In November 1995, Libia Lobo Sardesai vanished. No one filed a missing person report, no one worried. Lobo, a young woman with a promising career at All India Radio and a law degree in hand, had meticulously planned her disappearance. She fabricated a transfer to Belgaum, adopted a new identity, and trekked through the dense Western Ghats, evading detection. Her motive? To join the Goan liberation movement, a cause deeply intertwined with her own journey.
Born in Mumbai and raised in Panaji, Lobo had witnessed the fervor of India’s independence movement firsthand. When Goa remained under Portuguese rule, her sense of duty ignited. “Goa was completely starved of food, money, and information,” she recalls. “No letters, no newspapers, even wedding invitations were censored.” This was the reality of life under Portuguese oppression.
Determined to fight for her homeland, Lobo embarked on a perilous mission. She joined forces with Vaman Sardesai, her future husband and a fellow patriot, and Nicolau Menezes. Together, they formed an underground radio station, christened “Voice of Freedom,” their clandestine broadcasts serving as a lifeline for the oppressed people of Goa. Their first broadcast, on November 25th, 1955, marked the 445th anniversary of the Portuguese conquest of Goa.
For six years, Lobo and Sardesai operated their radio station from the wilderness, broadcasting twice daily, Sardesai in Portuguese and Lobo in Konkani. They faced the harsh realities of jungle life, enduring leeches, venomous snakes, and extreme isolation. Every day, they worked tirelessly, collecting news, writing their broadcasts, and broadcasting a message of hope and resistance to the Goan people.
When Goa was finally liberated in 1961, Lobo and Sardesai witnessed firsthand the impact of their clandestine broadcasts. “When General J N Chaudhuri, the chief of army staff, came to us and delivered the news, I just took a flower from the garden and gave it to him,” Lobo recounts. The next day, they boarded a plane and circled the skies, dropping leaflets declaring victory, an act of defiance that would forever etch their names in the annals of Goan history.
The following year, Lobo and Sardesai married, their wedding announced in the newspaper. Sardesai went on to become Goa’s first director of panchayats, an IAS officer, and later, the Indian Ambassador to Angola. Lobo, meanwhile, carved her own path, becoming Goa’s first director of tourism. She later returned to her legal practice, becoming the first female lawyer to work in the courts of Goa.
Today, at the age of 100, Lobo continues to live a remarkable life, embodying the spirit of her past. “I have a helper who does the cleaning, but I cook for myself,” she says with quiet determination. A mural of her younger self graces the wall across the street from her home, a testament to her enduring legacy. “I think I look too tame,” she muses, but the spirit of the Goan freedom fighter, the woman who risked everything for her homeland, shines through in her every word.
Libia Lobo Sardesai’s story is a powerful reminder that even the most ordinary of people can become extraordinary heroes when they stand up for what they believe in.
