October 31, 2024
Exclusive: A Viewpoint from Karnataka
On Saturday, October 26, 2024 as the All-India Konkani Sahitya Parishad was about to start its 33rd session at the Ravindra Bhavan, Margao, a group of agitators – both from Goa and Karnataka - marked their protest at the venue and later met at the nearby Lohia Maidan to demonstrate their protest peacefully.
The president of the Global Konkani Forum, Kennedy Afonso who was leading the protestor openly denounced the policy of the Sahitya Akademi and called it discriminatory. He sought a response from Fr. Mousinho Athaide, the president of the session if he was willing to talk to his superiors in the Goa Catholic Church to prescribe that the liturgical and religious books should be transliterated to Nagari Konkani script. (At the present both the religious and liturgical literature are read in the Church in Roman script.) They also wondered how the arbitrary one-way - ‘One Language, One Script’ policy’ of the Akademi could be imposed on Konkani people in different states where diverse and different scripts are being used for the same language.
The peaceful protest was organized by the Global Konkani Forum, Goa in association with Mandd Sobhann a literary and cultural forum in Mangalore and the Konkani Writers Forum in Mangalore.
To go to the root of this problem, in 1981, the Sahitya Akademi appointed an advisory committee in which majority of the Nagari protagonists were the members. They naturally proposed that Konkani’s official script should be Nagari. The members in minority from other scripts were silenced. Thus, the Nagari script became the official script for Konkani language due to which a bagful people benefited the grants and awards bestowed by the Akademi in every year. While doing so, the identity and sanctity of four other scripts used by the Konkani people in different states of India were ignored.
Subsequently, in the year 1987, the State of Goa while recognising Konkani as the State language as per the Goa Official Language Act, announced Nagari as the official script in the lines of Sahitya Akademi’s decision, ignoring the aspirations of a large-scale Romi script users.
In Goa, the Romi script is widely used by most of the Konkani speakers, and is associated with dialects used in popular local theatre and songs. Many of the journals and magazines are published in this script.
At the same time, in the neighboring Karnataka State, some 80% of the literature is in Kannada script. In addition, Konkani is also written in the Malayalam script in Kerala State and in Perso-Arabic script by the Muslim community from Bhatkal till Ratnagiri in Maharashtra State.
Further, the protestors point out that the Konkani language has 52 dialects and equal number of un-recorded divisions, hence only the Nagari script does not represent the ethnicity and vibrancy of the language across India.
The signs of opposition
Ahead of the above session and the protest in Margao, Goa, a symposium was held jointly by the Global Konkani Forum (GKF) and Mandd Sobhann at Kalangann in Mangalore during which the 'arbitrary decision' of the Sahitya Akademi and Konkani Advisory Board were placed for public discussion. Even the members of the Konkani Writers Forum had participated in large numbers.
A resolution was then passed that vehemently opposed the ‘one script’ policy. The resolution read – “In support of our resolution passed today, we will take all action, including legal if needed to impress upon the government to include all the scripts of Konkani language for the recognition of Sahitya Akademi.”
A twelve-member action committee, that had six members each from Goa and Mangalore unanimously elected Kennedy Afonso as its chairman. The committee had Eric Ozario, the head of Mandd Sobhan as its members in addition to Stany Alvares, the president of Karnataka Konkani Sahitya Academy, Louie Pinto, the president of Mandd Sobhann and others. The meeting was attended by Konkani activists, litterateurs, journalists, and cultural heads derived from different sections of the society while 16 members from GKF, Goa attended.
KKSA president Stany Alvares speaking on the occasion, disclosed that the Karnataka Government has decided to support each academy in the state to use Kannada script as its administrative medium and the Chief Minister himself has promised to pressurize the (Central) Sahitya Akademi to give equal status to all the scripts including Kannada.
Eric Ozario, the ‘Indefatigable Crusader’ thundered - “We all know that Konkani is without its own script, while it uses five scripts in different states. In such a scenario is it feasible to recognise one script for the language? He said that no other script will be allowed to use within Karnataka, if the State language Kannada is ignored.”
A unified fight for a linguistic cause
The protest in Goa was very brief but was well planned. It comprised of many of the ‘Tiatrists’ who used Romi as their medium of expression.Attired in black costumes, with many wearing black masks, and armed with placards, they came one by one on to the stage and expressed their anguish and disappointment. They included Wilson and Sharon Mazarello couple, Roseferns, Prince Jacob, Pascoal de Chicalim, Michael Gracias, Menino de Bandar, Joe Rose, besides activists and select people from the community.
The president of Global Konkani Forum, Kennedy Afonso boomed that, “Through chicanery and deceit, the Sahitya Academy has made ‘Nagari’ as the official script of Konkani language. This is something against the Indian Constitution promising equality to all regions, religions, and ethnic communities.” Others, including the delegates from Mangalore also spoke on the occasion.
‘Letter of Protest’ from Karwar
A letter addressed to Usha Rane, the president of Konkani Bhasha Mandal, Karwar Unit is making rounds in the social media. The letter is believed to have been written by Dr Vasant Bandekar, the senior most Konkani activist (aged 79) who has worked for the cause of Konkani for the last 54 years in Karwar.
He claims that when the reception committee members visited Karwar ahead of the session, at the behest of the unit president, not many Konkani activists (including Dr Bandekar) who used Kannada as their script neither were invited for the meeting nor they were invited to the program in Margao, Goa. This included Dr Bandekar himself.
On the contrary, he says when Madhav Manjunath Shanbaug convened the very first session of All India Konkani Sahitya Parishad in 1939 in Karwar, he had gathered all the Konkani speaking people across the world irrespective of which script they belonged to. Same procedure was followed in 1992, when the 11th session was held in Karwar, 1995 in Sirsi or in 2002 in Kumta. What has changed since Usha Rane has taken over, he asked.
He wrote, “when the Indian Constitution recognised Konkani as an official language in 1992 and included it in the 8th Section of the Constitution, no official script was mentioned for the language.”
Konkani’s strength – its spread and diversity
It may be noted that V. P. Chavan, a learned linguist states that the etymology of Konkan is vibrant and hence Konkani is derived from the Kannada word konku meaning 'uneven ground'. The Kannada origin suggests that Konkana might have included Kannada territory and 'uneven ground' suggests the hilly nature of the territory, Konku in Kannada also means that which is 'not straight' and is 'crooked'.
Although Konkani as a language belongs to the Indo-Aryan group, it is influenced by a language of the Dravidian family. A branch of the Kadamba Kings who ruled Goa for a long period, had their roots in Karnataka State. As Konkani language was never used for official purposes the old documents show considerable Kannada influence on grammar as well as vocabulary. Like southern Dravidian languages, Konkani is more evident in Konkani syntax. Also, he said the Konkani spoken in Dravidian regions has borrowed numerous phrasal verb patterns.
Other Konkani communities came into being with their own dialects of Konkani, for example the Konkani Muslim community of Ratnagiri and Coastal Karnataka due to intermarriages of Arab seafarers, Middle East businessmen, Britishers and locals as well as conversions of Hindus to Islam. Another migrant community that picked up Konkani are the Siddis, who are descended from Bantu peoples from South East Africa that were brought to the Indian subcontinent as slaves. Likewise, the Konkani people who migrated to Kerala used the script of the local language, Malayalam to write Konkani.
Why they did not oppose then, questions Dr Uday Bhembre
In an exclusive article in ‘The Navhind Times,’ Dr Uday Bhembre, himself a prominent Goan poet and one of the members in the Advisory committee of the Sahitya Akademi in 1981, questioned why Roman script protagonists did not protest at the right time. It looks like by writing this he has damaged his own foot. He seems to agree that Romi is a prospective opponent that needs to be considered alongside Nagari but only because no one protested on time it missed the bus.
But what he sadly did not mention was about the ‘greater religious game plan’ by ignoring the aspiration of a larger community. They were successful in keeping them out from the bounty of large grants and awards by luring a few from the opposite camp. However, now all hopes are on the Indian Constitution and its Article 29 and 30 of the Indian Constitution grants them the rights of linguistic minorities, and safeguards them from imposition of one script as the State language.
Konkani Literature - Facts V/S Fiction – Dr Pratap Naik
Dr Pratap Naik, S.J. a top litterateur and linguist himself who has worked for the last many decades out of Goa has written an in dept article which is making its rounds in social media nowadays.
He writes – “Is it feasible to impose one script for Konkani? The answer is definitely ‘NO’, for various reasons. For other major languages of India, the majority speakers of a particular language are found in a particular state, for example, Marathi in Maharashtra, Kannada in Karnataka and so on. Though Konkani is the state language of Goa, only 30.93% of total Konkani population is found in Goa! Konkani is mainly spread across Goa, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Kerala, and Gujarat and beyond...
Further he writes – “Those who care Konkani should be open to the ground reality and not be led by mere theoretical idealism of language or script chauvinism. In democracy, there will not be peace and unity if injustice prevails and one group wants to dominate others and suppress their voice. Mutual respect, understanding, and ‘unity in multiplicity or diversity’ must guide any action. Let these three main groups, namely, those who use Roman script, Kannada script, and Devanagari script live with dignity as equal citizens, maintaining their unique identity and liberty.
“Let Konkani’s decide the choice of their one or more scripts,” he concludes his article but on a hilarious note – “According to a Hasidic saying, “The culture of the heart is greater than the culture of the mind.”
“Konkani is primarily a language of the heart.”
We are not here to build walls between five scripts – Edmond Noronha
Edmond Noronha (Preetam Kirem), one of the protestors who represented Konkani Writers of Mangalore said, “Let us not ignore the fact that 80% of the literature in Konkani in Karnataka is in Kannada script and maximum number of copies of books are sold in this script even today. We may be only a few from the KLS blowing the trumpets of opposition, but soon there will be more people joining us when they come to know that we are being fooled by a few for the power and government grants.”
Noronha further said – “We are not here to build walls between the vibrancy of Konkani. While we respect all the five scripts, we are not ready to accept imposition of one script for Konkani.”
He also said – “Shame on those writers who write and publish their books in Kannada Script for the sake of public consumption and support Nagari. Let them organise their programmes outside Karnataka State if they do not like to use Kannada as part of Konkani related programs.”
Lloyd Rego, a poet of repute describes the situation quite emotionally, like in his songs. He was one of the protestors in Goa a few days ago. He says when a mother has five children - all different in habits, age, colour, and other ways, how can she discriminate between them? For her all the children are the same unlike an illegitimate father who has only one child, who ensures that the other four children are better let off on the steps?
“It is sad to see ourselves and our language in such a pathetic condition.” - he said while concluding his point of view.
Photo courtesy - Global Konknni Forum, Mandd Sobhann and Salvadore Fernandes, Goa