Promise from Cong, BJP on maintaining status quo in Language Act

Konkani Ekvott, an organisation of Konkani activists from Goa, today decided to seek a promise from political parties in the state that the Official Language Act, 1987, would be left untouched. This promise is to be obtained before the assembly elections next year.At a meeting held in the city this evening, a decision was arrived at to force the political parties — the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party — to declare that they would not effect any changes to the OLA. It was also decided to hold meetings at the village level and hand over memorandums to MLAs, ministers, the Chief Minister and political parties.

The Konkani Ekvott convenor, Mr Serafin Cotta said that they wanted to design a better tomorrow. “Some only think about themselves. Those claiming to have worked for the Roman script are lying,” Mr Cotta stated. He observed that the issue had been politically motivated. The Konkani Ekvott convenor hit out at the Tiatrists as well.

Mr Cotta felt that Roman Konkani supporters had some kind of an understanding somewhere. “Don’t try to divide Goans in name of Christianity,” he pleaded. The Konkani Ekvott convenor further threatened of an agitation if the OLA is touched.

Mr Cotta warned that any move to give equal status to Marathi will have serious repercussions on the recruitment policy and the rules which are bound to adversely affect the interests of Goans as it happened in the matter of postal department.

Fr Jaime Couto of Catholics for Devanagari clarified that Konkani Ekvott was not opposed to the Roman script. “I feel really bad with some people trying to propagate an equal status for Konkani and Marathi.” He observed that Roman Konkani was not a language but rather only a script. “Some people are bent upon misguiding others,” Fr Couto claimed.

Dr Oscar Rebello spoke on the identity of Goans. “We are all identified by Konkani and not its scripts,” he observed adding that people seem to be proud of having individual differences. “I have great respect for the Roman script and Marathi,” Dr Rebello maintained.

Student representative, Mr Abhijit Gaunkar said that all have learnt Konkani, irrespective of religion. “Yet there is discord,” he said. Others who spoke on the occasion included authors N Shivdas and Hema Naik, the Sunaparant editor, Mr Sandesh Prabhudessai, the Konkani Bhasha Mandal president, Mr Purnanand Chari, Ms Nutan Sakhardande, Ms Unnati Mandrekar, Mr Teotin D’Costa, Mr R B S Komarpant, Mr Chetan Borkar and Mr Pradeep Kakodkar.