A Brief Comparative Study of Lusitization in Goa and Burmanization in Myanmar

“Currently published as an English daily in Goa, O Heraldo was originally established as the first daily newspaper in the Portuguese language in India on January 22, 1900. Founded by Professor Aleixo Messias Gomes, it became the longest-running Portuguese newspaper outside of Brazil and Portugal.” Source: O Heraldo at 125–22 January 2025 | O Heraldo

The 20th century was defined by the collapse of empires and the birth of nation-states. However, the transition from “subject” to “citizen” was rarely a linear path. In many regions, the departure of a colonial power simply revealed a deeper struggle: the fight for the right to remain culturally distinct.

In Goa, this struggle was directed against Lusitization — the 450-year Portuguese project to transform an Indian coastal society into a Lusophone, Catholic outpost of Europe. In Burma (now Myanmar), the struggle evolved differently. Following British withdrawal, the nation fell into the grip of Burmanization — an internal colonial project where the majority Bamar ethnic group sought to impose its language, religion, and customs on a highly diverse frontier.

While one was a project of an overseas empire and the other an ethnonationalist project of a domestic military, both utilized the same tools: linguistic suppression, religious privilege, brutal ethnic/racial dominance, and the rewriting of history.

Lusitization and the Provincial Illusion

Portuguese colonialism in Goa was distinct from British or French models. Under the Estado Novo (New State) regime of António de Oliveira Salazar, Goa was not a “colony” but an “Overseas Province.” The goal of Lusitization was the total assimilation of the Goan into the Portuguese identity — a concept known as Luso-tropicalism.

The Portuguese believed they had a civilizing mission (missão civilizadora). Lusitization was the cultural byproduct of this mission. It aimed to create a class of Goans who were Portuguese in every sense except for their geographic location. Portuguese was the only language of administration, law, and high society. Konkani, the native tongue, was derided as a dialect or “kitchen language,” and lesser than Portuguese. Schools focused on Portuguese history, literature, geography, and culture, effectively attempting to erase the Indian regional and subcontinental context from the minds of the youth. While the brutal period of the Goa Inquisition had long passed by the 20th century, Catholicism remained a primary product of Lusitization. To be “properly” Portuguese often implied a Catholic identity, creating a socio-economic divide between the Catholic elite and the Hindu majority. The Estatuto do Funcionalismo Ultramarino (Overseas Civil Service Statute) ensured that those who embraced Portuguese culture had access to the bureaucracy, further incentivizing the abandonment of indigenous roots.

The liberation movement in Goa was as much a psychological battle as it was a political one. Tristão de Bragança Cunha, often called the “Father of Goan Nationalism,” identified Lusitization as a form of “denationalization.” He argued that the Portuguese had successfully made Goans feel ashamed of their Indian heritage. The resistance, therefore, focused on re-Indianization. This involved: i) promoting Konkani and Marathi literature; ii) highlighting Goa’s historical links to the Maratha Empire and the wider Indian freedom struggle; and iii) challenging the notion that Goan culture was a mere Eastern version of Lisbon.

The liberation in 1961 by the Indian Army (Operation Vijay) ended the political occupation, but the de-Lusitization of the mind took decades. Even today, Goa exists in a unique state of hybridity, where Portuguese architecture and civil codes exist alongside a staunchly Indian political identity.

Burmanization — The Internal Colonialism

If Lusitization was an attempt to turn Indians into Europeans, Burmanization (Bama-san-jin) is the attempt to turn Kachins, Karens, Shans, Rohingyas and so many other ethnic communities into “Bamar” — or persecute them completely for resisting.

Following independence from Britain in 1948, Burma initially experimented with a federal democracy. However, the 1962 military coup by General Ne Win set the country on a path of radical ethnonationalism. The military (Tatmadaw) argued that for the nation to stay united, it needed a singular identity. The military government implemented a “one language, one religion, one nation” policy. Burmese was made the mandatory medium of instruction in all schools across ethnic states. Teaching ethnic languages during school hours was often banned or criminalized. This led to a generational loss of literacy in mother tongues like Jinghpaw or Sgaw Karen. Furthermore, although Myanmar is home to Christians, Muslims, and Animists, the state promoted Theravada Buddhism as the unofficial state religion. The “Protection of Race and Religion” laws were used to marginalize non-Buddhist minorities, most tragically seen in the genocide against the Rohingya. The military junta positioned itself as the only institution capable of protecting the “Burmese” way of life. This created a narrative where any demand for ethnic autonomy was seen as an act of treason.

The pro-democracy movement, led by the National League for Democracy (NLD) and later the National Unity Government (NUG), has faced a complex challenge. For many years, even the democratic opposition was accused of being “Bamar-centric.” The 2021 coup changed the landscape. The younger generation of Bamar protesters (Gen Z) began to realize that the same military that suppressed their democracy had been committing atrocities in ethnic states for decades. This has led to a historic shift: the democracy movement is now increasingly embracing Federalism — the idea that Myanmar must be a union of equals, not a Bamar-dominated monolith.

Comparative Analysis

In Goa, the “Other” was the European occupier. This made the liberation movement a classic anti-colonial struggle. In Myanmar, the “Other” is the internal ethnic minority. This makes the struggle for democracy in Myanmar much more volatile today, as it is a fight against “fellow countrymen”.

Both systems used religion as a tool of statecraft, but with different results. Lusitization used Catholicism to link Goa to the Mediterranean world, creating a distinct “Luso-Indian” identity that eventually became a point of pride for many Goans. Burmanization uses Buddhism to exclude. By tying national identity to a specific faith, the state automatically casts those of other faiths as “foreigners” or “infiltrators.”

Goa’s post-liberation history is one of successful (if sometimes tense) integration. The “hybrid” identity of Goa is now seen as a tourism and cultural asset. Myanmar, however, remains fractured. Because Burmanization was enforced through extreme military violence, it has met with armed resistance. The liberation of Myanmar remains an ongoing, bloody conflict because the state refuses to accept a pluralistic identity.

The Global Context — Decolonizing the Mind

What both Goa and Myanmar teach us is that sovereignty is not necessarily liberation. A country can be sovereign (like Myanmar) but still be “colonized” by its own majority. Conversely, a territory can be “occupied” (like Goa was) and develop a rich, syncretic culture that survives the occupier. The liberation of Goa from Lusitization was completed not when the Portuguese left, but when the Goan people reclaimed Konkani and Indian democracy as their own. It was a victory of the indigenous over the imperial.

The liberation of Myanmar from Burmanization is the unfinished work of the 21st century. It requires the Bamar majority to relinquish the privilege of the center and accept a decentralized, federal future. The takeaway is clear: Lusitization was a colonial project of assimilation — Burmanization is a post-colonial project of erasure. One ended with an integration into a larger democracy; the other remains the primary obstacle to democracy itself.