GULF-GOANS e-NEWSLETTER (since 1994) Fresh Myths about the Official Language Act
Dear friends, The Official Language Act (OLA) was passed in 1987. It lays down that every purpose for which the official language may be used must be notified in the Official Gazette. To date, the only purpose that has been thus notified is regarding correspondence with Government Departments. Yet, several myths regarding the Act keep cropping up continuously. Here are some of the latest arrivals. (1) The OLA is an attempt at cultural and political genocide, (2) It is an attempt to alienate over 5 lakh people who read and write Konkani in Roman script. The statements have not been made by a politician at an election rally, but by Dr. Olivinho Gomes, an eminent, erudite academician whose felicity with words, whether Konkani, English or Portuguese, is phenomenal; the words, therefore, were not loosely used but deliberately chosen. The statements were made in front of a gathering of over 60 writers. All this shows that the statements are not frivolous but deserve serious consideration. An attempt requires a maker, but it is not clear here as to who made these attempts. Since the OLA was passed by the then Congress Government of Pratapsingh Rane, perhaps that is the maker. Why would it make such an attempt? And alienate from whom? Some clarifications would be in order. Who are the victims of the genocide and alienation? The figure of 5 lakh in the second statement points to the Catholic population of Goa. Genocide implies deliberate and systematic killing of the members of a particular group, tribe etc. This means that scores, if not hundreds, of Catholic Goans have died politically. But can any one point to just one such death during the last 22 years? The Act was certainly not the cause of the political demise of the originator of this controversy. On the contrary it has become an all round windfall for him; he has used it to the hilt and prospered in the last six years. And the less said about cultural deaths the better. Else, let someone give the names of those who suffered cultural death. Now Valmiki Faleiro, a veteran journalist has added some more myths. He says that "the segment that's more comfortable with the Roman script" (obviously Catholic Goans) is being herded into a script they are yet to be acquainted with, in the name of uniformity. The basis for this assertion is not clear. Is writing / reading Konkani in Roman script banned? Does the Government censor private correspondence in Konkani? Are they forced to read and write Konkani exclusively in Devanagari script? Isn't there sufficient Konkani literature being published in Roman script? Another of his myths: Official incentives and benefits available for development of the language are cornered by the tinier twin i.e. Devanagari. If the fatter twin refuses to be suckled is the tinier one to be blamed? It is only in the last four years that the publication of Roman script manuscripts is being subsidized by the Goa Konkani Akademi (GKA). This is being interpreted as neglect of Roman script by the GKA. In fact, there are not enough takers even now. The few that get the benefit are submitted to the GKA by activists, and not by the authors themselves. Not a single manuscript has been rejected to date; yet, vested interests spread canards in this regard. Prior to 2005, no activists were functioning; this, and not the supposed partisan attitude of GKA, explains the absence of publications in the earlier decade and half, a fact that the journalist refers to as "the 22-year old monumental injustice." A misconception is at the root of such myths: The Goan Catholics use Konkani in the Roman script in their liturgy. Therefore, every Goan Catholic must be adept at writing the language in that script; hence, if Roman script was also included in the OLA, they would have corresponded with the Government in their mother tongue. How much water does this argument hold? When a letter is written to a Government Department, the official concerned must understand its contents in order to act on it. Will letter-writers accomplish this task? Let us perform an experiment. Select and collect just 5 professional Konkani writers like authors of century-making tiatrs, preferably graduates. Dictate to them a passage from a Konkani book or periodical. Compare their copies with each other as well as with the original. You will find 6 different versions! If you ask each of them to write the same matter in their own words, you will be shocked by the result. Repeat the same exercise now using an English passage. You will find no differences! How do you expect a Government official to decipher the meaning of such variously written letters? In fact, letters in Roman script may be written to panchayats; I have done this, and the letters have been acted upon, except that the replies were in English. Let the journalist conduct a survey to find out how many Konkani letters in Roman script are received by the panchayats in Catholic-majority villages. Secondly, any one daring to write a letter in any language must be able to speak it as a matter of course. But even for Konkani authors this is not a necessity. In the two workshops that followed the function where the academician made the above-cited statements, there were 60 veteran writers (in English) who aspired to become novelists and short story writers in Konkani. Among them were persons who could not use Konkani even for the purpose of asking simple questions; they preferred to use English instead! This is because when two educated Goan Catholics meet in a public place, they invariably converse in English. And this stunts their Konkani vocabulary and syntax. Another myth is that the OLA comes in the way of using Roman script on the internet for Konkani. Facts are just the opposite. There is hardly any Konkani content on the many sites run by Goan Catholics. Even the little that you come across is lax in orthography and grammar. Compare this with sites run by Manglorean Catholics. You will find much more Konkani content (in Kannada script), strong in both orthography and syntax! It is a fact that not a single Goan Catholic author has bagged the Sahitya Akademi Award during the last three decades. Ergo, the mother of all myths: this is because they write in Roman script. The award is given to a literary work published in the 3-year span preceding the year of the award. Ask the mythmakers for a list of Roman script works which merited the award, and all you get is a deafening silence! Sotachench zoit zatolem. Mog asum. Sebastian Borges [The above article appeared in the OPinionatED column of oHERALDo, 20/05/2009.]
