Icons of Colonialism: India must reassess its cultural ‘heroes’ and retell their history truthfully – Shefali Vaidya

So many statues of past heroes are falling all over the world, including that of slave trader Edward Colston in Bristol, King Leopold II in Antwerp, Christopher Columbus in Boston and Junipero Serra in San Francisco in a spontaneous public movement.It is a sign that ordinary people everywhere are demanding a fresh look at their history.

A few days ago, protestors in the US toppled statues of Spanish missionary Junipero Serra at several places in California. Junipero Serra was a  Spanish evangelist from the 18th century. He established 21 Catholic missions in California. These missions  were an integral part of Serra’s mission to convert the indigenous population of California to Christianity.

These missions alienated thousands of Native Americans from their own culture and traditions and forced them into penury. Thousands perished due to disease as the Missions forced an alien way of life on them. The mission buildings and the huge estates they amassed were built using slave labour extracted from the Native American population.

In 2015, Vatican canonised Serra as a Roman Catholic saint. At the time, many groups of Native Americans had protested, expressing their distress at the Vatican’s decision to turn the perpetrator of a cultural genocide into a hero.

The Pechanga Band of Luiseño Indians had written an open letter to Pope Francis. The tribe’s letter accused Serra of wiping out the tribe’s population using repressive tactics. The letter said: “In just one generation, the total population of all Payómkawichum (Luiseño) villages suffered a greater than 90 per cent population loss through disease and abuse brought by Fr. Serra’s missionisation. Fr. Serra’s mission system killed between 9,000 and 13,500 of our ancestors.”

The Pechanga Band of Luiseño Indians had accused Serra of triggering a collapse of the tribe’s indigenous societal structure. They also accused him of “setting in motion, atrocities and hardships that our people endured for nearly two centuries”.

When the imposing statue of Junipero Serra was toppled from its pedestal at the Golden Gate park a few days ago, there were few tears shed for the Spanish Missionary. Many “Indian liberal intellectuals” too had openly welcomed the toppling of statues of past colonisers.

However, these same people are curiously silent on India’s own Junipero Serra whose statues dominate many street squares in India and whose body lies in a Church in Goa venerated by millions. His name is Francis Xavier. It is time Indians took a hard new look at the activities of Francis Xavier and how it affected the native population of India.

Francis Xavier was a Jesuit missionary who was sent to Indian colonies of Portugal by King Joao III of Portugal on a mission to convert the people of Goa to Christianity. Francis Xavier landed in Goa, the centre of Portuguese activity in the East at the time, on 6 May 1542. Even before the arrival of Francis Xavier in Goa, two Portuguese Governors, Minguel Vaz and Diago Borba, had already started a Portuguese state-sponsored pogrom for proselytisation of the native Hindu and Muslim population of Goa and had carried out large-scale demolitions of  Hindu temples.

Francis Xavier worked hard at converting the native Hindus to Christianity. He harboured a deep distrust for Hindus and described them as “idolators”. His utter contempt for the local Hindus and his hatred for the Hindu faith is reflected in his own writings in several places. Some of his quotes [from Jesuit Sources] regarding Hindus are as follows: