The status for Konkani as an official language might not
seem as a huge achievement by youngsters today but those who lived through it
and participated in the agitation, are proud to have been through the fight to save
Konkani. Giving a detailed understanding of what the conditions were then is
the first Konkani book on the history of the official language agitation in
1985 and 1986, ‘RajbhasAndolan’ by ShyamVerenkar.
The book was released on June 29, 2019 at Margao. Along
with this book, the second revised edition of
the book on ‘Opinion Poll’ was also released. Both the
books are written by Shyam and published by
AsmitaiPratishthan, a public charitable trust. ShyamVerenkar
from Margao retired from ParvatibaiChowgule College Of Arts & Science as an
Economics professor in 2001. Born in 1941, he is now 79 years old and was in
his 20s when he first participated in the Goa Liberation movements in 1961. “I
studied Portuguese upto Segundo grau and English education after Liberation of
Goa. I graduated in history from Chowgule College and completed my post
graduation in economics from Department of Economics, Bombay University,
Bombay.
I had interest in history particularly Goan history. I was
recently assigned the job to investigate and write on Opinion Poll and
RajbhasAndolan. I started collecting references, primary sources and
accordingly I had also witnessed and participated in all the three agitations, Liberation
of Goa, Opinion Poll, and the official language agitation. I had experienced
and met several leaders that time and had discussed certain issues with them
and written points then which helped me to recollect and write down these
books,” says Shyam.
The book deals with the background of the agitation, formation
of Konkani PrajechoAwaz, its three objectives and how the KPA achieved those
objectives one after the other. The book documents that the Official Language Act
making Konkani the official language was enacted on February 4, 1987 which
shortly led to the conferment of Statehood on Goa on May 30, 1987. It also
describes how the agitation took the form of lobbying in New Delhi which
succeeded in getting Konkani included in the 8th Schedule of the Constitution
on 20th August 1992. This book is the second volume in the series ‘Two pages
from the history of Goa’ planned by Shyam and the Pratishthan.
BOOKS ON THE POLL
“There are two books in English on Opinion Poll and a few
articles written by different authors. There is
a very good English book ‘Triumph of Secularism’ on the
Opinion Poll. This is the first book in Konkani. I keep my diary and there I
could get more general material rather than on this issue. I was writing and
gathering the material from different sources and then 3-4 years back, I
compiled both the books and accordingly AsmitaiPratishthan promised to publish
the books. In the last five years, I specialised on these movements, I collected
new material on this from newspapers, various sources, articles from different
books. Opinion poll has photographs but ‘RajbhasAndolan’, good resolution photographs
were not available which could be presented in the book so I decided not to
include those photographs,” says Shyam.
KONKANI AGITATION- HISTORY & POLITICS
Giving a piece of history, Shyam throws light on the fight for Konkani, “In 1985, the Congress
Party was n power and Pratap Singh Rane was the Chief Minister till the various
official language bills which were moved during Congress time. Before 1980s,
the Marathi language bill was introduced but was not passed but 1980s onwards,
Konkani as the official language was introduced.
A lot of bills were moved but for us the most important
was by Dr LuzinhoFaleiro which was introduced in July 19, 1985 and it was not
accepted by the Legislative Assembly and Pratap Singh Rane said something that disturbed
the literati of Goa particularly Konkani supporters and they were furious.
Soon after that some meetings were organised by the
supporters of Konkani and they decided to launch an agitation against Pratap
Singh Rane and accordingly the first meeting was held in Margao when they
decided to hold a morcha in Panjim. On July 23, 1985, the
morcha was held and the agitation began and at a short notice, nearly 2000 to
3000 people gathered and shouted slogans against Pratap Singh
Rane and a Memorandum was given to him condemning his
attitude towards Konkani Language and Konkani literati. Most of them were
imprisoned and at that time only people decided to launch an agitation for
Konkani as the official language and that is how Konkani PrajechoAvaz was
formed under the leadership of Pundalik Naik and ten other members. They
planned the agitation and three demands were made, one was official language
status to Konkani, Goa as a linguistic state based on Konkani and including
Konkani in the 8th Schedule of the Constitution. I was not of the
committee but I was the general secretary of Konkani Bhasha Mandal in Margao.
Konkani Bhasha Mandal had arranged the first two meetings
where Konkani PrajechoAvaz was formed,”
says Shyam. When asked how different the status of
Konkani would be if the fight was not won? Shyam believes it is important to
look at the positive side of it, “Everybody wanted Konkani and we
had to fight for it at that time because the condition
was such that even the opposition was very powerful and though it was decided
not to merge with Maharashtra, they continued their agitation and pressurised
the central government to include Marathi as an official language. When they
failed at that too, they insisted to be included along with Konkani. I have
described the Marathi Movement
and Konkani movement in both the books but most
elaborately in ‘RajbhasAndolan’, and I have tried to
be as objective as possible. Though I was for Konkani, I
have given it an impartial outlook as possible.”
