Liberation: India fought on beaches, Goa reclaimed its soul and culture

On Dec 19, the wave of history that crested Goa not only brought freedom from imperialism to India’s tropical idyll after a four-century struggle, but also signalled the end of all European rule in the country

In early Sep 1961, the phone rang at the INS Vendruthy, an Indian Navy base at Cochin, now Kochi. Capt R N Batra, the commanding officer of the Naval base, answered the phone and was given a rather perplexing task. He was asked to find volunteers from the base’s gunnery school for an amphibious assault display for the Navy’s leadership.

The men were to be put through basic training like crawling while carrying rifles, Dec and Sten machine guns, mortars, grenades and demolition equipment. And all this was to be done in darkness in the open fields of the Naval air station, prompting many to wonder why such an operational demonstration for the brass was to be done at night.

“Although it was primarily the gunners who were intrinsically involved in land fighting operations, the school was to provide a demolition platoon, and as such I thought it legitimate to volunteer. As it turned out the only other officer who opted was Lt SD(G) Noel Kelman. I was placed in command and Kelman was my second-in-command,” says Rear Admiral Arun Auditto in his memoirs about Goa’s Liberation.

A pioneer of the Navy’s submarine arm, Auditto passed away in April 2021 at the age of 86. Naval war hero and Kirti Chakra awardee Commander Noel Kelman passed away in Aug 2019 at Porvorim at the age of 92.

The contingent of 80 sailors and two officers were trained at night to maintain secrecy, but they had no idea what they were training for. The not-so-secret news was let out by a vegetable vendor at Thevara who informed Auditto’s wife that her husband was commanding an assault team for the war against the Portuguese.

With a defiant Portugal refusing to leave Goa, India had no option but to abandon diplomatic efforts and use force to evict the colonial forces. The hostile Portuguese forces under governor Manuel Antonio Vassalo e Silva would fire indiscriminately at local fishermen and even shot at a merchant vessel, Sabarmati, prompting the Indian Navy to commence Operation Chutney.

On Dec 1, as India finalised its ground assault plan, the Navy began a surveillance and patrolling exercise deploying two frigates, INS Betwa and INS Beas, to patrol 13km off Goa’s coast. Operation Chutney was on.
Among the 80-man beach landing party was Kansraj Sharma, an 18-year-old raw recruit from Punjab. The Indian Navy had tasked the assault team with storming Anjediva Island in an attempt to dislodge the Portuguese.

“After a brief but intensive training, the beach assault troops embarked on INS Trishul at Cochin on Dec16 and sailed for the island off Karwar,” says Auditto, who was then a young lieutenant training to be part of the Navy’s submarine warfare school.

INS Trishul arrived just off Karwar and on Dec 18, the 80-man ground assault team woke up at 4am, nervous but eager to storm the island. Ironically, the landing spot was known as Ladies Beach.

However, in the early daylight, look-outs noticed that the Portuguese garrison on the island had hoisted a white flag on the hilltop at the northern end of the island.

The first wave of the landing party quickly got into the boats and made their way to the island without incident. The remaining sailors, under the command of Kelman, started to make their way to the island 15 minutes later. Sharma, now 82 years old, was part of the second wave and this is when the Portuguese opened fire with machine guns from the rampart overlooking the beach.

“I don’t remember much of what happened at that moment. One moment, I was doing the seaman gunnery course at INS Vendruthy and the next moment, I was fighting on the island,” Sharma tells TOI. He stays with his family at Vasco.

The Portuguese machine gun fire killed five sailors instantly and Kelman received gunshot wounds on both his thighs. “Kelman, with great presence of mind, continued towards the beach, zigzagging the boat to counter the gunfire,” says commodore Srikant Kesnur (retd).

Sharma, along with the other sailors, took cover behind anything — a rock, bush or tree — jumping from cover to cover as they made their way to the Portuguese garrison.

Petty officer A Singh, who oversaw the anti-aircraft Bofors guns mounted on the aft of the INS Trishul, uttering some choice Punjabi abuses, ordered his team to open fire on the Portuguese garrison.

A few rounds from INS Trishul’s 4.7-inch Bofors guns were enough to convince the Portuguese troops to give up.

As Auditto and the remaining sailors leapfrogged forward, they came under sniper fire from the northern hilltop. As Auditto ran for tree cover, he was hit by a bullet on his left shoulder, resulting in a deep flesh wound.

Auditto, Kelman and others involved in the action were conferred with gallantry awards. A memorial was later erected on Anjediva Island to commemorate those who lost their lives in the amphibious assault.

The amphibious landing by a platoon of Naval sailors was a daring mission as the men had barely any training in military tactics for amphibious landings and fighting on land. The Indian Navyʼs role saw the Indian Tricolour hoisted on top of the island on the afternoon of Dec 18, a day before Vassalo e Silva signed the instrument of surrender at Vasco.