«A Western Light in Eastern Lands»: The Study Missions to the Estado da Índia and the Development of an Indo-Lusotropicalist Rhetoric

Abstract

The aim of this essay is to analyze the goals and achievements of the study missions carried out in the Estado da Índia (State of India) during the 1950s, as well as the ensuing propaganda based on an ideological rhetoric promoting the existence of a kind of Lusotropicalism with an Indo-Portuguese strand, also denominated IndoLusotropicalism. This was crucial to the aspirations of the Estado Novo’s (New State) political propaganda, namely to legitimate Portuguese claims in India, as well as claims to the heritage of Goa, Daman and Diu. In fact, it involved the development of a kind of ‘Indo-Portuguese orientalism’ within Lusotropicalism, clearly differentiated from other forms of Orientalism in other Western countries. An analysis of the works produced by these study missions confirms how the Estado da Índia was intended to be seen by the world according to the Portuguese dictatorial regime: a territory completely different from India and, by contrast, fully integrated into a Lusotropicalist world entirely connected with Portugal yet still maintaining its own specific characteristics. The distinct scopes of the study missions suggest an analysis organized in different sections within this chapter, according to their respective branches of knowledge.