Word: maharashtra
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...Maharashtra, India...
...issue at hand was whether Goa, after 451 years of Portuguese rule and five years as a semiautonomous "union territory" of India, should give up its separate identity and become part of teeming Maharashtra state (pop. 39.5 million). The decision was to be made by Goan voters in an "opinion poll" conducted by the Indian government, and the two goddesses did not have the field entirely to themselves. Opposing the merger were the leaders of Goa's 250,000 Roman Catholics, a powerful force in themselves. "Think Goan," pleaded priests from their pulpits, while Catholic politicians of the United...
...gods: they made so many of them. Shanta Durga is a ten-handed goddess revered by the 400,000 Hindus in the former Portuguese enclave of Goa. Bhaväni is a ten-handed goddess considered to be the source of all power in the neighboring Indian state of Maharashtra. Last week Bhaväni and Shanta Durgá tried to join hands. Carried by Hindu nationalists, images of the two goddesses were paraded through the streets of scores of Goan villages, together with posters proclaiming: "After 450 years, Bhaväni wills to be reunited with Shanta Durga. Vote...
Behind the purely religious battle lay factors less obvious but no less persuasive. Goan Catholics were fighting to hold on to the preferential status accorded them by the Portuguese and continued by the Indian government after "union." Many Goan Hindus, on the other hand, have relatives in Maharashtra, and most speak a dialect of the Marathi language. But the determining question was whether Goa should cease to exist. In exchange for the territory's own legislature, established three years ago by New Delhi, all the promerger forces could offer were four seats in the Maharashtra state assembly, a pitiful...
Thus, despite the Hindus' numerical superiority, Goans rejected the merger with Maharashtra by a vote of 172,191 to 138,170. In the territorial capital of Panjim, the results were cheered by a crowd of 10,000, who danced in the streets carrying branches symbolic of victory, set off firecrackers, and created such a joyous disturbance that the government had to call in police with tear gas to restore order. Goa is not yet gone...