The battle which began twenty years after the Official Languages Act 1987 came
into being in Goa is moving slowly but surely in the right direction. The
tremors are being felt and the earthquake is not far away.
It is our political masters elected to the august House of the Goa Legislative
Assembly who have been betraying the protoganists of dual script time and again
on one alibi or another. The worst of them being the dirty dozen MLA's of
the minority community in the Velhas Conquistas.
Unfortunately in the past two years many of the playwrights and others too
despite being forewarned fell prey to the machinations of these politico's at
the electoral hustings and thus the efforts to pursue and maintain a
sustained apolitical movement all through to compell these politicos to ink
the amendment to OLA 1987 or face defeat at the electoral hustings got
temporarily derailed.
Nevertheless despite of it the goal will be achieved even if it means shedding
blood and tears; this is the undercurrent in Goa -- wait and watch. Until then
20th August, has no significance to lovers of dual script as of now and so be
it, and a World Konkani day 20th August, is just wishful thinking . This is
the ground reality in Goa.
Karnataka has shown the way with statutory position given to Konkani in Kannada
script in their education fora; this is the biggest singular victory from a
miniscule populations; Goans oought to have achieved much more but for what
has been stated above. But there is a streak of light at the end of the tunnel.
Take a look to ascertain this ground reality ? Answer this one? Why is that
none of the award winning films like "Aleesha" ( otherwise a fantastic film
---as viewed by this writer-- reflecting the socio economic impact of mining in
Goa ) and others produced by protoganists of the "one language one script"
have poor or no audiences to view these films till date?
According to grapewine the grandiose plan -post Liberation of this miniscule
caste (just 3%) of the majority community is an agenda for political social
and economic one-upmanship and relegating the minority community - the
otherwise most prosperous and vocal community in the Velhas Conquistas;
to SECOND class citizens through a clandestine DISCREET social engineering
---- is the raison d etre for this boycott of such films
It is also their earlier mischief at the Sahitya Academy New Delhi on
21.11.1981 making " Devanagari as the NATURAL script for Konkani" which was
did not come to light until their later mischief in the OLA 1987 "describing
Konkani - means in devanagari script"
Therefore this needs to be undone so that Goa and Goans can prosper - until
then Konkani day means nothing to Goans.
GODFREY J. I. GONSALVES,
BORDA, MARGAO, 403 602, GOA. (INDIA)
+91 98221 58584 (24 HRS)
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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