Karnail Singh Isru

Karnail Singh Isru

Subject: History

Section: Modern India

Context: On India’s Independence Day, Punjab Chief Minister paid homage to activist Karnail Singh Isru, who died on the same day in 1955 while participating in the Goa Liberation Movement.

Who was Karnail Singh Isru:

• Karnail Singh Isru was born on September 9, 1930, in the Chak 30 village of the Lyallpur district that is now in Pakistan.
• He was married to Charanjeet Kaur
• He joined the Communist Party of India (CPI) and became part of the Goa Liberation Movement, which aimed to hoist the Indian flag in Goa.
• Isru left his home to join the movement without informing his family and was part of a group of Satyagarhis led by Sahodrabai Rai.
• However, upon entering Patradevi village in Goa, Portuguese forces opened fire, and Isru was fatally shot in the chest at the age of 25.

What was the Goa Liberation Movement:

• Goa became a Portuguese colony in 1510 when Admiral Afonso de Albuquerque defeated the forces of Bijapur’s sultan, Yusuf Adil Shah.
• Goa started to witness an upsurge of nationalist sentiment against colonial rule in the early 20th Century. Leaders such as Tristão de Bragança Cunha, celebrated as the father of Goan nationalism, founded the Goa National Congress at the Calcutta session of the Indian National Congress in 1928.
• In 1946, the socialist leader Ram Manohar Lohia led a historic rally in Goa that gave a call for civil liberties and freedom, and eventual integration with India, which became a watershed moment in Goa’s freedom struggle.

What is Operation Vijay’:

• Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru ordered a military intervention for the liberation of Goa after all the diplomatic talks failed with the Portuguese, thereby launching Operation Vijay on 17th December 1961.
• The operation lasted for two days and was done with minimal bloodshed.
• The Portuguese Governor General Vassalo da Silva was coerced to give up control of Goa with which Goa finally became independent and a part of India.
• Major-General K. P. Candeth was appointed as the military governor of Goa and kept directly under the administration of the President of India.

Some more facts:

• There was a referendum held in 1967 in Goa to let people of Goa choose between continuing as a UT or to merge with Maharashtra.
• This referendum, which is the only referendum to have been conducted in independent India, is famously known as Goa Opinion Poll. People of Goa chose to continue as a UT.