72. Foreign Settlements in India

Goa

In free India, Goa cannot be allowed to exist as a separate entity in opposition to the laws of the Free State. Without a shot being fired, the people of Goa will be able to claim and receive the rights of citizenship of the Free State.

Harijan, 30-6-46

Surely there is not much to choose between French and Portuguese imperialism. The hands of imperialism are always dyed red. The sooner imperialistic powers shed their imperialism like Ashoka the Good, the better it will be for the groaning world...It is ridiculous for the Head of the Government Information Bureau to write of Portugal as the motherland of the Indians of Goa. Their mother country is as much India as mine. Goa is outside British India but it is within geographical India as a whole. And there is very little, if anything, in common between the Portuguese and the Indians of Goa.

Harijan, 8-9-46

French Settlements

It is not possible for the inhabitants of these small foreign settlements to remain under servility in the face of the millions of their countrymen who have become free from the British rule...I hope..the great French nation would never identify itself with the suppression of people, whether black or brown, in India or elsewhere.

Harijan, 16-11-47