THE All-India Devanagiri Konkani Parishad insulted Romi Konkani again at the conclave held at the Ravindra Bhavan in Margao, recently. Very cleverly the Nagri fanatics used their token Catholic supporter Mausinho Ataide to launch the attack on Romi Konkani. Ataide, who is the only Catholic who supported Nagri Konkani, was in fact elected as the president of the All Goa Devanagari Konkani Parishad.
Mausinho Ataide ruled out any changes in the official language act to give Romi Konkani equal status. On the contrary, Ataide dubbed Romi Konkani along with Konkani in the Kannada and Malayalam scripts. Ataide showed his attitude toward Romi Konkani by suggesting a translation cell to translate to enable people using Konkani in the Romi script to switch to Nagri. Ataide even proposed treasures which provide equivalent to Devanagiri equivalence for words in Romi script.
Never mind that far more people in Goa and in all parts of the world write in Romi Konkani and not in Devanagari Konkani. Nagri Konkani is written only by a very small section of the Hindus in Goa. This is because the majority of Hindu Goans still used Marathi to read and write. It is only a few Saraswat writers who used their power to strike a deal with the Marathi lobby to marginalize Romi Konkani.
In retrospect, I believe that as the editor of OHeraldo at that time I should have rejected the Official Language Act which granted only Konkani in the Devanagiri script the status of the official language of Goa. The Official Language Act 1987 was a conspiracy between a handful of influential Devanagiri Konkani fanatics and the Marathi lobby which was very powerful at that time.
Ramakant Khalap, the MGP leader, has admitted that he succeeded in his objective of securing equal official language status for Marathi. It may be recalled that the 1987 official language bill stipulated that Marathi would enjoy equal official language status with Konkani. This was clear from the wording of the official language bill which declared that Marathi shall be used for any and every official purpose.

GOVERNMENT BETRAYAL
THE Nagri Konkani gang is aware that the official language bill was never implemented in the right spirit by successive governments in Goa. Every time Konkani was notified for use for any official purpose, simultaneously Marathi was also allowed to be used for the same purpose. When Nagri Konkani was used for sending out invitations for official functions, the Marathi lobby insisted on Marathi also being used.
Goa is probably the only state where invitations for official functions are issued in English, Marathi and Nagri Konkani. Even now the invitations for the functions held at the Raj Bhavan on Independence and Liberation Days are issued primarily in English along with Nagri and Marathi versions. The worst form of discrimination against the Catholic population of Goa is the provision is the knowledge of Konkani only in the Nagri script is compulsory for government jobs in Goa. This automatically shuts the door for government jobs to those who write in Romi Konkani.
It has been well established that Konkani has been written in the Romi Kannada and Malayalam scripts for more than at least 300 years. The first books in Konkani were by Fr Thomas Stephens who even brought out a Bible in Romi Konkani in the 16th century. There were half a dozen newspapers and magazines in Romi Konkani including “Ugwad” and “Vangarache Ishixt,” a publication which is still brought out by the Pilar Society.
Romi Konkani has always been the medium for the tiatr which is the most popular tiatr form in Goa. It was Konkani tiatr which kept Konkani mai the language alive in the face of attempts by the Portuguese regime to suppress it. Unlike the tiatr, the Marathi natak does not have many fans in Goa.
In any case, the Nagri Konkani fanatics do not support natak. There are no natak in the Nagri Konkani script. The Nagri Konkani fanatics have miserably failed in coming out of Ganesh arti in Nagri Konkani, the prayers offered during Chaturthi are still in Marathi.

MAJOR SETBACK
WRITERS in Romi Konkani received major setbacks when only Devanagiri Konkani was recognized by the Sahitya Academy for its literary awards. Books in Romi Konkani or in Kannada Konkani or Malayalam Konkani had to be translated into Nagri or English to be considered for the Sahitya Kala Academy awards.
The result has been that no Romi Konkani author has received a Sahitya Kala Academy award for books written in Romi Konkani. The limitations of Nagri Konkani were exposed by the fact that even famous writers like Damodar Mauzo had to get their books translated into English to reach a wider audience. If Damodar Mauzo is the best-known Konkani writer it is not because he writes in Nagri but because he has been extensively translated in English.
Even after 37 years since the passing of the official language act, Nagri Konkani has not been able to find acceptance among the younger generations. There are even now more Marathi-medium schools than Konkani-medium schools. Parents are not interested in putting their children in Konkani-medium primary schools because of the limited scope of Nagri Konkani. It is because parents were not interested in putting their children in Diocesan schools which were forced to switch to the Nagri medium that Catholic schools had to revert to English. The forced adoption of Nagri Konkani has affected the growth of spoken Konkani as the universal language. Significantly, Ganesh Devi who was the chief guest at the inauguration of the Devanagiri Konkani Bhasha Parishad did not mention the Nagri script in his speech.

FAMOUS LINGUIST
DEVI, who is a famous linguist, only spoke of how the Konkani language had the capacity to absorb other cultures and grow as a powerful medium of expression. Not being able to find any minority community delegates, the Nagri fanatics imported a group of Catholics from the Hassan district of Karnataka. The 300-strong Catholic Konkani community who had sent a delegation to the Devanagiri Konkani Parishad was led by the Catholic Pradeep D’Souza. Who incidentally disclosed that in Karnataka Goans used the Kannadiga script to write Konkani.
The All India Konkani Bhasha Parishad was in fact a Goan Nagri fanatic parishad. It is high time the minority community demanded that all the Catholic MLAs should demand an amendment to the official language to give equal status to Romi Konkani.