As the capital of theEstado da India, the Portuguese colonial empire in Asia and East Africa, Goa was subjected to a blizzard of policies designed at once to transform and fossilize life there. Desiring to preserve much of the precolonial village economic structure, yet determined to force their Goan subjects to total conversion to Catholicism, the Portuguese created policies that had a dramatic impact on Goan culture and identity. The focus of this article will be on the Hindu resistance to the policies that were appiled by the colonial regime and its role in the shaping of the regional culture: in the face of over-whelming physical force, direct defiance revealed itself primarily in the religious life of Hindu Goa as archival records of the Portuguese rule and temple histories demonstrate. Even formsof religious syncretism that are pervasive in Catholic Goa and might initially be perceived as indications of the success of Portuguese repressive and discriminatory policies represent a subtle pattern of ‘everday resistnce’ and are not simply the blending of Portuguese Catholic and Hindu cultures.

In the Indian state of Goa, communally owned agricultural land has persisted through indigenous state rule, colonial occupation and postcolonial liberation. We show that in Goa, and indeed elsewhere in the world, communally owned land provides protection against scarcity, risk, and state revenue demands in wet rice agriculture. When wet rice agriculture is the primary agricultural activity, communally owned land is an effective way to utilize resources. These findings add to the literature that challenges the inevitability of the tragedy of commonly owned resources.

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