There are certain issues raised by the article – Konkani, MoI and Colonial Legacy by Dale Luis Menezes that needs to be addressed. That the mother tongue is the best medium of instruction for educating children is common enough knowledge and need not beget any argument. The child in its initial and formative years remains generally with the near family mostly the parents who teach a language which becomes the child’s mother tongue.
A language fosters understanding and this is best done in a language which the child is comfortable with at the beginning. If the idea is to deepen and broaden understanding in a child on its road to education then the mother tongue is the language.
The other thing that the author attempts to suggest is that colonialism was not brutal to native cultures. It is not only in Goa or India but also in the rest of the world it is an accepted fact that the colonialists tended to decimate local cultures in a horrific and barbaric way. The author also tries to question the existing culture prior to the entry of the colonialists and tries to attempt comparison with the new imposed culture and whether the old culture is worthy of restoring. We cannot be judgmental on such issues. These events happened many centuries in the past and we have to take it as fact that if the people then living accepted their culture then we have a moral obligation to try and restore it as much as possible.
As for script, the author says that it is assumed that the Nagri script for Konkani is considered more Indian than the Roman script. Is there any argument against that since it is fact? That was the script which the local natives were using for Konkani. The premise that the Roman script spread the use of Konkani among the locals is another fallacy that the author projects. The Roman script was formed very clearly to propagate Christianity since the missionaries found that the locals were hesitant to use Latin, the Church language. This would have meant that the pace of acceptance of the Christian religion would have slowed down. That is why Konkani was chosen to become the church language in Goa and the Roman script thus became a necessity. The argument that if someone now opts for the Nagri script, there is a hidden agenda implied of condemnation of Islam and Christianity, are signs of an unbalanced mind.
As for MoI there can be a choice after the primary school level which parents can exercise whether they want to use English or any other language. This is because once the child grows up he tends to pick up other languages and this is the time he can be introduced to a new language. The author also needs to remember that policies are made to suit the maximum number of people and not the privileged few. In this context India is a disparate country stratified by economic status but the people in all these stratas are equally aspirational. But if we start with English at the primary school level we may put the lower strata of society and their children to undue strain since the parents and immediate family are not conversant with English.
This could lead to two situations. One that these kind of people are fleeced by private tutors or finding the whole process very difficult and/or expensive they may withdraw their children from the schools. This will be counter-productive to the education policy per se. Thus it is best that we have a progression of events, like impart primary education in the mother tongue which should increase understanding in the child and then introduce him to a new language in middle school depending on the choice of the parents.
