuguese colonialism in India

Title:
Resistive Texts: Tuḥfat al-mujāhidīn as a Decolonial Reflex to the Coloniality of Os Lusíadas

Abstract:
The temporal myopia of Indian postcolonialism, fixated on the discourse analysis of the British empire, narrows down the possibilities of locating colonial experiences in the South Asian littoral that had long before fallen into the Portuguese side of Treaty of Tordesillas-Zaragoza. Iberian mare clausum had allowed for a colonization propagated by conquistadors, legitimized by paradigmatic texts that operated as the basis of the newly founded colonial power. Luís Vaz de Camões’s Os Lusíadas, a celebration of Vasco da Gama’s ‘discovery’ of India, attempts to be what Anibal Quijano has termed the ‘hubris of zero point’ from which the European modern/colonial episteme claimed to be the ‘knowing subject’ that sought “colonization of the imagination of the dominated” by repressing native modes of producing perspectives. In a brilliant moment of decolonial resistance, we find a contemporaneous late 16th century Arabic text, Tuḥfat al-mujāhidīn, by Shaykh Zayn al-Dīn al-Makhdum II of Malabar, that narratively acts as a decolonial reflex to Lusiad’s coloniality. The paper locates the decolonial moment in Tuhfat that reflexively challenges Lusiad on multiple fronts. Firstly, while Lusiad’s Mannerism is an invasive push against the privatization of Portuguese crown trade in Asia, the decadence of landed aristocracy and the associated softening of the crusader spirit, Tuhfat builds a narrative resistance where the local Hindu monarch is integral to the Jihad al-Asghar (armed resistance) on the Malabar coast. Second, while Lusiad assumes civilizational superiority over Orient to legitimize the resource-seeking Portuguese expansion, Tuhaft’s location of native customs of Malabar never turn judgmental. Finally, the process of mythifying Portuguese imperialism as fulfilling divine prophecy erases the inherent violence of colonialism while Tuhfat’s historicizing of Malabar and its Muslim community is to assert that the Portuguese are a challenge to the symbiotic society built jointly by Hindus and Muslims of Malabar.

Die Kirchenbauten in Alt-Goa in der zweiten Hälfte des 16. und in den ersten Jahrzehnten des 17. Jahrhunderts. Zur Entstehung eines Sakralbautypus
Von António Manuel Nunes Pereira, "Licenciado em Arquitectura"

Die zahlreichen Kirchenbauten in der ehemaligen portugiesischen Kolonie Goa sind als Zeugnis einer ca. 450 Jahre andauernden Christianisierung und des christlichen Lebens in Indien weder aus dem Stadtbild noch aus der Landschaft wegzudenken. Die Fassaden- und Innenraummerkmale dieser Bauten sind eine Konstante in der Sakralarchitektur Goas. Das Vorhandensein dieser augenfälligen Homogenität führt zur Vermutung daß ein Urtypus vorhanden sein muß, auf den sie zurückgehen.
Das Ziel dieser Untersuchung ist es, die Existenz dieses Urtypus zu ermitteln, zu definieren und schließlich seine Herkunft zu erläutern. Ein Vergleich mit der europäischen Baukunst des 16. Jahrhunderts ergibt, daß die einzelnen Merkmale der goanischen Kirchen aus dem 16., 17. und 18. Jahrhundert in dieser konkreten Form und Zusammensetzung weder in Portugal noch in anderen europäischen Ländern vorkommen. Dies bedeutet, daß der vermutliche Urtypus der sehr homogenen Sakralbaukunst Goas am Ort entstanden sein muß und dementsprechend dort zu suchen ist.
Die Untersuchung der fünf Studienobjekte wird in der vorliegenden Arbeit in einzelnen Kapiteln (3., 4., 5., 7., und 8.) vorgenommen. Diese fünf Kapitel werden inhaltlich von drei weiteren gerahmt (2., 6. und 9.). Hier wird die in drei Entwicklungsphasen unterteilte Sakralbaukunst Goas des 16. Jahrhunderts mit der europäischen, überwiegend mit der portugiesischen Architektur und einigen der wichtigsten Architekturtraktate dieser Zeit verglichen. Dem Kapitel über den goanischen Kirchenbautypus (10.), in welchem die Essenz der goanischen Kirchen aus der manieristischen Tradition des 16. Jahrhunderts beschrieben wird, folgt ein kurzer Abriß über die weitere Entwicklung der kirchlichen Architektur Goas im 17. und im 18. Jahrhundert (11.). Weitere Punkte über die historischen Quellen (1.3.), den geschichtlichen Hintergrund (1.5.), die aus dieser Zeit bekannten, in Goa tätigen Baumeister (12.1.) und eine Zusammenstellung aller bekannten und relevanten historischen Beschreibungen der zerstörten oder teilzerstörten Untersuchungsobjekte (12.4.) sowie die verschiedenen Verzeichnisse ergänzen den Kern dieser Arbeit.
Die typische goanische Kirche ist ein einschiffiger Sakralbau mit getrenntem Altarraum, teils mit einem Pseudoquerhaus und Seitenkapellen oder Seitenaltarnischen. Den Hauptkirchenraum bildet das im Grundriß rechteckige Schiff, das zugleich der größte Kirchenraum ist. An dieses schließen sich alle übrigen Kirchenräume an. Die Fassade besteht aus einer Giebelwand, die das Schiff an der Kirchenfront abschließt, und aus den zwei flankierenden Glockentürmen, die in der Regel leicht hinter der Giebelwand des Schiffs zurückversetzt sind. Die Besonderheit der goanischen Sakralarchitektur liegt allerdings nicht nur im erwähnten Bautypus, sondern auch in den baumorphologischen Eigenschaften, die in dieser Form und im Zusammenhang mit diesem Bautypus so gut wie ausschließlich in Goa vorkommen. Sie werden im Kapitel 10. beschrieben.
Die große Homogenität der Sakralarchitektur in Goa ab dem Ende des 16. Jahrhunderts steht im Kontrast zu den relativ geringen Ähnlichkeiten mit der kirchlichen Baukunst außerhalb des kleinen Territoriums. Die goanischen Kirchen übten offenbar wenig Einfluß in anderen von den Portugiesen beherrschten Gebieten aus. Goa war zwar das Verwaltungszentrum des "Estado da Índia", in vielen Aspekten jedoch nahm es eine isolierte Stellung ein, insbesondere auf kulturell-künstlerischem Gebiet. Kriege und Belagerungen, aber auch die Handelskonkurrenz anderer europäischer Nationen trugen dazu bei, daß Goa im Laufe der Zeit mehr und mehr sich selbst überlassen war. Die Sakralarchitektur dieses Territoriums wurde daher entscheidend sowohl durch seine Selbstständigkeit als auch durch seine Isolation geprägt.

Este estudo propõe como seu problema o entendimento de duas práticas de tradução concorrentes no Império Português entre os séculos XVI e XVIII: a que defendia ser a boa tradução a que se atinha ao estabelecimento de equivalências lexicais exatas entre o original e o texto traduzido – cabendo, é claro, especificar os limites que as diferenças entre as línguas de partida e de chegada impõem ao próprio ato de traduzir, para além do que cada tradutor compreende ele próprio por e define como tradução mot à mot -, e aquela outra, que fixava como sua tarefa a determinação de equipolências entre unidades frásicas ou oracionais. Como se tentará demonstrar ao longo deste estudo, as diferentes práticas de tradução implicam compreensões muito distintas do valor diferencial das línguas de partida e de chegada, considerando-se que os textos de partida estão compostos, no corpus por nós constituído, em grego e latim; no valor diferencial das línguas de partida e de chegada, por seu turno, está im...

No âmbito da pesquisa intitulada “Cinema império”. Representações da “Ásia portuguesa” nos arquivos fílmicos”, que a investigadora Maria do Carmo Piçarra (ICS- ULisboa/ICNova/UAL) realiza desde Outubro de 2018, com uma bolsa para pesquisa da Fundação Oriente, realiza-se, a 23 de Abril, no Auditório Sedas Nunes do Instituto de Ciências Sociais da Universidade de Lisboa, uma jornada de trabalho.
Organizado pela investigadora visitante do ICS, Maria do Carmo Piçarra, e pela orientadora da pesquisa, a subdirectora do ICS-ULisboa, Filipa L. Vicente, Representações Visuais da “Ásia Portuguesa”: Perspectivas Críticas, incluirá, além da apresentação dos resultados intercalares da pesquisa em curso, comunicações de outros investigadores – Rui Lopes (IHC-UNL), Ricardo Roque (ICS-ULisboa), Filipa L. Vicente (ICS-ULisboa) e Rosa Maria Pérez (CRIA/ISCTE-IUL) - e investigações artísticas do realizador João Mário Grilo (IFILNova) – “Desvelar Os olhos da Ásia” - e do fotógrafo José da Costa Ramos – “Cães de Goa. Why look at animals”.
A encerrar os trabalhos será apresentado o documentário Saxtticho Koddo - The Granary of Salcete do realizador goês Vince Costa, que estará presente. O investigador Jason Keith Fernandes (CRIA/ISCTE-IUL) comentará o filme, antes do debate ser alargado ao público. Entrada livre.

Through the use of published sources and other material on the controversial union of the Thomas Christians with Rome in 1599, we aim to illuminate a broad time span in which various actors at different places, sometimes geo- graphically far from India, played decisive roles in the lengthy sequence of events that ultimately led to the union achieved at Diamper. We contend that the distinct approaches and strategies adopted by each of the players, indi- viduals and institutions, had in its core the seeds that, paradoxically, would shortly afterwards lead to the end of the sought-after union. The process also reveals the different conceptions of integrating Christian communities within the Catholic Church established at various levels, along with the disparate mission- ary policies coexisting in the Portuguese Padroado, and the views emanating from the Catholic hierarchy in the ‘Estado da Índia’ of what a ‘true Catholic’ should be.

Antony Mecherry SJ, "Archbishop Aleixo de Menezes OSA,
A Portuguese Fidalgo: Behind the Curtain." Vidyajyoti Journal of Theological Reflection 82 (2018): 8-34.
The present article unveils, with the support of archival sources, the nature of the social reforms and initiatives of Archbishop Aleixo de Menezes of Goa (1559-1617) – whose 400th death anniversary fell on 3 May 2017 – in South India, especially in the ancient church in Malabar. The Archbishop’s reforms reflected the chivalric mentality and agenda of a typical fidalgo from the Iberian Peninsula. This article addresses, against the backdrop of the Madurai mission launched by Robeto de Nobili, the dialectical tensions at play between faith and culture in connection with the alleged reforms of the archbishop among the Thomas Christians.

The Portuguese  were great seafarers, the people of Portugal in the 15th and 16th centuries for whom exploration became a national way of life. Their voyages led to the discovery of Brazil, to a route around Africa to India. It was the opinion of Lord Acton, a great English historian, that the discovery of the New World was the greatest landmark in the transition from the Middle Ages to modern times. Certainly the movement of western Europeans beyond the narrow limits of their homelands out to both the East and the West, a movement that began in the fifteenth century, had momentous consequences. In time it led to the penetration of European influence, and in some cases European domination to every continent on the globe

When discussing the impact of Portuguese colonialism on the culture of the territory we now call Goa, much is made of Indo-Portuguese art. The term operates as a euphemism for the meeting of Christian/Catholic art forms with Hindu/Sanskritic art forms. This framing of the encounter poses two problems . The first is that it continues to play out a colonial Orientalist tendency to identify communities with a religion, hence the Portuguese and European colonizers with Catholicism, and the local inhabitants with Hinduism (if such a concept already existed at the time of colonial conquest). The second problem is that it by and large ignores the impact of the Islamicate in Goa, more often than not content with dismissing it with a brief reference to Mughal forms in the art works. In this short essay I argue that Goa was very much the space of the Islamicate.  Further, that to view 'Indo-Portuguese' art in this light would perhaps open up larger and richer ways of understanding this art, as well as moving it away from the colonial (and communal) tendency of seeing art (and culture) as founded in religion.

At the fag end of the book the author quotes from a book with some veiled emotions a phrase he wished could  be his: ”Since Adam was expelled from the paradise, he had never been so close to it again”. Apparently,  a methaphor to convey that the Portuguese now feel closer to Goans than ever since the expulsion of their colonial regime.  Curiously, the author has no word of sympathy for the Portuguese consulate in Goa.

The latter half of the 15th century was famous for great voyages and witnessed the beginning of European colonial expansion. Spain and Portugal were pioneers in sea voyages and colonialization. They discovered many land and sea routes which were milestones in history. The arrival of Vasco da Gama in 1498 brings a new era in the History of the St. Thomas Christians. Up to that period, St. Thomas Christians in India exercised their own tradition and customs under the guidance of the Persian bishops. The period 1498 – 1663 can be fairly considered as the period during which Portuguese influence was at its peak in India and correspondingly in the History of Christianity in India. The Portuguese through their political and religious policies, did affect the life of St. Thomas Christians.

This essay argues for recognizing a form of orientalism peculiar to Goa. This peculiarity results from the manner in which two different types of orientalisms combine with one another to produce Goan orientalism. These two types of Orientalism would be Goa Portuguesa, a strain of Lusotropicalism, and Goa Indica, a strain of Indian nationalism which is in turn a product of British Indian orientalism. The terrain of Goan orientalism is sketched in this essay through a discussion of the recently published coffee-table book Moda Goa: History and Style by fashion
designer and stylist Wendell Rodricks (2012). Despite being the work of an amateur historian, I would argue that this work needs to be given academic attention, for it is largely the popular press that determines the manner in which history is understood, and the manner in which these histories are then used to frame personal as well as larger group or collective narratives.