Berta de Menezes Bragança

Maria Berta de Menezes Bragança (17 December 1911 – 13 July 1993) was an Indian independence activist, teacher, writer and journalist. She was a peace worker, teacher, youth activist and has been credited for being the person behind the Free Goa bulletin.

Early and personal life Maria Berta de Menezes Bragança was born on 17 December 1911 in Cuelim village in Mormugao taluka. She was educated at home by her parents. She and her sister Beatris were daughters of Luís de Menezes Bragança and Ana, the sister of Tristão de Bragança Cunha. The family lived at the Menezes Braganza House. She married António Furtado, a lawyer, in 1947. He died in 1988. The family lived at the Menezes Braganza House.

Since 1929, Menezes Bragança was part of the Goa committee of the Goa Congress Committee (GCC), briefly affiliated to the Indian National Congress, and actively worked to enroll members. She later joined her uncle T.B. Cunha's Goa Youth League (GYL) and in 1945, she was chosen as the Secretary of its Goa unit. She and her sister, Beatris, wore khadi saris

In her capacity as Secretary of the GYL, in response to Ram Manohar Lohia's call to freedom on Goa Revolution Day, she and Cunha attempted to offer satyagraha at Margao on 30 June 1946. However, the Portuguese police stopped them and beat her,

Menezes Bragança continued her distribution of nationalist propaganda from Belgaum. In 1952, she was chosen as the President of the Belgaum branch of the National Congress (Goa). Subtitled as the "Organ of Portuguese India’s Liberation", Furtado was its first editor. With Cunha's escape to Bombay in 1956, she and Furtado moved there, continuing the publication from there. Cunha also contributed to Free Goa. Menezes Bragança then became its editor in 1958, after the death of Cunha.

She was chosen to represent India at the Afro-Asian Women's Conference in Cairo, during which the problem of Goa's freedom was discussed in detail. The official biographies of freedom-fighters published by the post-1961 regime says she "was a member of the Indian delegation to the Afro-Asian Women's Conference in Cairo where the 'Goa Problem' evoked a special interest and importance".

In December 1960, the third National Conference for Afro-Asian solidarity took place in Bombay, calling for the immediate freedom of Goa, Daman and Diu and forming a National Campaign Committee for this purpose. In 1961, Menezes Bragança joined this committee, which was led by George Vaz. In this capacity, she travelled across India, participating in conferences in major cities like Bombay, Ahmedabad, Calcutta and Delhi, demanding military action for Goa's freedom.

Menezes Bragança later became the President of the Communist Party of India in Goa.

In 1990, she published a book of fiction, titled Tales of Goa, collecting 15 short stories that she had previously published in the 1930s in The Bombay Chronicle and Blitz newspapers.

Death Menezes Bragança died in 1993.

Works Tales of Goa (Bastora: Tipografia Rangel: 1991) Landmarks in My Time: Selected Writings (1992)