Team Herald
MARGAO: Global Konkani Forum (GKF) rejected the statement by Konkani Bhasha Mandal (KBM) President Ratnamala Divkar on Sunday that the Devanagari lobby is not against Romi Konkani and Roman script Konkani is getting equal treatment from KBM and the government.
Jose Salvador Fernandes, Secretary, GKF said that as per the statement made by KBM President, Romi Konkani cannot be given equal status along with Devanagari as official script of Konkani under the Official Language Act, because of Sahitya Akademi follows “one language, one script policy.”
“GKF would like to state that first of all, this policy of the Sahitya Akademi totally goes against the Constitution of India, especially Article 14, which guarantees equality before the law. GKF would like to know what criteria was used by the Konkani Advisory Board of Sahitya Akademi in 1981, when they unanimously passed the resolution to give recognition to only Devanagari script as the sole official script of Konkani language?” he questioned.
He further said that this ‘one script policy’, is therefore discriminating against the four other scripts of Konkani, and needs to be challenged in the court of law. The nation’s mantra is unity in diversity.
“KBM President says there is no different treatment given to Romi Script by KBM. The representation of Roman Script members on the KBM executive committee speaks for itself. Moreover, discrimination towards Roman script is also seen at government level, where the Dalgado Konknni Akademi is not given grants on par with Goa Konkani Akademi,” said Fernandes.
He alleged that the KBM President, and other protagonists of Devanagari are definitely against Romi Script.
“Otherwise I challenge her to say that she or KBM does not have any objections to Konkani in Roman script being introduced in the schools. This will prove that she or KBM is not against Romi Konkani, because the Sahitya Akademi and the Official Language Act have no objections with Romi getting introduced in schools,” he said.
He said even the National Education Policy does not impose any language or script on any school. Then why KBM and Devanagari proponents like Uday Bhembre, Damodar Mauzo are against introducing Roman Script in schools? “The Devanagari protagonists want to choke the script to a slow death,” he said.
KBM President further said that GKF is trying to create a religious divide, which is totally false, and is made with a malafide intention to polarise
two communities.
“In fact, the day the clause ‘Konkani means Konkani written in Devanagari script’ was inserted in OLA 1987, that very day the seeds of religious divide was sowed, betraying the 95 percent Romi script protagonists, who participated in the language agitation,” she had said on Sunday at a programme of KBM held at Margao.
Protesting against the comments, GKF Secretary Fernandes said that it was insane and baseless on the part of KBM President to accuse Roman script protagonists as communal. “We are only asking for our rights as religious and linguistic minorities, as it is our fundamental right as per article 29 (1),” Fernandes said.
He added that it gives all minorities the right to protect their language script and culture.
“GKF is simply demanding its rights as minority citizens of India,” said GKF secretary.
“When we are not opposing the inclusion of Devanagari in the OLA, then how are we creating a divide?” he said.