As Catholics And Hindus Fight Over Scripts, Konkani Loses Out In Goa

Catholics support Romi Konkani because the script is used in the church and tiatr, but Devanagari Konkani has government backing

Mayabhushan Nagvenkar

Updated on: 29 May 2022 9:44 pm

When Fausto V. DaCosta, editor of Gulab, one of the last Romi Konkani monthly magazines published out of Goa, goes on his distribution rounds in the countryside, a thought occasionally crosses his mind. “It first came to me when I went to Aldona recently on a distribution round. Even after 100 Romi Konkani readers die, we do not get even three new (Romi Konkani) readers. So, when I go on the first (of every month) for distribution, instead of visiting booksellers, I wonder if I should visit the cemeteries instead,” says DaCosta. In an increasingly cosmopolitan Goa, Konkani’s slow and steady march to irrelevance appears to have begun. While socio-cultural change, largescale migration—both into and out of Goa—are some of the key reasons for the relegation of Konkani to the margins of popular culture in the state, there are some inherent fundamental flaws that have hastened its procession to the fringes.

It does not always take too many cooks to spoil the broth. In the case of Konkani, Goa’s official language that is critical to the state’s cultural identity, it appears to have taken just two. Caught in a forever tug-of-war between two camps—one enforcing the imposition of the language in the Devanagari script and the other trying to keep it afloat in the Roman script—has stymied Konkani in Goa. “There is no sale of novels and periodicals. There is not a single book outlet where our books are being sold anymore,” DaCosta says. The steady marginalisation of Konkani in Goa is evident from a comment made by Chief Minister Pramod Sawant at a Good Friday function this year, where he may have inadvertently tried to mask the decline of the language under the cloak of linguistic plurality. “Goa is known for four languages. We speak in Konkani, we prefer to read Marathi newspapers, we prefer to watch films in Hindi and while writing we prefer to use English. This is a state which is always known for four languages,” the chief minister also said.

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In urban spaces and coastal areas that are popular with tourists, Konkani is conspicuously missing. A walk along the Calangute-Sinquerim road stretch, one of the busiest tourist thoroughfares in the state, makes it amply clear. Russian perhaps outranks Konkani when it comes to murmurs on the stretch, store signages, restaurant menus, and discount hoardings. Though limited to Western India, predominantly along the Konkan belt, from which the language derives its name, Konkani has always been fairly malleable as far as adaptation is concerned. Apart from Devanagari and Roman (or Romi in Goa), Konkani has also been adapted to the Kannada and Malayalam script.

Birth of an era: 1st issue of Romi Konkani magazine Gulab, January 1983

The 2011 Census of India has indicated a drop of nearly two lakhs, vis-a-vis the count of Indian citizens who have opted for Konkani as their mother tongue. Konkani has also been paired along with Urdu as a scheduled language showing a negative decadal growth. Out of the 22.56 lakh persons who listed Konkani as their mother-tongue in the 2011 Census, Goa accounts for the biggest share at 9.64 lakh, followed by Karnataka, mostly the southern state’s coastal regions, at 7.8 lakh. While the 2011 survey records an increase of Konkani speakers in Goa, the trend could be attributed to large-scale migration here between 1990s to 2010. Those were the decades that saw a boom in the state’s labour-intensive sectors of mining, tourism and real estate development, but were also marked by increasing out-migration of Goan workforce to the Middle East and Europe.

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In a fast-changing Goa, the dwindling soul of Konkani split into Devanagari and Romi script camps. It took a year-long agitation and the death of seven protestors before the demand to anoint Konkani as the state’s official language was finally fulfilled by an incumbent Congress government in 1987. Proponents of both Devanagari and Romi camps campaigned relentlessly for Konkani to be recognised as the state’s official language as against Marathi, a plan which previous ruling dispensations headed by the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party were accused of tinkering with.

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But the plot twist, which seems to have forever exacerbated the relationship between the two feuding camps, came when the government at the time notified that only Konkani written in the Devanagari script had been deemed as Goa’s official language. The Devanagari Konkani script was and is backed by elite Hindus, while Catholics largely backed the Romi script, which was also the script of choice in Goa’s churches and tiatrs—a popular form of theatre. Roman Catholics, who account for nearly 26 per cent of Goa’s population, suddenly found the Romi Konkani script they were habituated to, had been put to pasture. While DaCosta’s laments sum up the perils that the Romi Konkani readership face, Devanagari Konkani has fared better thanks to government patronage. One such area, according to Konkani poet Sanjiv Verenkar, is book sales. “Counter sales of books published in Devanagari Konkani are better than Marathi,” Verenkar confirms.
In the newspaper universe, Konkani—either Romi or Devanagari—just does not make the cut. Marathi has been the go-to vernacular language of newspaper readers in Goa, with newspapers like Tarun Bharat, Gomantak, Lokmat and Goa Doot taking pride of place when it comes to circulation. Konkani newspapers like Sunaparanta and Rashtramat, once published in the Devanagari script, have fallen to the wayside and surrendered to the realms of extinction. Bhaangarbhuin is the state’s only surviving Konkani daily. Veteran journalist and poet Pandurang Gaonkar has had the unique distinction of working for two Devanagari Konkani newspapers, Sunaparanta and Bhaangarbhuin, over two decades. He feels both Konkani camps should put behind their differences emanating from the two scripts, and even suggests a point where a constructive dialogue between the two can begin. “Romi literature should be translated into Devanagari, and Devanagari literature should be translated into Konkani. Readers will be able to understand both languages better,” says Gaonkar.