The One Man Army Of Goa : Late Manohar Parikar

How's the Josh ?

High sir....

Reverberated the jam-packed conference in Panaji on January 27, 2019, when the former defense

minister, 4 times chief minister of Goa and former IITian inaugurated the Atal Setu.
Late Manohar Gopal Krishna Parikar was born on 13 December 1955 in Goa’s Masupa. He studied at
Loyola High School, Margao. He completed his secondary education in Marathi and went on to graduate
in metallurgical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay in 1978.

From his childhood, he was an active member of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and it can be said
that his political career began at a very tender age when he was given the responsibility of Mukhya
Sikshak(Head Instructor) in the final year of his schooling. He played an earth-shattering role in RSS’s

north Goa unit during the Ram Janam Bhoomi movement.

It was a red letter day when Parrikar was chosen as the Minister of Defence replacing Arun Jaitley, who,

till then, held the additional charge of the Ministry in November 2014. He would be always remembered

for his key role to modernize the Indian Armed forces. During his regime as the defense minister armed

forces got ;
· Ultra-light howitzers
· Air defense & artillery guns
· Arjun Mk-II tanks
· Boeing AH-64E
· Apache Longbow attack helicopters
· Rafale fighter jets
· Boeing AH-64E

His tenure was action-packed as the surgical strikes on the terrorist camps across the border in Myanmar and Pakistan took place. The resolution of OROP(One Rank One Pension) issue was the feather on the cap for him.

On March 14, 2017, Parrikar was sworn in as Chief Minister of Goa once again.
In September 2016,Late Manohar Parikar addressed an audience at the 14th FGI Awards for Excellence
held at Vadodra. It was there that he gave one of his most memorable speeches. It was a speech where

he recounts his childhood, growing up in the village of Parra and taking part in the famous ‘Watermelon

Festival’. It seemed like a trivial story, one that was meant to evoke a sense of humanity – but it was so

much more.

I am from the village of Parra in Goa, hence we are called Parrikars. My village is famous for its
watermelons. When I was a child, the farmers would organize a watermelon-eating contest at
the end of the harvest season in May. All the kids would be invited to eat as many watermelons
as they wanted. Years later, I went to IIT Mumbai to study engineering. I went back to my village
after six and a half years. I went to the market looking for watermelons. They were all gone. The
ones that were there were so small.I went to see the farmer who hosted the watermelon-
eating contest. His son had taken over. He would host the contest but there was a difference.
When the older farmer gave us watermelons to eat he would ask us to spit out the seeds into a
bowl. We were told not to bite into the seeds.He was collecting the seeds for his next crop. We
were unpaid child laborers, actually. He kept his best watermelons for the contest and he got
the best seeds which would yield even bigger watermelons the next year. His son, when he took
over, realized that the larger watermelons would fetch more money in the market so he sold the
larger ones and kept the smaller ones for the contest. The next year, the watermelons were
smaller, the year later even smaller.
He was the first Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) alumnus to occupy the office of a Chief Minister (CM)

and Member of Legislative Assembly. He was also known as the original Aam aadmi of the Indian political

because of his calm and down to earth nature.

After battling vigorously with pancreatic he left for the final abode of all creatures on 17 March 2019 at

the age of 63 at his residence in Panji.