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A flag goes up when the principle source of a Wikipedia article is a travelogue series whose only other publication is about Siberia...

...but I found out this much:

That an inquisition occured is very plain. But a true inquisition SHOULD be a strictly internal affair, aimed at routing out heretics, not apostates or non-Christians. As noted recently on this thread by me, the term "inquisition" has been applied to the horrific actions that were exactly what the real inquisition was founded to put an end to.

Essentially, an inquisition is about "brand-name protection": We don't care what you believe in, but just don't call it Christianity. We're the Christian church, and you ain't us. The result of what St. Francis Xavier had called for was a reunification of the Syro-Malabarese church with the Catholic church.

What was the nature of the Goa inquisition? Plainly it was a true inquisition in that it was established by Rome. Did it commit horrible atrocities? Did it become a tool of the Portuguese royalty, permitting the Portuguese Royalty to commit horrible atrocities? Did it oppose horrible atrocities by the Portguese royalty? Did anyone actually commit horrible atrocities in the first place?

Unfortunately, the internet appears insufficient in addressig these questions.

That Rome was not pleased with later developments out of the office of the Goa inquisition is very plain. The Portuguese who ran Goa were essentially considered atheists by Rome, and St. Francis Xavier himself left Goa years before the arrival of the inquisition because he found the Goan Portuguese to be wholly godless. At first, the Inquisition was staffed with people from Rome and Rome was quite pleased. In the end, Rome declared the Portuguese unfit for missionary activity, and sent non-Portuguese in to fix the mess.

Apparently what happened in Goa is very debated within India. The Sangh Parivar (a group) in 1998-1999 launched a series of violent attacks against Christian communities, justifying themselved with alleged atrocities during Portuguese rule. Official government reports concluded that this was a manufactured issue, designed to create an enemy for Parivar's nationalist-socialist ideology. (The West has a famous acronym for nationalist-socialist, taken from German: NaZi.) And the Parivar, who was cited as a major source by much of what I *could* find on the web, was commonly accused of instigating, aiding, and abetting the anti-Christian terrorism which did occur in Goa.

This does not mean that there were not atrocities during Portuguese rule. Unfortunately, it does mean that given the dearth of information about it on the internet, it's impossible to know how fair or accurate the information available on the web is. Minor authors from unesteemed sources (A Siberian travelogue?) simply are unreliable; given a dearth of information, Wikipedia will publish anything; and although slander related to the Inquisition is foundational to American Protestantism, at least in the case of Goa, the mainline Protestants sided with the Catholics, while condemning derogatory missionary tactics by rogue, unaffiliated Christian groups. On the other hand, in the case of Goa, it was actually in their self-interest to side with the Catholics.

Although the post I placed was from Wiki, I did take care to add in the citation for the article below it.

Streatfeidl-James, Douglas and Thomas, Bryn. Lonely Planet - Goa. Lonely Planet Publications, 1998.

Henry James Coleridge, ed. The Life and Letters of St. Francis Xavier. 2d Ed., 2 Vols. London: Burns & Oates, 1890.

I was of the opinion the two citations above are pretty reliable. But you also have a point. Also note that the second citation dates back to 1890. I doubt the 'Parivar' existed back then.

Anyway, I will be searching for the title on the British Library catalogue, and if I find anything, I'll ping you to it.