At the time when the Konkani agitation was ongoing in Salcete and Ilhas, the undersigned was in the leadership of a group of activists in Bardez, demanding official recognition of the language for the State of Goa. None amongst us was in favour of Marathi being given any official status. Our demand was for the recognition of Konkani only as the official language There was no demand for any particular script for the language.
As the movement gained momentum all over Goa with roads being blocked in many parts of Salcete, Ilhas and Bardez, the Legislative Assembly started the process of debating the Official Language Bill.
At that time, Adv Uday Bhembre, was an MLA. He was one of the principal protagonist politicians of Konkani in the Assembly. He had a meeting with us and suggested that we should not oppose the demand for the Devanagri script for Konkani.
In point of fact, he told us that he and others in the Konkani Porjecho Awaz (KPA) were asking for Konkani in the Devnagri script in order to thwart the attempt by the Marathi lobby, favoured by late Sulochana Katkar, then president of the Congress Party which was in power in Goa, and one of the persons responsible for awakening the, till then non-existent, demand for equal status for the Marathi language, by opting for the Devanagri script, as that would encourage the Marathi lobby( which was familiar with the nagri script) to drop their demand for recognition of that language.
We were given to understand that this was in the works and if the demand for Devanagri script were to be opposed then the demand for Marathi would become more strident and there was the likelihood of a two language formula being accepted. As mentioned earlier, there was initially no demand for a particular script, though Catholics believed that the Roman script would find its place once the language was recognized. In good faith, and believing this to be a done deal, this suggestion was accepted. What occurred was, as everyone is aware, shocked the protagonists of Konkani. The Goa Assembly passed the Official Language Bill, by giving Marathi an almost equal status with Konkani The sufferers in this sordid game were the protagonists of Romi Konknni, who were cuckholded into muting their demand that no script should be mentioned in the Bill, but who ultimately did not have the benefit of having the Marathi language excluded completely from the Official Language Bill. They had to swallow the bitter pill of having Konkani in the Devanagri script only (with all the disadvantages it would entail for themselves as well as for the future generations). The backbone of the Konkani movement were Catholics, the majority of whom, could not or had difficulty in reading the Devanagri script and were thus placed at a disadvantage.
Churchill’s reported assertion, that Adv Uday Bhembre stood in the way of recognition of Romi Konkani, is correct as the latter was one of the people responsible for mentioning a specific script in the Official Language Bill, instead of leaving that part open. If a script needed to be mentioned then in that case both scripts, which are presently in use in Goa, should have been mentioned.
