When I started writing my book on the history of Goa's politics, I realised the politics of power always moved around the land of Goa for centuries. Not only post-liberation or during the Portuguese regime, but much before 15 different dynasties ruled the tiny state of India. It was obvious to dig deeper into it. About who developed this land? When and how did it happen? And the several questions about it, and whether Goa belongs to all those who ruled Goa? And if not, why?

The search began afresh. Many historians and intellectuals had strongly objected to the much-publicised theory that Goa - or the whole Konkan coast, that is believed to be a creation of Lord Parashuram by the receding seawater through the power of his miraculous arrows. The mythological epic is found in Sahyadri-khanda of Skanda Purana. Parashuram belonged to the Aryans, but the Aryans entered the Sindhu region around 1600 BCE, and then much later they came to Goa.

However, Goa or the Konkan coast has a history of human settlement for not less than 10,000 years. The search continued with Dr. D D Kosambi, Romila Thapar, Anant Ramkrishna Sinai Dhume, Luis de Assis Correia, Gerald Pereira, Dr. P P Shirodkar, Dr. Nandkumar Kamat and so on.

No matter how many nomadic tribes passed through the Konkan coast, historians have established the fact that the first settlers of Goa were the Kol, Asura, Mundari, Kharva, etc who travelled down from Chota Nagpur, the vast plateau in East India that covers most parts of Jharkhand, Chattisgarh, Odisha, West Bengal and Bihar.

Today in Goa, we call them Gauda, Kunbi, Velip, Jalmi, Satarkar, and others- the 'Mull Goenkar' tribal community. They kept coming to Goa till 3500 BCE. Parashuram, the real man called Ram who always carried Parashu in his hand, however is believed to have arrived in Goa after 1500 BCE, almost 2000 years later. The epic was thus woven around him, claiming that he created the Konkan coast, indirectly denying the historical fact that the tribal community had developed our land.

As this intelligent tribal community did not have a plough, they started shifting cultivation, called 'Kumeri'. Eventually, to utilise the water flowing down from the mountains of Sahyadri which was turning saline due to the Arabian Sea, the innovative tribal community invented a double 'bandh' model and created huge tracts of khazan land. The land belonged to the whole community and the community was administered with a three-tier administration model, called 'Gaunkari' system which consisted of 'Gauponn', 'Barazan' and 'Varg'.

Besides, they also produced a language to communicate, through which today's modern Konkani has evolved. Some linguists claim that Konkani (and even Marathi) developed through 'Prakrut'. Is this the same Austro-Aseatic language of the indigenous community of India? Did Konkani originate from Sanskrit and was it a creation of the Aryans through the Indo-Aryan language, or was it the Astro-Aseatic indigenous language of the tribal communities?

The questions were many, with vague answers. At this juncture, there came an opportunity to visit Jharkhand for the Fourth Rashtriya Vichar Manthan organised by Dr. Rammanohar Lohia Research Foundation of New Delhi, headed by a journalist friend Abhishek Ranjan Singh in December.

We were a group of activists associated with the foundation from the time the Second national conference was held in Goa in 2021, to commemorate 75 years of Dr. Lohia's civil disobedience movement, which started on June 18, 1946- Goa's Revolution Day. This year the foundation was commemorating 75 years of the most brutal Kharsawan massacre of around 500 tribals in 'independent' India.

We decided to seize this opportunity, roped in scholars, researchers and activists from Goa's tribal movement. We also managed to fix a meeting with the faculty of tribal languages at Ranchi University. Dr. Prakash Parienkar, the vice-dean of the research discipline of Goa University's School of Languages (who recently bagged the prestigious Sahitya Akademi award) was part of the delegation.

There was a special session at the conference on 'Tribal Communities of Goa and Jharkhand: Locating Migratory Perspective'. Using his medical knowledge as a forensic expert, tribal thinker Dr. Madhu Ghodkierekar presented an overview of how the multi-ethnicity of the indigenous tribal community has spread worldwide. Lawyer Joao Fernandes, who revived the original Christian Gauda culture in Quepem taluka described the uniqueness of tribal culture - even different from the Church-driven westernised culture of Goa's Christian community. I also explored a little historical research that had been conducted, which brought up several question and few answers.

This session came as a big surprise to the learned audience at the conference, including the veteran socialist leaders from Jharkhand, Bihar, West Bengal and the whole Hindi belt. They were aghast to learn that Birsa Munda, the 'Bhagwan' of the tribal community and the courageous tribal leader, was worshipped in Goa too. Politicians in Goa like the speaker of the Goa Assembly, Ramesh Tawadkar and minister Govind Gaude, both tribals, are at the forefront when it comes to celebrating Birsa Munda Jayanti, known as 'Jan Jati Gaurav Divas'. This is a celebration to salute the freedom fighter and warrior, who fought the British to protect the land rights of the tribals.

After having a brief tour of the 'Ghaati' (mountains) in the outskirts of Ranchi we met the linguistic scholars of seven tribal languages at Ranchi University, led by Dr. Hari Oraon, coordinator of the faculty of Tribal Languages and a tribal himself. Prior to our meeting, I did a small exercise of going through the Mundari and Santali dictionaries. To my surprise, I found over 200 words used either verbatim or with little variations, in Konkani.

The faculty members were shocked to see the words we use like 'Khunti' (Jharkhand has a district with this name), 'Parab' (festival), 'Bhale Bhale' (an exclamation of joy), 'Aankur' (seedling), 'Torkari' (vegetable), 'Bondo' (fool), 'Chuchu' (urinating), 'Bent' (cane) and several more. Our 'Gaunkari' system is similar to their ancient administrative system, where they have 'Akhada' ('Maand' in Goa), the community head and a priest, a decision-making system, a variety of tribal cuisine, herbal medicines, dancing steps (padanyas) of folk dances and more. During our tour in the mountains, we found various wild trees also found in Goa. In fact, we felt that we were moving through the hilly regions in Goa.

Our tribal researchers and activists including Devidas Gaonkar, Ramkrishna Jalmi, Ravindra Velip, Caetano Carvalho as well as Dr. Ghodkirekar and Fernandes kept shooting questions one after the other, and the faculty members kept answering, thus explaining similar customs and traditions followed in different tribal communities. Dr. Parienkar also found a faculty member whose community was cultivating on the lines of 'Puran', based on which the award-winner has recently published his first novel.

The meeting ended, but discussions didn't. Group and individual conversations and exchanging phone numbers continued, while we clicked a photograph of this eventful trip. Dr. Oraon proudly showed us the 'Akhada' built on the campus and also assured Dr. Parienkar to begin inter-university research on several aspects through study tours, seminars, workshops, dissertations, exchange programmes and more.

It seemed like the visit to Ranchi University, on the eve of Goa Liberation Day, would open a new chapter in the history of Goa. Facets of the real authentic history and its roots would be unearthed. What is also needed to unfold the hidden truth is a joint action by the tribal research centres to be set up by the Jharkhand and Goa governments, besides the research conducted at academic institutes like Goa University and Ranchi University. We indeed feel like Goa has like Pandora's box a hidden treasure of aboriginal customs and traditions.

And as 2023 ends, the search for real, fact-based and authentic history of Goa has just begun.

(The writer is a senior journalist)