Libia Lobo Sardesai awarded Padma Shri: How she became the voice of Goa’s liberation struggle

Goa in the 1950s

Libia was born on May 25, 1924 in Portuguese-ruled Goa. She grew up in Bombay (now Mumbai). While in college, Libia became closely involved with the Goan nationalist movement.

In 1954, after the Portuguese assaulted and arrested satyagrahis who had entered Goa to demand an end to colonial rule, India closed its borders to the state and imposed an economic blockade. Sea, road and rail links were snapped, and only clandestine communication channels remained operational. In August 1955, thousands of satyagrahis tried to enter Goa but were fired upon by the Portuguese, resulting in several deaths.

At the time, the Portuguese had imposed “total censorship” in Goa.

“Not even a wedding invitation card or a calendar could be printed or circulated without the seal of the ‘censor’. No outside papers or printed material were allowed to come in. The couple of local newspapers and the official Goa radio toed the Portuguese line — they only instilled fear and fed people Portuguese propaganda,” Libia told The Indian Express in an interview in May last year.

The nationalists had to find a way to counter these lies, to tell the people about the state of the liberation movement and maintain morale among the nationalists. “The answer came in the form of an underground radio station. This was the only peaceful alternative to propagate our cause,” Libia said.

‘Voice of Freedom’

Two wireless sets from Dadra and Nagar Haveli were converted into a radio transmitter, and a team comprising Libia, and fellow Goan nationalists Vaman Sardesai, and Nicolau Menezes came together to set up an underground radio station, initially called ‘Q’.

On November 25, 1955 — the anniversary of Goa’s reconquest by the Portuguese in 1510 — the station, now called ‘Goenche Sodvonecho Awaz’ (Voice of Freedom of Goa) for Konkani broadcasts and ‘Voz de Liberdade’ for the Portuguese ones, began beaming hour-long programs in the morning and evening. In the initial days, the radio was mounted on a truck parked in a densely forested area in Maharashtra’s Amboli. Menezes left after a few months, following which Libia and Vaman relocated to Castle Rock in Karnataka.

“We worked nearly 18 hours a day, not only preparing broadcasts but listening to various bulletins and news from India and abroad… studying reports, collating information received from inside and outside Goa, scanning Indian and foreign newspapers and newsletters to select information about anti-colonial struggles,” Libia said.

“In retrospect, although running a radio station for a period of six years may not seem long, veritably for us, those years were unendingly long and arduous… at times seeming worse than normal imprisonment,” she would later recount in her diary. “We had to live completely isolated in a corner of the forest, incognito and incommunicado… The forests were infested with cobras, pythons…and wild animals. One could not take a few steps without being bitten by leeches. We were never wounded by weapons or mishaps, yet a lot of our blood was spilled every day,” she wrote.

“In Amboli, I was once returning after the evening broadcast…when I saw a jeep halted on the pathway. The driver or hunter appeared to be the Raja of Sawantwadi. Seeing me coming, he was waiting to show me the panther he had shot minutes earlier in the vicinity of our transmitter,” she wrote.

The last broadcast

After six years in the jungles, just days before Operation Vijay was launched to liberate Goa, the Indian border police bundled Libia and Vaman in a jeep, and took them to a rest-house in Belgaum.

On December 17, 1961, the station relayed a direct message from Union Defence Minister V K Krishna Menon addressed to the Portuguese Governor General, asking him to surrender to prevent “unnecessary casualties”. The Portuguese Governor General was told to reply at a certain wavelength by a certain time, failing which the Indian Army would march into Goa.

Libia, 100, is among the most respected figures involved in the Goan liberation struggle. (Pavneet Singh Chadha)

“Since no reply came, Operation Vijay started,” Libia said. Libia said she was informed by Lieutenant General J N Chaudhuri, then-the General Officer Commanding-in-Chief of Southern Command, at an army camp in Sambra in Belgaum, that Portuguese forces were surrendering.

“The General said ‘Kumari Lobo! I have good news for you. The Portuguese have surrendered.’ I did not know how to react. I felt as if the ground beneath my feet was shaking. In the spur of the moment, I took a flower and gave it to the General,” Libia recalled.

“He then asked me, ‘Kumari Lobo! What do you want to do now?’ Impulsively, I said I would like to go into the skies and announce that Goa is free. He took me seriously… We were warned that the plane could be shot down since Portuguese guns were still hidden somewhere, but we were not scared. I told them that it did not matter because if the plane is shot down, we will fall and die in a free Goa,” she said.

On the morning of December 19, 1961, Libia and Vaman flew over Panaji in an Indian Air Force (IAF) plane with a radio transmitter aboard and a loudspeaker fitted on the plane’s belly, dropping leaflets and announcing in Portuguese and Konkani that the Portuguese had surrendered.

“Rejoice brothers and sisters, Rejoice! Today, after 451 years of alien rule, Goa is free and united with the Motherland.”