Religious Differences and Imperial Pragmatism in a Polemical Arena: A Privileged Law for Muslims, Hindus, and Jains in Diu (1557)

In 1557 Francisco Barreto, the Portuguese governor of the State of India, issued a decree forbidding the destruction of temples and books belonging to the Gujarati Muslims, Hindus, and Jains of Diu and allowed them to practice their religion freely. This and other reforms introduced by the crown and the Goan archbishop created a special situation for Muslims and Hindus living in Diu, in contrast to the policies designed to establish monolithic confessionalism that the Portuguese authorities had been attempting to impose in most part of Asia since around 1540. This article aims to reconstruct and explain the specific nature of the religious policies pursued in Diu, adopting a holistic approach that compares them with developments in other areas of Portuguese Asia. It will be argued that the policies adopted made Diu a multiconfessional city, one that accommodated interreligious encounters though it was less supportive of mobility between different religions. This was the outcome of pragmatism, an essential feature of the actions of the different Portuguese agents who intervened at different levels, creating dynamics in which the role of the native population was also decisive in shaping imperial societies.