P. D. Gaitonde

P.D. Gaitonde is a surgeon from Goa India, jailed during Portuguese rule for a protest statement he made while holding office in this region along the west coast of India.

Pundalik (or Pundolica) D Gaitonde (b 1913) received his medical education first in Goa and Bombay (now Mumbai) and later proceeded to Lisbon in 1938 for further studies. He specialised in surgery and did research on the treatment of cancer.

On his return to Goa, then still ruled by the Portuguese, in 1948 end, he was appointed Surgeon-Director of the Hospital dos Milagres in Mapusa, the main commercial town in North Goa. He was arrested and deported to Portugal in 1954, for a protest during an official speech.

On his release in 1955, Gaitonde returned to India and settled in New Delhi. He worked as the honorary senior surgeon at the Irwin Hospital, and was responsible for the creation of the Cancer Unit, which he headed.

In 1960, he was elected president of the National Congress (Goa), a group fighting Portuguese rule and espousing non-violent means. He was the secretary-general of the Conference of the Nationalist Organisations of the Portuguese Colonies at Casablanca in 1961.

In that capacity, he visited several countries -- including the United States, Brazil, United Kingdom, Sweden and USSR -- and was at the United Nations representing the case of Portuguese colonies in general and Goa in particular. His campaigns lead to the Seminar on Portuguese Colonies, organised in New Delhi.

After the end of Portuguese rule in Goa in 1961, he became the first nominated member of Parliament for Goa, and also a member of the Goa Planning Board. He subsequently lived in retirement in London, and spent time on the study of the history of medicine and East-West relations during the sixteenth century.

Books

 * Portuguese Pioneers in India: Spotlight on Medicine, Bombay Popular Prakashan 1983
 * The Goan Opinion Poll, 1967 (co-author), Tipografia Rangel, Bastora, Goa
 * The Goa Problem, Indian Council of World Affairs, New Delhi, 1956.
 * Atomic Energy in Medicine, Indian Council of Medical Research, New Delhi, 1958.