'Bharat'kar Govind Pundalik Hegde Desai
(7th Nov 1885 - 15th Aug 1949)

'Bharat'kar! Called so after a Marathi-Portuguese weekly he owned and published for more than 30 years, during the oppressive Portuguese colonization of Goa, India. A freedom fighter, a social reformer and above all, a valiant journalist!

Born to a well to do family in Rivonna and adopted into another in Quepem, 'Bharat'kar Hegde Desai excelled as a student and eventually graduated in Law and Pharmacy. He could have easily chosen to be a lawyer, a pharmacist or even a bureaucrat with the Portuguese government, as his parents had even wished for him to. Instead he opted to turn his back on a contented lifestyle and threw himself into the blazing cauldron of struggle for independence.

'Bharat' ('O Bharat' in Portuguese) was thus born, as a Marathi-Portuguese bilingual weekly, on 6th November 1912. For 36 years thereafter, 'Bharat'kar courageously protested the Portuguese occupation, relentlessly advocated radical and progressive social reforms and doggedly championed the cause of an independent and sovereign Indian Goa.

This is a home to his works.