Duel between dual scripts
TEOTONIO R de SOUZA
It may be timely to recall during this centenary year of the first non-European Nobel prize winner for his English version of Gitanjali. Let us not forget that those were different times and there were imperial motives as ever behind the doubtful honesty of the award. It suited imperial interests to promote a divide between the two stalwarts, namely the Mahatma who was leading Indian nationalism, and the “anti-nationalist” Gurudev Tagore who always defended a home in the world.
There is a never ending debate about the reluctance of most Goan Catholics over using Devanagiri script to write Konkani. I have also heard and read several answers, all of them conveying some truth. It is important that this matter should elicit more reflection, discussion and actions for workable solutions.
The bulk of the explanations seem to be politically motivated as many reveal ignorance of linguistic evolution and factual data, combined with lack of unbiased reflection. The bogey of the derogatory ghanti or bhaile,. is one such emotional argument that time and again has been put forward, presenting large scale immigration as a threat to the survival of Konkani. This threat was particularly enhanced by pro-merger politics .
Ironically, it is increasingly the old timers in Goa who are becoming Konklish speakers, and can barely sustain a conversation in Konkani. Konkani will be kept alive hopefully by the Kannadigas and many other outsiders whose material conditions do not permit them to flout Hindish! Within months after settling in Goa, they are seen struggling to improve their mastery of Konkani. Without historical prejudices and without being culturally alienated, they are the best hope of Goa to overcome the Portuguese colonial hangover of Romi Konkani. English colonialism does not seem to have left behind a similar disease of Romi Tamil or Romi Malayalam.
The politically motivated arguments are rarely coherent with political practice and the long term cultural trends in the territory. Besides, both Hindus and Christians in Goa are deeply influenced by their respective colonial experiences, despite the emphasis on the discourse of communal harmony between Goans. Beneath public claims of a legacy of communal harmony, each community presents its sectional preferences or fears as representing all Goans, though deeply convinced of the differences.
Both Hindus and Christians made a common front during the struggle for freedom. Christian freedom-fighters can be counted as numerically proportionate in their participation in the struggle. This can be demonstrated by listing the personalities that paid for their involvement with imprisonment and deportations. Besides, it was a generous and fitting recognition of Tristão Bragança-Cunha as a representative of all freedom-fighters when they chose unanimously to place his ashes in the urn at Azan Maidan.
But normal democratic politics is different from a freedom struggle, and it is more difficult at times to counter elected rulers than a colonial authority. Ever since the end of the colonial regime, the bulk of the Christian community has often made its political choices as a minority that had lost colonial patronage. The community was consciously or unconsciously and rightly or wrongly associated with the Portuguese conversion policy and the historic role of the ‘Father of the Christians’ (Pai dos Cristãos) who was meant to protect their material interests.
Those who witnessed the first democratic elections in Goa, and had the opportunity to listen to the electoral campaign of the United Goans Party, the choice of the hand as a party symbol was often associated with the hand of St Francis Xavier, whose patronage was regularly sought with special pilgrimages that were organized by the Church.
The Maharashtrawadi GomantakParty appealed largely to the Hindu vote. Its election symbol, the lion, suggested Shivaji’s use of waghnak, that had delivered his Hindavi Swarajya from the life and death encounter with Afzal Khan. A majority of the Christian populace, with rare exceptions like Eduardo Shivaji Faleiro, was culturally alienated to perceive this historical reference. This fact is a significant pointer to the cultural alienation that colonial rule had effected among Goan Christians through its religious and language politics, as denounced by Trsitão Bragança-Cunha, who merited deportation to a Lisbon jail for writing his “The Denationalization of Goans”. In this publication, he described “the aping culture” of Goan Christians. Ironically, it worked against the colonial regime which could not check the clandestine political propaganda in Devanagiri , despite a few Hindus collaborating with the police force.
This may be an occasion to recall the loss in a tragic accident in May 2004 of two stalwarts of Goan vernacular journalism in Romi Konkani in the post-liberation era. Felicio Cardozo had begun writing for Konkani periodicals published from Mumbai. After Goa’s Liberation, he wrote or edited several periodicals like Goencho Sad, Sot, Divtti, Loksad, Uzvadd and Surya. He is credited with initiating a systematic orthography for Konkani in the Roman script and spared no effort to correct the orthography of all the articles submitted to Gulab, founded by Fr. Freddy D’Costa, the first president of the Dalgado Konknni Akademi. Both did their best within their inherited limitations to provide a fillip to the culturally impoverished Goan Christian community.
The promoters of Romi Konknni through the Dalgado Konknni Akademi have much to explain to the informed and questioning public. If Gitanjali could merit the Nobel prize in its English version (not in Romi Bengali), it is outrageous to hear the demands of some who want Romi Konknni literature to be transliterated into Devanagiri to become eligible for national awards.
It is not clear if the transliteration should be done by those who seem reluctant to learn Devanagiri or by the defenders of the Devanagiri script. The protagonists of the Dalgado Konknni Akademi need to reflect on Dalgado’s initiative to publish his monumental Konkani-Portuguese dictionary in Devanagiri (Bombay, 1893) and on his Introduction to that particular tome.
