The movement was conducted both inside and outside Goa, and was characterised by a range of tactics including nonviolent demonstrations, revolutionary methods and diplomatic efforts.
By the end of the 19th century, Portuguese colonies in India were limited to Goa, Daman, Diu, Dadra, Nagar Haveli and Anjediva Island.
In reaction to growing dissent, the Portuguese government in Goa implemented policies which curtailed civil liberties, including censorship of the press.
The Portuguese governor of Goa was empowered to suspend publication, close down printing presses and impose heavy fines on newspapers which refused to comply with these policies.
Many Goans criticised the curtailing of press freedoms, stating that the only newspapers and periodicals the Portuguese permitted them to publish were pro-colonialist propaganda materials.
[7] Menezes Bragança organised a rally in Margao denouncing the law and, for some time, the Goans received the same rights as mainland Portuguese.
[8] However, the Portuguese Catholic Church strongly supported pro-colonial policies and attempted to influence Goan Christians to oppose the independence movement.
Along with activist Juliao Menezes, he hosted a pro-independence gathering lohia maidan, margao in 1946 where the crowd responded by hailing India, Gandhi and the two men, leading to the duo's arrest by colonial authorities who feared civil unrest.
[citation needed] During the mid-1940s, a number of new political parties emerged in Goa, each having a conflicting agenda and perspective in relation to achieving Goan independence and autonomy.
In response to Gandhi's suggestion, the different Goan political factions met in Bombay in June 1947 to formally launch a campaign demanding that the Portuguese government "quit India".
Similarly, the partition of India and the Indo-Pakistani War of 1947 diverted the focus of the national Indian leadership from the anti-colonial struggles in the Portuguese and French colonies.
In July 1946, a public meeting was held which openly petitioned the Salazar administration to grant autonomy to the Estado da India.
The meeting was facilitated by José Inácio de Loyola, and inspired the formation of a committee chaired by Uday Bhembre to pursue autonomy.
Bhembre's committee failed to provoke a response from the Portuguese administration, and subsequently the last demand for autonomy was made by Purushottam Kakodkar in early 1961.
The Portuguese, who valued their strategic Indian colonial outposts, were unwilling to negotiate and by 1948, the Goan anti-colonial movement had virtually disbanded.
[6] In 1953, Tristão de Bragança Cunha formed the Goa Action Committee to coordinate the various anti-colonial groups working independently in Mumbai.
On 15 August 1954, a mass satyagraha was instigated; however, despite the use of non-violent civil disobedience protest strategies, the Portuguese authorities assaulted and arrested many participants.
The Jana Sangh leader, Karnataka Kesari Jagannathrao Joshi, led 3,000 protesters including women, children and Indians from Maharashtra state, through the Goa border.
Hence, in order for India to avoid NATO involvement in Goa, the Indian government was impeded from speaking out against Portugal's response to satyagraha protest actions.
[citation needed] The Communist Party of India decided to send batches of satyahrahis since the middle of 1955 to the borders of Goa and even inside.
With the exception of a small number of satyagrahas and the activities of the All-Goa Political Party Committee, lacking the support of the national Indian government, the anti-colonial movement lost its momentum.
On 18 June 1954, Satyagrahis infiltrated Goa and hoisted the Indian flag; however, the demonstrators and suspected sympathisers were arrested, and anti-colonialist activists Dr. Gaitonde and Shriyut Deshpande were deported to Portugal.
[8] On 21 July 1954, the revolutionaries forced the Portuguese to retreat from Dadra, a small landlocked territory bordering Nagar Haveli under leaders like Francis Mascarenhas, Narayan Palekar, Parulekar, Vaz, Rodriguez, Cunha.
Both enclaves instead functioned as de facto independent states, administered by a self-declared government called the Varishta Panchayat of Free Dadra and Nagar Haveli.
[8] The Portuguese responded to the Satyagrahas, which continued throughout 1955, by sealing Goa's borders in an attempt to curb the growing illegal immigration from India.
Anant Priolkar also wrote many articles and books, claiming that Konkani language was a dialect of Marathi and so Goa needed to be merged with Maharashtra.