Tristão de Bragança Cunha (2 April 1891 – 26 September 1958), alternatively spelled as Tristao de Braganza Cunha, popularly known as T B Cunha[1] was a prominent Goan nationalist and anti-colonial activist from Goa (then part of Portuguese India). He is popularly known as the "Father of Goan nationalism", and was the organiser of the first movement to end Portuguese rule in Goa.
Early life
Cunha was born on 2 April 1891 in the village Chandor in Goa.[2] His parents were Ligório de Cunha, a medical practitioner, and Filomena Bragança. While his mother was from Chandor, his father was from Cuelim, Cansaulim.[3] He completed his school education in Panjim and then went to Pondicherry to French College for his Baccalauréat and then to Paris. There he studied at the Sorbonne University[4] and obtained a degree in electrical engineering.[2]
After returning to Goa in 1926, Cunha established the Goa National Congress (GNC) in Margao in 1928,[5] after meeting with Subhash Chandra Bose, to mobilize Goans against Portuguese colonial rule.[6] The Indian National Congress (INC) invited the GNC to its Calcutta session, offering it affiliation. However, in 1934, the INC decided to derecognize the GNC, stating that it was operating in a territory that was under alien rule. Cunha, now calling it the Comissão do Congresso de Goa (Goa Congress Committee),[2] moved its operations to 21 Dalal Street in Bombay in 1936. However, the INC did not support Cunha's initiatives.[5]
He continued to publicize the Goan cause through numerous articles and books, denouncing Portuguese rule. Among his published works were the booklets Four Hundred Years of Foreign Rule and The Denationalisation of Goans (1944). Cunha advocated for Goan identification, both politically and culturally, with greater India. A court then prosecuted him for his writings.[2]
In 1929, he launched a protest against agents of British tea planters against their forced indentation of Goan kunbis as labourers in Assam. He then took help from the INC and successfully got the Goans repatriated by 1940.[2]
In 1941, he raised funds for people who were affected by the monsoons in Mormugao and Salcete.[2]
On 18 June 1946, Goa Revolution Day, Ram Manohar Lohia had addressed what was arguably the first and largest mass gathering yet, setting in motion the Goa liberation movement. Cunha and his niece Berta de Menezes Bragança first held a meeting at the Margao bus stand on 20 June and then another on 30 June, at the same maidan in Margao where Lohia had given his speech, since then named as Lohia Maidan. Cunha was beaten up badly by the police.[7]Bakibab Borkar, who was present at this meeting, wrote the song "Dotor bos, uthun cholunk lag" (transl. doctor, sit down, arise and march).[5] Cunha was then arrested by the Portuguese authorities on 17 July. He was kept in dark damp cell at Fort Aguada. He was the first civilian to be tried by a military tribunal. He was court martialled and sentenced to eight years imprisonment in the Peniche Fortress in Portugal.[2] Conditions in the prison were poor.[5]
Due to be released from Portugal in 1954, Cunha was left two years early in 1952 under Amnesty, on account of the Holy Year, but was not allowed to return to Goa. He then obtained a tourist visa to France and from there escaped to Bombay in 1953. Cunha formed and headed the Goa Action Committee, to help co-ordinate the numerous Goan organisations that had emerged by this time. He published a newspaper called Free Goa,[2] along with his niece Berta de Menezes Bragança.[8]
Death
Funeral procession of T. B. Cunha. Gerald Pereira is seen as one of the pallbearers in the front left.
Cunha died on 26 September 1958. The Catholic Church denied their premises for the funeral and for his internment in the cemetery due to his rational thinking.[2] Loknayak Jaiprakash Narayan was one of the pallbearers.[5]
Legacy
The World Peace Council at Stockholm in 1959 posthumously awarded T. B. Cunha a gold medal for his contribution to the cause of "Peace and Friendship among People."[9] The Government of India issued a postage stamp in his honour.[5]
On 26 September 1986, Cunha's mortal remains were transferred from the Scotland cemetery at Sewri, Bombay,[2] and are now housed in an urn at a memorial located in Panaji's Azad Maidan.[10] A prominent road in the city of Panaji is named as T. B. Cunha Road.[11] A statue of Cunha has been installed in his ancestral village of Cuelim, Cansaulim.[12] A school in Margao[13] and a government higher secondary school in Panaji[14] are also named in Cunha's honour. The campus in Panaji's Altinho which houses the Goa College of Architecture and the Goa College of Music, is named as "Dr. T. B. Cunha Educational Complex".[15][16]
A sports' complex in Cansaulim, Cuelim is named after him,[17] and his portrait was unveiled in the Indian Parliament[18] in 2011 to commemorate the golden jubilee of Goa's accession to India.
The book The Life & Times of T. B. Cunha by Nishtha Desai was published in 2015.[19]
