Luís de Menezes Bragança

Luís de Menezes Bragança (Konkani: लुईझ दॆ मॆनॆज़ॆस ब्रागान्सा; 15 January 1878 – 10 July 1938), alternatively spelled as Luís de Menezes Braganza, was a prominent Indian journalist, writer, politician and anti-colonial activist from Goa. He was one of the few Goan aristocrats who actively opposed the Portuguese colonisation of Goa. During his lifetime, Menezes Bragança was widely hailed around the Lusosphere (Portuguese speaking world) as "O Maior de todos" ("The Greatest of all [Goans]") and in the Indian mainland as "The Tilak of Goa".

Luís de Menezes Bragança was born as Luís de Menezes on 15 January 1878 in Chandor, Salcette, to a Chardo family. His mother hailed from the illustrious Bragança clan of the same village. Later on in life, his maternal grandfather Francis Xavier Bragança who had no sons, nominated Luís, his eldest grandson as his heir. Luís then adopted his maternal surname as his own surname and subsequently became Luís de Menezes Bragança. This was contrary to Portuguese custom, whereby the maternal surname is typically followed by the paternal surname. He did his primary education at the Rachol Seminary and then at the Lyceum in Panjim. Although raised a Roman Catholic, Menezes Bragança later became an agnostic.

By the age of twenty, Menezes Bragança had gained a reputation as a fine writer in the Portuguese language. On 22 January 1900, together with another Goan writer Messias Gomes he co-founded O Heraldo (The Herald), which was the first Portuguese language daily in Goa. His columns in the newspaper were typified by satirical wit, wherein he would attack the Portuguese government and reactionary thinking from Hindu and Catholic intellectuals. Menezes Bragança was a strong believer in secularism and propounded the ideals of a Secular republic in his columns, prior to the formation of the Portuguese First Republic on 5 October 1910.

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