A memorable talk… on the late Bhausahab Bandodkar, the first chief minister of Goa, Daman and Diu by Dr Raghunath Mashelkar on the occasion of his 50th Death Anniversary

HAVE to say it. I constantly get interested in stories about the first chief minister of Goa, Dayanand Bandodkar, more popularly called Bhausaheb Bandodkar. I ask around and am told he was a most charismatic personality with a whimsical side to him like on a good day instead of attending the Legislative Assembly he would abscond to watch a cricket match or play himself…at his favourite venue, the Panjim Gymkhana on a good day. If capital city Panjim or Panaji has a good gymkhana it is thanks to Bhausaheb, it was a second home for him.
I am only sorry his memorial at Miramar beach is mostly a closed affair and not at all like the breezy open-air loveliness of late chief minister Manohar Parrikar’s more recent memorial, which anybody can walk through and there’s a guard here to make sure you do no harm – can sit here and brood a bit about what kind of a man and chief minister Parrikar was! Also it’s a friendly enough place to meet friends here to go for a walk down Miramar beach.
In comparison, the old attached Bhausaheb Bandodkar samadhi memorial is like a prison and I’m sure a man like the first chief minister of Goa would have hated this kind of a caged memorial. I wish somebody would do something about it! Who? The government of current Chief Minister Pramod Sawant of course – there’s every reason why the first and much loved chief minister of Goa should not be a public memorial open to Goans and tourists alike to visit whenever they wish and not just on Independence Day. Somebody needs to get into action mode quickly please!
THIS said I must confess Rajan Narayan is a fund of information and when I asked him about the first chief minister of Goa, he said he had come to Goa much later but he got to know about him through the eyes of Goans who were familiar with his life and times, “The worst thing he did was marry his daughter Shashikala to a bamon! I remember an occasion when he said nasty things about her in public…and this was when she was the chief minister of Goa, but she would be quiet and put up with her husband’s nastiness. It must have been a tough marriage for her, but she was not as good a chief minister as her father. In the end Pratapsingh Raoji Rane toppled her government to become chief minister himself. According to me Rane was best chief minister of Goa although ten days after I came from Bombay to edit the `OHeraldo,’ to turn it around from an antiquated Portuguese society paper to Goa’s first investigative newspaper – I carried a report about a Kala Academy Independence Day performance and Mrs Vijayadevi Rane wanted to call the shots about the artistes’ costumes. It was not a flattering report but an angry Pratapsingh Raoji Rane told my proprietor to sack me because I was a baile (outsider)! Mercifully, my proprietor the old man Fernandes had the guts to tell Rane he was paying my salary and not him…”
The next 20 years were a huge challenge for him, says Rajan, who knows things behind the political scenes which can make your hair rise. Of course in the old days there wasn’t so much corruption or crime around, “Bhausahab was not corrupt as far as I know although those who followed were gradually more and more so till today…I have lost interest in politics now, it’s making me more sick…”
ALL this said by way of interesting trivia he told me enough to make me want to go and listen to one of Goa’s illustrious sons Dr Raghunath Mashelkar (FRS) on the occasion of the 50th death anniversary of Bhausaheb Bandodkar at the Panjim Gymkhana on August 12, 2023. Dr Mashelkar (in his 80 something years now and very fit) delivering the memorial lecture (actually being held for the first time). His was a low-key and humorous talk titled “Building New India as an Exponential Inspirator” and many Goan bigwigs and dignitaries were present with Chief Minister Pramod Sawant who came with his daughter and he sat on the podium listening to the talk.
To sum it up what did the good Dr Raghunath (also Ramesh) Mashelkar say: Basically, don’t despair, the country’s economy is all set to boom exponentially and there’s every reason to have faith and trust in the country’s young generation which is no longer enamoured with the idea of running away abroad where their brains get better appreciated materially and immaterially too. He didn’t dwell too much on Bhausaheb Bandodkar except to say he was a most generous chief minister but didn’t tolerate anyone asking favours out of turn, as chief minister he would send someone he suspects to be dishonest or corrupt on an undesirable posting!
Niz Goenkars know that it is thanks to Goa’s remarkable and sensitive first chief minister that Goa enjoys the status of being an educated state with the highest per capita income in the country….it was Bhausaheb who started hundreds of schools to make sure the poorest of the poor got access to free education (in those days the language was Marathi, although during the Portuguese regime mother tongue Konkani with no script to boast about was frowned upon and you learned in Portuguese officially or unofficially in the Marathi schools landlords conducted for their working labour and household staff privately)…but after Liberation in 1961 it was Goa first chief minister, Bhausaheb Bandodkar who saw it that there were ample funds to start formal education schools.
Goa’s first chief minister comes across as a fun-loving, sensitive and sporting personality who imbibed Goa’s cosmopolitan Goan-Portuguese-Indian fusion cultural mores in the very best sense and didn’t brood about past history …it’s a pity he succumbed to a massive heart attack on August 12, 1973 when he was only 62 years old. It happened while he was playing a table tennis game with champion Vero Nunes that fateful evening at the gymkhana and was rushed to the old GMC in Panjim (where INOX now stands) but doctors couldn’t save him. It was a sad day for Goa and Goans mourned him emotionally as a man to remember in gratitude, he made a difference for the better to the many who otherwise would never have made it through the impoverishment of the times.
From Dr Mashelkar’s few reminiscences in his memorial talk, Goa’s first chief minister was also generous with granting scholarships to poor students, and he loved to give away cricket bats at cricket matches to winners and these were imported bats he got while travelling abroad! (Sigh) I don’t think Goa has seen another chief minister quite as engaging as the first chief minister…although the times, they change, as do situations which are worrying.
What remains longest in my memory to brood about is Dr Mashelkar’s analogy about how the mind is a like a parachute, you have to keep it open to save yourself! A bit like what the Mahatma Gandhi once said about keeping the windows of your mind open so that all kinds of influential winds may blow in and out – but you stay stable and don’t get blown away.
Now look up Dr Mashelkar, he is Goa’s most notable scientist internationally and to him is credited a host of innovative systems including pioneering Gandhian principles to make a little go a long way or expotentially! Comes from impoverished circumstances in childhood with a hardworking mother, he had to overcame a lot of hardships with a little bit of help and kindness from his benefactors like the first chief minister of Goa, Dayanand Bandodkar.
THIS is to say it was a memorable memorial lecture reviving the life and times of Goa’s most dynamic chief minister to date…and in whose footwear few chief ministers have made it so far; sorry, I would say not even U-turn master Manohar Parrikar if you don’t mind me saying it here! Parrikar had a few charming facets to his personality but I don’t think he comes anywhere close to fitting into Dayanand Bandodkar’s footwear — be they imported shoes or desi chappals — by any stretch of imagination.