Portuguese in India

Vasco da Gama was a Portuguese explorer and became the first European to reach India by sea in 1498. da Gama’s discovery unlocked trading potential with India for all European nations. 

In Unacademy’s Portuguese in India UPSC notes, we will discuss the advent of Portuguese in India, Portuguese expansion in India, and the subsequent decline of the Portuguese in India. 

The advent of Portuguese In India 

Vasco da Gama reached Calicut on the coast of Malabar on 20th May 1498 with the help of Arab navigator Abdul Majid. Upon his arrival, several of da Gama’s men were detained for the failure to pay the King of Calicut the required export tax. However, the Portuguese government saw the expedition as a relative success, who had found a way to reach India by sea, bypassing the Ottoman Empire. 

Portuguese Expansion in India 

• By 1503, the Portuguese in India had built themselves a fort in Cochin
• In 1510, Alfonso Albuqueruque captured Goa from the Sultanate of Bijapur. And by 1530, Goa has declared the capital of India
• By 1535 and 1559, Diu and Daman were also captured
• By the 17th century, the Portuguese no longer had the upper hand when it came to controlling seas and trade as the Dutch began to establish themselves in Southeast Asia and the Britishers started their campaign to colonize India
• Their influence on important cities like Surat and Bombay became negligible, and by the second half of the 17th century, the Portuguese lost their first on the Malabar Coast

The Decline of Portuguese in India

There were several reasons for the decline of the Portuguese in India

• The Portuguese had a wide proselytizing (conversion) campaign that had earned the wrath of many important people, including the Mughal Emperor
• As other European traders started developing their dominion over India. Portuguese lagged because it followed the polity of religious intolerance. They didn’t have a significant population in India. Their courts were run by aristocrats that were autocratic and decadent, and because the Portuguese in India were considerably behind the British in the development of their shipping fleet
• It is also observed that their decline coincided with their vested interest in exploiting and colonizing Latin America
• Another reason for the decline of the Portuguese in India is that they lost many of their strongholds and possessions to other European traders in India
  

  
  Conclusion

The advent of the Portuguese in India paved the way for other European traders to create a stronghold in India. And while competition drove them out of India by the 17th century, they retained their control of territories like Goa, and Daman and Diu till 1961. In 1961, the Indian army launched a military operation to liberate Goa and other Portuguese territories.