Vasco da Gama's 500th anniversary touches a raw nerve in Goa.
Suddenly, the Portuguese are big news in their former colony of Goa, now better known as a tourist destination and a one-time hippy hangout. But Lisbon is unlikely to be flattered. The very thought of commemorating the fifth centenary of Vasco da Gama's arrival on India's west coast has had people agitated. Swaths of newsprint have been consumed by the subject.
India's youngest ex-colony is looking over its shoulder at its long, and often uneasy, Portuguese past. In the process, Vasco da. Gama's 1998 quincentennial is taking on shades of the Columbus controversy which engulfed North and South America in 1992.
Like any historical figure, Vasco da Gama is understood (and misunderstood) in diverse ways. Lionised by his countrymen, he has his sceptics elsewhere. Did he undertake pioneering "discoveries", as Portugal would have it even today, or was Vasco da Gama merely the "first European to travel by sea to India", which is how he is described in the US-published Concise Columbia Encyclopedia, which goes on: "He established Portuguese power in India and Africa. His methods were harsh, and he was not a good administrator. He was sent back to India as a viceroy in 1524, but soon died."