When the Joias de Goa came home

The scheduled Indian Airlines plane that landed at Dabolim airport on August 3, 1991, was perhaps the most-awaited flight in Goa’s post-liberation history. There was nothing special about the plane or its passengers. There was no VIP aboard who would step out waving to the crowds. As a matter of fact, there were no crowds at the airport welcoming it. The crowds would gather in the following days in Panaji, to reclaim the treasure it had brought. For a treasure it did bring, back home from Goa’s erstwhile colonial master. Not any grand spoils of war, but 5,584 packets of jewellery that had been pledged by Goans with the Portuguese Banco Nacional Ultramarino (BNU) in the days and years before Liberation, as collateral for loans. The joias de Goa were back, and thousands of Goans, who for 30 years had lived in the fear that they would never see and touch their family heirlooms, were able to sleep peacefully that night. Largely an agrarian economy during the Portuguese period, Goans in need of money depended on loans that were either taken from moneylenders or the banks. With land not valued highly at that time, it was the family jewels that were deposited with the bank as collateral for loans. “Loans were taken for various reasons—to buy land, for a wedding, for the children’s education outside Goa—and the amounts were very small compared to present times. Very few loans were for amounts more than a few hundred rupees. Loans that were for over a thousand rupees were taken over a period of time and not at one go,” a source said. According to figures published in 1991, when the jewellery was brought back to Goa, the total loan amount outstanding with BNU in 1961 was Rs 9.85 lakh and the jewellery was valued at Rs 16.35 lakh. The manner in which the jewellery was taken to Portugal, and as told by writer Carmo Azevedo, makes an interesting read. Ironically, it left Goan shores on a ship named India. On December 12, 1961, as the Indian government moved its armed forces towards the Goa borders and it became clear that India would launch an operation to liberate Goa from the Portuguese, Jorge Esteves Anastacio, the general manger of the BNU’s branches in Goa was summoned by the Portuguese governor general, Manuel Antonio Vassalo e Silva. Anastacio was told by the chief secretary, captain Carvalho de Figueira, that the governor general was convinced that India would launch military action within a week. He was asked to safeguard in the best possible manner the bank’s interests by sending whatever he thought fit to Portugal by the ship India. Anastacio put in a trunk call to the bank’s head office in Lisbon and was told to act according to the situation on the ground. He wasted no time in packing all the jewellery into crates and loading them onto the ship. A day later, on December 13, 1961, five days before the Indian army moved in, the ship India set sail for Portugal carrying with it the jewellery and 650 refugees. It would be three decades before the precious gold would be returned. Though a mention of assets taken to Lisbon was made in the Goa, Daman and Diu Bank’s Reconstruction and Regulation Act, 1962, the issue actually came into focus when it was brought up in Parliament by the then South Goa MP, Eduardo Faleiro, in 1977. “In 1977, a journalist in Goa raised this point of the jewellery and then I took it up in Parliament. From 1977 to 1986, I followed it up constantly with the ministry of external affairs. Sometime in 1991, the Portuguese ambassador told me that the gold can be returned,” recalls Faleiro, a former Union minister of state for external affairs. The protocol returning the jewellery was signed during Faleiro’s stint in the external affairs ministry. The gold packets were assigned to the State Bank of India who paid BNU $47,384 in return. Such was the anticipation, that on the day SBI began accepting applications for the jewellery packets, it received 300. Hundreds of Goans turned up at the Panaji branch, many old and requiring to be helped up the steps, some other having come even from Pune just to collect the family jewels. At that time, SBI accepted applications from people who still possessed the original receipts issued by BNU for the jewellery. Today, 1,791 jewellery packets (the value of which are unknown) are still in custody of the SBI, and on an average, four to five packets are redeemed every month. The process of redeeming today is quite different as most of the persons who had pledged the jewellery are no longer alive. Those who claim the packets are the legal heirs of the original debtor who have been assigned the packet through the inventory process. Among those who had pledged their gold with BNU, was the Potekar family from Salvador do Mundo, who corresponded with the bank and received a reply from Vassalo e Silva’s son, who was working with the bank at that time, and told them the jewellery was safe. “We are recovering from customers the actual amount that was taken as loan. No interest is being charged from them,” said an official. SBI has been regularly advertising in the local media asking persons who had deposited their jewellery with BNU, or their descendants, to come forward with their claims. In all 6,531 sealed packets of jewellery were taken to Portugal. For the next 30 years there was little news or even hope that they would be returned. But, 5,584 did come back to Goa. The balance 947 were collected by Goans visiting the BNU headquarters in Lisbon, producing their receipts, paying back the loan and redeeming their family jewels.