Operation Vijay (1961)

Invasion of Goa
Date 18–19 December 1961 Location Goa, Daman and Diu, Portuguese India Surrounding sea and airspace Result Decisive Indian victory Incorporation of the territories of Goa, Daman and Diu into the Republic of India
Belligerents
India	Portugal
Commanders and leaders
Rajendra Prasad Jawaharlal Nehru Maj.Gen. K. P. Candeth AVM Elric Pinto V. K. Krishna Menon	Américo Tomás A. O. Salazar M. A. Vassalo e Silvaa Cunha Aragão
Strength
45,000 infantry 1 light aircraft carrier 2 cruisers 1 destroyer 8 frigates 4 minesweepers 20 Canberra multi-role aircraft 6 Vampire fighters 6 Toofani fighter-bombers 6 Hunter multi-role aircraft 4 Mystère fighter-bombers	3,995 army personnel 200 naval personnel 1 frigate 3 patrol boats
Casualties and losses
22 killed 54 wounded	30 killed 57 wounded 1 frigate disabled 4668 POWs
aGovernor-General.

The Annexation of Goa was the process in which the Republic of India annexed the former Portuguese Indian territories of Goa, Daman and Diu, starting with the armed action carried out by the Indian Armed Forces on December 1961. Depending on the view, this action is referred as the "Liberation of Goa" or the "Invasion of Goa".

The armed action was code named Operation Vijay (Hindi: विजय Vijay, lit. "Victory") by the Indian Armed Forces. The operation involved air, sea and land strikes for over 36 hours, and was a decisive victory for the Republic of India, ending 451 years of rule of Portugal over its remaining exclaves in India. The engagement lasted two days and twenty-two Indians and thirty Portuguese were killed in the fighting. The brief conflict drew a mixture of worldwide praise and condemnation. In India, the action was seen as a liberation of historically Indian territory, while Portugal viewed it as an aggression against national soil and its citizens.

After India's independence from the British Empire in August 1947, Portugal continued to hold a handful of exclaves on the Indian subcontinent—the districts of Goa, Daman and Diu and Dadra and Nagar Haveli—collectively known as the Estado da Índia. Goa, Daman and Diu covered an area of around 1,540 square miles (4,000 km²) and held a population of 637,591. The Goan diaspora was estimated at 175,000 (about 100,000 within the Indian Union, mainly in Bombay). Religious distribution was 61% Hindu, 36.7% Christian (mostly Catholic), 2.2% Muslim. Economy was primarily based on agriculture, although the 1940s and 1950s saw a boom in mining—principally iron ore and some manganese.

Resistance to Portuguese rule in Goa in the 20th century was pioneered by Tristão de Bragança Cunha, a French-educated Goan engineer who founded the Goa Congress Committee in Portuguese India in 1928. Cunha released a booklet called 'Four hundred years of Foreign Rule', and a pamphlet, 'Denationalisation of Goa', intended to sensitise Goans to the oppression of Portuguese rule. Messages of solidarity were received by the Goa Congress Committee from leading figures in the Indian independence movement like Dr. Rajendra Prasad, Jawaharlal Nehru, Subhas Chandra Bose, and several others. On 12 October 1938, Cunha with other members of the Goa Congress Committee met Subhas Chandra Bose, the President of the Indian National Congress, and on his advice, opened a Branch Office of the Goa Congress Committee at 21, Dalal Street, Bombay. The Goa Congress was also made affiliate to the Indian National Congress and Cunha was selected its first President.