In February 1974, Indian President VV Giri and Prime Minister Indira Gandhi received a letter from Kerala with an unexpected request: “promoting a mass emigration of Indian peasants” to Brazil.
The letter had been sent by Mathew Pallithanam, the organising secretary of the Indo-Brazilian Friendship Association in the coastal city of Alleppey. Along with the letter, the association attached a detailed plan titled “An Inter-Continental Exodus” that described the proposed mass migration to Brazil as a “must for eradication of human starvation and poverty”.
“The sponsors of the proposal fervently hope that if it [the emigration] could be achieved, it would be an unprecedented step for the liberation of the suffering of millions of people in our country and for the welfare of all mankind,” Pallithanam wrote in the letter.
But why Brazil? “A vast country in the New World, nearly thrice larger than India in area and of surpassing natural facilities and potentialities, but only 1/7th of India in population has already stretched forth its hands to India for joint struggle for greater prosperity,” the proposal said.
It went on to add that Brazilian President Artur da Costa e Silva had discussed the idea with Indira Gandhi during her visit to the South American nation in 1968.
Diplomatic relations
Neither Pallithanam nor Costa e Silva was the first to suggest sending Indians to Brazil. As early as 1948, Mahatma Gandhi had spoken to lawyer and politician CP Ramaswamy Iyer about the prospect of resettling Partition refugees in the South American country – a conversation recorded by Iyer in Bhavan’s Journal, a publication of Bhartiya Vidya Bhavan, two decades later.
“It was indeed after a most friendly interview with him less than a month before his assassination that I undertook, in [the] course of my travels, a journey to Brazil where Gandhiji had asked me to find out if there was any scope for settlement of the refugees from Pakistan,” Iyer wrote.
While the authorities in Brazil might have supported the idea at the time, the possibility was ruled out because the diplomatic relations between the two countries were strained by the Brazilian support for the Portuguese position on Goa.
“While Brazil tried to explain to India that its position was to be understood in the context of a long tradition of friendship between Brazil and Portugal, the Indian government was deeply disappointed that Brazil, a democratic country and a former colony, would support a non-democratic Portugal against democratic and recently independent India,” German-Brazilian political scientist Oliver Stuenkel wrote in the Indian Foreign Affairs Journal in 2010. “The episode complicated ties significantly, especially because the campaign to integrate Goa into Indian territory was immensely popular among the Indians.”
Despite the uneasy diplomatic relations, Brazil’s doors seemed to remain open for Indians. “In 1958 the President of Brazil, in a message to Indian President Dr. Rajendra Prasad, officially invited Indian settlers to Brazil, assuring many facilities for migration and settlement,” the Indo-Brazilian Friendship Association said in its proposal. “At that time India had practically little trade with Brazil and the proposal had to be set aside for the lack of the foreign exchange needed for the purpose.”
Things changed after the 1961 liberation of Goa. Diplomatic relations between India and Brazil began to gradually improve and there were several high-level exchanges, leading up to Indira Gandhi’s visit to the South American country in 1968.
In its proposal, the Indo-Brazilian Friendship Association cited several reasons why the migration idea deserved another look. It mentioned Brazil’s need for immigrants to tap into its vast natural resources and added that there was immense goodwill for India in the country.
“With a traditionally inherent love for peace and very high educational attainments, Brazilians cherish the highest esteem for Gandhiji, Tagore and the people of India, and through their laws of emigration, provide immense promises for Indians to migrate to the country,” the letter said. “To cope with the immediate and far-reaching needs of India and mankind and in honourable acquittal of the avowed policies and programmes of joint efforts for a great and prosperous future, it has become a historic call for the Indian peasants today to migrate to Brazil.”
The association aimed big. It was not content with a small wave of migration and, instead, called for a million Indians to move to Brazil in the 1980s and another million in the 1990s. This included skilled and semi-skilled people, who could hardly be classified as “peasants”.
“The government of Brazil would most willingly allot a few million acres of land in the fertile Amazon basin or elsewhere to our emigrants on fair price and long-term installment payments with due recognition of citizenship rights and privileges as well,” the association wrote. “Per unit of hundred families in the community of emigrants, there should be one doctor, five nurses, one engineer, five agro-industrial experts (graduates or above), five teachers, and enough artists, musicians etc. for organised social services and entertainment of the unit.”
To manage the vast migration process, the association proposed the formation of an international statutory body with a share capital of US$100 billion. “The governments of India and Brazil may contribute 40 per cent each of the share capital, and the UNO 20 per cent,” it said. “Within the framework, there may be due margin for the people of the respective countries also to subscribe to the share capital.”
Another job, the association proposed, the new statutory body could do is finance the production of consumer goods and industrial equipment. “Indian peasants, especially Keralites, possess the necessary agro-industrial skills and talents,” it said. “But certain psychological and economic factors necessitate a corporate venture by India, Brazil and the United Nations.”
Finally, the association called on Catholic leaders in both countries to help Indian immigrants integrate into their new home. This was curious. There was nothing in the proposal to suggest it was meant only for Indian Catholics and the association clarified that the Catholic-majority South American country was officially secular and known for its religious tolerance.
Secret report
Both the Rashtrapati Bhavan and the Prime Minister’s Secretariat seriously considered the proposal from the Indo-Brazilian Friendship Association, but did not respond immediately. The director of the Prime Minister’s Secretariat forwarded the documents to the Ministry of External Affairs, which asked the Indian ambassador in Brasilia to study them in detail.
A few weeks later, the Americas division of the Indian foreign ministry submitted a secret and highly critical report.
“The question regarding the possibilities of emigration of Indians to Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina was taken up with the concerned governments through our missions since 1964,” the report said. “Though Paraguay and Argentina gave encouraging replies, the Brazilian government did not show any particular keenness in favour of Indians emigrating to Brazil.”
The Brazilian government definitely did not imagine the kind of migration numbers proposed by the Indo-Brazilian Friendship Association. Besides, the cost would have put it off, as it did the Indians.
The Indian foreign ministry’s report said the Cabinet Secretariat did not find the proposal feasible “mainly because of the huge involvement of foreign exchange”. Other reasons cited for the rejection were:
- There is no scope for settling a sizable number of Indians due to distance and cost involved.
- Assisted emigration is unlikely to solve our population problem.
- For much less cost, we could develop areas within India, which would relieve the pressure on congested areas.
- Untimely to consider such a scheme at a time when even those Indians settled abroad for a long time are facing situations which may force them to return to India.
In a handwritten response to the foreign ministry’s report, senior Indian diplomat Raj Krishna Tandon, who had served as ambassador to countries such as Ireland and the Netherlands, said “the semi-skilled or skilled immigrants, which the Brazilians most probably want, are the ones we can ill afford to lose... Besides, Brazil, most probably also wants foreign private investment, along with the skilled personnel. We can’t afford an outflow of capital in the foreseeable future.”
The ambitious proposal to send two million Indians to Brazil over two decades received a quick burial. Had it been implemented, one can only imagine the complications in the mass migration and its impact on India’s now-warm diplomatic relationship with Brazil.
Ajay Kamalakaran is a writer, primarily based in Mumbai. His Twitter handle is @ajaykamalakaran.
