Unsung Heroes Detail

Tristao de Braganca Cunha, the ‘Father of Goan Nationalism’, was born in 1891. He was a member of the Anti-Imperialist League and collaborated with other Indian patriots in the Pro-Indian Committee of the Information Bureau founded by Romain Rolland in Paris. In 1928, he founded Goa Congress Committee to organize the intelligentsia. In 1929, he launched a campaign against the agents of British tea planters who had enticed Goans to work in Assam as indentured labourers which ended the ‘camouflaged slavery’ and got them repatriated to Goa in 1940. He was arrested, prosecuted and sentenced to eight years' imprisonment by the Territorial Military Court of the Portuguese Government for his nationalistic writings. He was deported to Portugal and released in 1952 but was not allowed to return to Goa. He died in 1958.

Source: The Unsung Heroes: A Tribute, Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration