Goa’s commercial decline in the 1830s under the Portuguese set off a wave of migration into British India. By the eve of the Liberation in 1961, unemployment had forced nearly 20 per cent of Goa’s population out.
“Destinations were determined mostly by economic factors such as opportunities for employment or labour shortage,” says the Goa Migration Study 2008.
Pleased by the annual collection of Rs 60,000 from the ‘emigration tax’ it had imposed in 1933, the revenues from its harsh military and property taxes, Portugal encouraged the exodus from the capital of its colonial empire. And the British welcomed it.
“The military and civilian settlements of the British in India, Burma and the Middle East created a huge demand for personnel who could meet European tastes in food, drink, music, dress, medicine.” Goan Christians seemed to fit the bill.
Driven by the distressing circumstances back home, Goans fanned out by the thousands to work as cooks, butlers, stewards, maids, musicians, tailors, bakers, teachers, bankers and doctors. Their destination: cities as close as Mumbai and Pune and as far off as Kolkata, Karachi and Rangoon. Many braved the hazardous journey into unchartered territory ending up in British and Portuguese outposts in Africa.
The journey of Goa’s immigrants has not been comprehensively recorded till now. A new study on the British-Goan community to be funded by the London-based The Heritage Lottery Fund will give voice to some of those stories. The Goan Association (GA), UK, which has been awarded the £38,300 grant said the two-year project would focus on the
displacement, transition and resettlement of the community emerging from post-colonial East Africa.
“This grant assures us that the Goan community is part of the national narrative and the preservation of its historical and cultural past is an integral part of Britain’s heritage. The study is an opportunity to re-examine and put right misconceived stereotypes, engage in conversations with a larger audience and build a repository of learning for future generations of Goans,” said GA president Flavio Gracias. The findings are to be archived in leading British institutions.
The British-Goan community arrived predominantly from East Africa by the mid-twentieth century, says GoanVoice UK editor Eddie Fernandes. The family of Labour MPs Keith Vaz and Valerie Vaz moved to Britain from Aden. The Goan Association estimates that nearly 100,000 British-Goans live in the UK today, though the more recent arrivals – some 15,000 of them -- have made it to Britain with the Portuguese nationality which allows them to get into the UK job market.
A remarkable phenomenon of migration from Goa in the past decade has been the Swindon syndrome. Laid-back sunny villages in parts of North Goa have
become labour fodder for automobile manufactures and chicken factories set in the grimmer environs of Swindon, an industrial estate off London. Over 9,000 Goans from the villages of Dona Paula, Siridao and Agacaim have made Swindon their home, replacing the once largely Irish Catholic parish.
“They work in food processing, restaurants and the catering businesses, in car assembly lines and general factories,” Fernandes says. The GoanVoice website launched in 1992 helps them stay connected.