The Christian missionary enterprise in earnest started with the dogged efforts of Don Henry the Navigator ( 1394-1460), the third son of the king John I of Portugal. Henry was a militant Christian fired with a bitter hatred for infidels. He was obsessed with the idea of reaching and converting Indians, and believed that he had received a command from God for this purpose. He had at his disposal the immense wealth of the Order of Christ of which he was the Grand Master. In 1454 Pope Nicholas V issued a Bull granting to the King of Portugal "the right, total and absolute, to invade, conquer, and subject all the countries which are under rule of the enemies of Christ, Saracens or Pagan...."

Portugal and Spain towards the end of the 15th Century were at loggerheads as to who should claim suzerainty and where. The pope was invited to give a ruling. According to the Treaty of Tordesillas (signed in June 1494) it was agreed that everything beyond the meridian of longitude passing 370 leagues west of Cape Verde Islands was to be exploited by Spain. All the world to the east of the 'Pope's Line' went to Portugal; this embraced Africa and the entire Indian Ocean. The treaty showed Europe's pathological drive to power, its demented urge to intervene and impose itself on the lives of others.

The Papal Bull had allocated the two halves of the world to Spain and Portugal. The kings of Portugal fitted and sent several naval expeditions to India, and King Dom Manoel assumed for himself the title of "The Lord of the Navigation, Conquest and Commerce of Ethiopia, Persia, and India." Henceforward Portugal became the base of the missionary enterprise in Asia. 

Until Vasco da Gama discovered the sea route to the East in 1497-1499, the West knew little about India let alone the countries further east. Marco Polo had come visiting India and there certainly was a lively trade between north India and central Asia. Indian silk and spices, among other commodities, was famous. 

India's first major contact began when Vasco da Gama landed with gunboat and priests. He came with twenty five ships under his command, of which ten of them contained much beautiful artillery, with plenty of munitions and weapons. The newcomers were not only merchants but also devout Christians. They had the pope's mandate to convert heathens in the lands they conquered. 

During his visit to Calicut  Vasco da Gama found twenty trading ships in the harbor. He plundered them and the 800 odd crew were taken prisoners. With Calicut at his mercy da Gama told his men to parade the prisoners then hack off their hands, ears and noses. As the work progressed all the amputated pieces were piled in a small boat. The Brahmin who had been sent out by the Zamorin as an emissary was put into the boat amid its new gruesome cargo. He had also been mutilated in the ordained manner.  The historian Gaspar Correa described what Vasco da Gama did, thus: "When all the Indians had thus been executed (sic), he ordered them to strike upon their teeth with staves and they knocked them down their throats; as they were put on board, heaped on top of each other, mixed up with the blood which streamed from them; and he ordered mats and dry leaves to be spread over them and sails to be set for the shore and the vessels set on fire... and the small, vessel with the friar (brahmin) with all the hands and ears, was also sent ashore, without being fired".

A message from da Gama was sent to the Zamorin. Written on a palm leaf, it told him he could make a curry with the human pieces in the boat. When the Zamorin sent another Brahmin to Vasco to plead for peace, he had his lips cut off and his ears cut off. The ears of a dog were sewn on him instead and the Brahmin was sent back to Zamorin in that state. The Brahmin -- no doubt a Namboodiri had brought with him three young boys, two of them his sons and the other a nephew. They were hanged from the yardarm and their bodies sent ashore. 

As soon as Vasco da Gama was back in Lisbon after his first successful contact with India, the King of Portugal, Dom Manuel, hurriedly conveyed the news of the discovery of the "spices and Christians" of India to the royal rivals of Castille and to The Holy See in Rome.

The Portuguese were desperate to control the spice trade from India, then controlled by the Arabs, and needed a good port, which turned out to be Goa. In 1510, the Portuguese fleet under Afonso Albuquerque landed in Goa, only to be driven out by Adil Shah (of Bijapur) a few months later. Finally, later that year, the Portuguese with reinforcements, finally usurped Goa (Ilhas region) from Bijapur. In an apparent reprisal for his earlier defeat, Albuquerque ordered the massacare of its Muslim inhabitants. By 1543, the Portuguese were able to extend their control over Salcette, Mormugao and Bardez, thus ending their first phase of expansion into Goa. The teritories of Ilhas, Salcette, Mormugao and Bardez formed part of the Portugal's "Velhas Coquistas" or Old Conquests, and formed only one fifth of the total area of modern Goa.

Soon after the Portuguese soldiers conquered Goa, came the priests. First the Franciscans came, then the Jesuits, then the Dominicans, and lastly the Augustinians. This Catholic Clergy from Portugal, was prepared to go to any length to spread their faith. They force-fed Goan converts beef and pork and declared that the converts could never return to Hinduism. They also forced converts to change their lifestyles. Special powers were granted to them in 1540 and the Portuguese Viceroy in Goa was empowered to "destroy all Hindu Temples, leaving not a single one of them in any of the islands of Goa, and to confiscate the estates of all these temples for the maintenance of the churches which are to be erected in place of these hateful temples."

Within decades of their occupation of small coastal parts, they had destroyed, according to their own records, 601 temples in 131 villages--all important Christian Orders taking part in this pious work. Franciscan friars destroyed 300 Hindu temples in Bardez, Jesuits 280 in Salsete. 

St. Francis Xavier came to India with the firm resolve of uprooting paganism from the soil of India and planting Christianity in its place. His saying and doings have been documented in his numerous biographies. St. Francis Xavier, after whom many schools and colleges are named in our country, wrote back home, "As soon as I arrived in any heathen village, when all are baptized, I order all the temples of their false gods to be destroyed and all the idols to be broken to pieces. I can give you no idea of the joy I feel in seeing this done."

According to a Christian historian, Dr. T. R. de Souza: 

"At least from 1540 onwards, and in the island of Goa before that year, all the Hindu idols had been annihilated or had disappeared, all the temples had been destroyed and their sites and building material was in most cases utilized to erect new Christian Churches and chapels. Various viceregal and Church council decrees banished the Hindu priests from the Portuguese territories; the public practices of Hindu rites including marriage rites, were banned; the state took upon itself the task of bringing up Hindu orphan children; the Hindus were denied certain employments, while the Christians were preferred; it was ensured that the Hindus would not harass those who became Christians, and on the contrary, the Hindus were obliged to assemble periodically in Churches to listen to preaching or to the refutation of their religion."

"A particularly grave abuse was practiced in Goa in the form of 'mass baptism' and what went before it. The practice was begun by the Jesuits and was alter initiated by the Franciscans also. The Jesuits staged an annual mass baptism on the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul (January 25), and in order to secure as many neophytes as possible, a few days before the ceremony the Jesuits would go through the streets of the Hindu quarter in pairs, accompanied by their Negro slaves, whom they would urge to seize the Hindus. When the blacks caught up a fugitive, they would smear his lips with a piece of beef, making him an 'untouchable' among his people. Conversion to Christianity was then his only option."

The Goan inquisition is regarded by all contemporary portrayals as the most violent inquisition ever executed by the Portuguese Catholic Church. It lasted from 1560 to 1812. The inquisition was set as a tribunal, headed by a judge, sent to Goa from Portugal and was assisted by two judicial henchmen. The judge was answerable to no one except to Lisbon and handed down punishments as he saw fit. The Inquisition Laws filled 230 pages and the palace where the Inquisition was conducted was known as the Big House and the Inquisition proceedings were always conducted behind closed shutters and closed doors. The screams of agony of the culprits (men, women, and children) could be heard in the streets, in the stillness of the night, as they were brutally interrogated, flogged, and slowly dismembered in front of their relatives. Eyelids were sliced off and extremities were amputated carefully, a person could remain conscious even though the only thing that remained was his torso and a head.

Diago de Boarda, a priest and his advisor Vicar General, Miguel Vazz had made a 41 point plan for torturing Hindus. Under this plan Viceroy Antano de Noronha issued in 1566, an order applicable to the entire area under Portuguese rule :

"I hereby order that in any area owned by my master, the king, nobody should construct a Hindu temple and such temples already constructed should not be repaired without my permission. If this order is transgressed, such temples shall be, destroyed and the goods in them shall be used to meet expenses of holy deeds, as punishment of such transgression."

In 1567 the campaign of destroying temples in Bardez met with success. At the end of it 300 Hindu temples were destroyed. Enacting laws, prohibition was laid from December 4, 1567 on rituals of Hindu marriages, sacred thread wearing and cremation. All the persons above 15 years of age were compelled to listen to Christian preaching, failing which they were punished. 

A religious fatva was issued on the basis of the findings of Goa Inquiry Commission. It stated,"...Hereby we declare the decision that the conventions mentioned in the preamble of the fatva as stated below are permanently declared as useless, and therefore prohibited".

Prohibitions Regarding Marriages

• The instruments for Hindu songs shall not be played.
• While giving dowry the relatives of the bride and groom must not be invited.
• At the time of marriage, betel leaf packages (pan) must not be distributed either publicly or in private to the persons present.
• Flowers, or fried puris, betel nuts and leaves must not be sent to the heads of the houses of the bride or groom.
• Gotraj ceremony of family God must not be performed.
• On the day prior to a wedding, rice must not be husked, spices must not be pounded, grains must not be ground and other recipes for marriage feast must not be cooked.
• Pandals and festoons must not be used.
• Pithi should not be applied.
• The bride must not be accorded ceremonial welcome. The bride and groom must not be made to sit under pandal to convey blessings and best wishes to them.

Prohibitions Regarding Fasts, Post-death Rituals

• The poor must not be fed or ceremonial meals must not be served for the peace of the souls of the dead.
• There should be no fasting on ekadashi day.
• Fasting can be done according to the Christian principles.
• No rituals should be performed on the twelfth day after death, on moonless and full moon dates.
• No fasting should be done during lunar eclipse. 

Conventions

• Hindu men should not wear dhoti either in public or in their houses. Women should not wear cholis .
• They should not plant Tulsi in their houses, compounds, gardens or any other place.

Following the law of 1567, orphans were kidnapped for converting them to Christianity.

On September 22, 1570 an order was issued that :

• The Hindus embracing Christianity will be exempted from land taxes for a period of 15 years.
• Nobody shall bear Hindu names or surnames.

In 1583 Hindu temples at Esolna and Kankolim were destroyed through army action.

"The fathers of the Church forbade the Hindus under terrible penalties the use of their own sacred books, and prevented them from all exercise of their religion. They destroyed their temples, and so harassed and interfered with the people that they abandoned the city in large numbers, refusing to remain any longer in a place where they had no liberty, and were liable to imprisonment, torture and death if they worshipped after their own fashion the gods of their fathers." wrote  Sasetti, who was in India from 1578 to 1588. 

An order was issued in June 1684 eliminating Konkani language and making it compulsory to speak Portuguese language. The law provided for dealing toughly with anyone using the local language. Following that law all the symbols of non-Christian sects were destroyed and the books written in local languages were burnt. 

The Archbishop living on the banks of the Ethora had said during one of his lecture series, "The post of Inquiry Commission in Goa is regarded as holy." The women who opposed the assistants of the commission were put behind the bars and were used by them to satisfy their animal instincts. Then they were burnt alive as opponents of the established tenets of the Catholic church.

The victims of such inhuman laws of the Inquiry Commission included a French traveller named Delone. He was an eye witness to the atrocities, cruelty and reign of terror unleashed by priests. He published a book in 1687 describing the lot of helpless victims. While he was in jail he had heard the cries of tortured people beaten with instruments having sharp teeth. All these details are noted in Delone's book. 

So harsh and notorious was the inquisition in Goa, that word of its brutality and horrors reached Lisbon but nothing was done to stop this notoriety and escalating barbarity and it continued for two hundred more years. No body knows the exact number of Goans subjected to these diabolical tortures, but perhaps it runs into hundreds of thousands, may be even more. The abominations of inquisitions continued until a brief respite was given in 1774 but four years later, the inquisition was introduced again and it continued un-interruptedly until 1812. At that point in time, in the year of 1812, the British put pressure on the Portuguese to put an end to the terror of Inquisition and the presence of British troops in Goa enforced the British desire. Also the Portuguese power at this time was declining and they could not fight the British. The palace of the Grand Inquisitor, the Big House, was demolished and no trace of it remains today, which might remind someone of inquisitions and the horrors inside this Big House that their great saint Francis Xavier had commenced.

Dr. Trasta Breganka Kunha, a Catholic citizen of Goa writes, "Inspite of all the mutilations and concealment of history, it remains an undoubted fact that religious conversion of Goans is due to methods of force adopted by the Portuguese to establish their rule. As a result of this violence the character of our people was destroyed. The propagation of Christian sect in Goa came about not by religious preaching but through the methods of violence and pressure. If any evidence is needed for this fact, we can obtain it through law books, orders and reports of the local rulers of that time and also from the most dependable documents of the Christian sect itself."