The information about acquiring Marmagoa port is known and has been dealt with in R.J. Moore’s book, Escape From Empire , Clarendon press (‘Sunday Special’ – “Nizam made vain bid to buy Marmagoa port from Portugal”, December 31). In April 1947, Walter Monckton, Adviser to the then Nizam of Hyderabad, was in touch with Lord Templewood about the acquisition of port facilities at Marmagao, in then Portuguese Goa. A rail link was to be built by the Hyderabad state. Businessman Alexander Roger, another actor in the scene, was known to the Portuguese authorities and employed as an intermediary. Monckton himself was supposed to have visited Portugal to work on the idea of acquisition of the port. All these discussions were part of a larger plan, the Aligarh plan, of dividing British India into the three sovereign states of Hindustan, North West India and Bengal. Hyderabad was to be recognised as a sovereign state, with the Carnatic seaboard restored to it.
H.N. Ramakrishna,
Bengaluru
