Goan freedom fighter dies a destitute in Mumbai -Herald

February 16, 2013 LISA ANN MONTEIRO PANJIM: Goa’s liberation meant everything to Dr Laura D’Souza Rodrigues. Back in her heydays she fought for her State like there was no tomorrow. She spoke up when she was silenced, crossed the border when she wasn’t allowed to. She spent nights in jail and got beaten by the police until she finally tasted freedom together with other Goans. Fellow freedom fighters Flaviano Dias and Urcelino Almeida remember her as a spirited woman and a charismatic speaker both in Konkani and English. “She wouldn’t listen to anybody. She was a very strong and good woman,” says Urceline Andrade. Laura breathed her last at a destitute home ~ Asha Daan ~ in Byculla cared for by Missionaries of Charity sisters last week. Her memory had faded and she was bedridden. She spent almost six months in the home before she was taken to another home by nuns from Goregao. Later, she was hospitalized at St George Hospital and ready to be released. When no relatives showed up for two months, the police requested Asha Daan to keep her. “What do you want to know about her? Where were you when she was living?” asks a frustrated sister from the shelter. “She came here and died here just like all the other destitute people do. She’s in heaven now. The hospital didn’t even put a diaper on her when they sent her. She came here all dirty and we cleaned her all up. We’re not doing this for publicity. We’re doing this for God. We did our best for her when she was alive and perhaps that’s why she asked to be brought back here.” Prior to being bedridden, Laura would walk about with the help of a walker and entertain other inmates with her stories. The sisters remember her as being very stubborn. “Her daughter’s husband from Canada called up asking whether he could come and collect her. I told him to come but he never showed up. After she passed away they called asking for her clothes. I told them that she had just one set of clothes and even her cell phone was with the police.” Laura was one of the few active women in the freedom struggle from Bombay. Flaviano remembers that she joined the National Congress Goa demanding that its President Peter Alvares offer Satyagraha. “We wanted him to remain our leader and we knew that he would be arrested no sooner he crossed the border so we refused. She fell out and started a parallel party National Congress (Goa) and became its President. She crossed the border and was imprisoned.” In his book Who’s Who of Freedom Fighters, PP Shirodkar writes that Laura gave up her lucrative medical practise to join Goa’s freedom movement. She worked as an active member of the Bombay Pradesh Congress Committee since 1952. She was elected the President of the Goan Women’s Association in Bombay in 1952. She organised the Goan’s Residential Club in Bombay in 1955 which had 50,000 members who strongly supported Goa’s liberation movement. Later she organised a mass rally of Goans in Bombay on Loyd’s reclamation grounds demanding that the Portuguese quit Goa. A multifaceted personality, she edited the English weekly ‘Konkan Life’ and even took up labour causes. During 1956-58 she was the office bearer of several social and labour associations in Bombay. She defied the ban on the Goa border by entering Goa four times. She was arrested and imprisoned in 1958 when she had entered Goa by the Majali route to elicit support for a freedom pledge and was released after one month. In 1961 she led a delegation of Goa Ashram together with Prof Lucio Rodrigues to Nairobi to meet Goans and African leaders under the pretext of singing Goan songs and reciting Goan literature. At their invitation, Tom Mboya the then General Secretary of the Kenya African National Union (KANU) arrived in Bombay in September 1961 to address Goans before proceeding to Delhi to meet Prime Minister Nehru. Upon her return to Goa a few months prior to the Liberation she was re-arrested and imprisoned. She was kept in solitary confinement, abused and subjected to indignity. Post liberation she was appointed member of the Consultative Committee of the Lt Governor and elected Secretary of the Goa Pradesh Congress Committee. She was awarded the Tamrapatra by the Central Government in 1973. Dr Joe D’Souza who is a relation of the family says Laura was married to Bernard with whom she had two children Leslie and Ivy. Later, when he passed away she married Konkani essayist Professor Luis Rodrigues. Living in Bombay at the time, he remembers how she would receive beatings while crossing the border and take shelter at their home in Vadala. He remembers her daughter’s wedding at the Taj in Bombay and little else as he lost contact with her when she left for Canada. Laura’s son is no more. She has a daughter living in Dubai and a granddaughter in Canada. http://www.oheraldo.in/News/Main%20Page%20News/Goan-freedom-fighter-dies-a-destitute-in-Mumbai/70789.html