L25: Language Issue in Goa

Good morning, everyone! Come in and sit down. Let me just check — how many of you speak Konkani at home? And how many of you write it — in any script? And how many of you have ever thought about the fact that the same language can be written in two or three different scripts? Keep that in mind as we go through today's lecture, because it is absolutely central to everything we will discuss. Quick recap. In Lecture 24, we covered the post-liberation administrative transition — from military administration through the first elected government under Dayanand Bandodkar, the complexities of the legal and economic transition, and the long shadow of the Goa civil code. Today — Lecture 25 — we turn to what I think is the most socially and emotionally charged issue in Goa's post-liberation history: the Language Issue. [0–10 minutes: Introduction] I want to open with a story. When Goa was liberated in 1961, the first thing that happened in every school was that the Portuguese-language textbooks were taken away. Overnight. Children who had been learning to read and write in Portuguese — who had spent years acquiring literacy in that language — suddenly found that their textbooks were gone and new textbooks in a different language were being provided. For many children, it was like having the ground disappear from under their feet. That story — of the textbooks disappearing overnight — is a small but vivid illustration of the massive cultural disruption that the language transition represented. And it leads directly into the question we are going to examine today: what language should Goa use? For government? For schools? For official purposes? For public life? You might think: this is a simple question. India has Hindi and English as official languages. Goa should just adopt the regional language. But in Goa, the question 'what is the regional language?' was itself furiously contested. And the answer different communities gave reflected not just their linguistic preferences but their historical identities, their political interests, and their visions of what kind of Goa they wanted to live in. [10–40 minutes: Core Content] Let me lay out the main contenders in the language debate and the arguments made for each. First — Portuguese. In the immediate post-liberation period, there was a significant group of educated Goan Catholics who argued, or at least felt, that Portuguese should be retained as a language of culture and education. This position was never politically viable — India was not going to keep Portuguese as the official language of one of its territories — but it was emotionally present. Portuguese was the language of the Luso-Goan intellectual tradition, the language of Francisco Luis Gomes, the language in which educated Goan Catholics had written poetry, philosophy, and journalism. Abandoning it felt like a cultural amputation. Many families continued to use Portuguese at home for years after liberation. Second — Marathi. The Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party — the MGP, which was the dominant political party in early post-liberation Goa under Dayanand Bandodkar — advocated strongly for Marathi as the official language of Goa. Their argument was: Goa is culturally and linguistically a part of the greater Maharashtra region. Marathi has a long literary tradition in Goa — particularly in the New Conquests where it was used for Hindu religious and literary purposes. Marathi is understood by virtually all Goans, Hindu and Catholic. And practically, if Goa is going to merge with Maharashtra — which was the MGP's political goal — then Marathi as the official language makes complete sense. The Marathi position was strongly supported by the Hindu communities of the New Conquests and by those who saw Goa's cultural identity as fundamentally continuous with Maharashtra's. Third — Konkani. The Konkani position argued that Konkani — the mother tongue of the majority of Goans — should be the official language of Goa. This was advocated by a coalition of Goan intellectuals, activists, and politicians from both the Catholic and Hindu communities who saw Konkani as the authentic expression of a distinctly Goan identity. But the Konkani position was itself internally divided in a crucial way: which script should Konkani use? The Catholic Goan tradition wrote Konkani in Roman script — based on the centuries of Portuguese-era literacy in Roman characters. The Hindu Goan tradition wrote Konkani in Devanagari script — the same script used for Marathi and Hindi. These were not just two ways of writing the same language. They were, in practice, two different literary and cultural traditions with different vocabularies, different styles, different reader communities. A Catholic Goan who wrote Konkani in Roman script and a Hindu Goan who wrote Konkani in Devanagari might not even be fully literate in each other's written form of the language, even though they could understand each other in speech. The script question was therefore a proxy for a deeper identity question: whose Konkani — Catholic Goan or Hindu Goan — would be the standard? The Konkani language movement — working toward recognition of Konkani as an official language — was a decades-long political and cultural struggle. Key figures in this movement include the great Konkani writer Ravindra Kelekar, who wrote in Devanagari, and the writer Manoharrai Sardessai, who wrote in Roman. Both were fighting for Konkani's recognition, but they represented different streams of the same river. The political struggle for Konkani recognition involved: the campaign to have Konkani recognised in the Eighth Schedule of the Indian Constitution as one of India's official languages; the campaign to make Konkani the official language of the Goa state; and the campaign to establish Konkani-medium education in schools. Let me trace the timeline. After liberation in 1961, Goa was administered as a Union Territory. The language of administration transitioned gradually to English — a neutral choice that avoided the Konkani-versus-Marathi battle. The Opinion Poll of 1967 — which we will discuss in Lecture 26 — was partly about the language question, because the merger with Maharashtra would have settled the language question in favour of Marathi. When the Opinion Poll voted against merger, the question of Goa's official language remained open. Goa was still a Union Territory — not a state — and did not have full constitutional autonomy to decide its own official language. In 1974, Marathi was declared the official language of Goa for administrative purposes — a decision that outraged the Konkani movement. This was a political victory for the MGP and the pro-Marathi lobby but it was bitterly contested. The movement for Konkani official status continued through the 1970s and 1980s. On August 20, 1987 — the same year Goa became a full state — Konkani was declared the official language of Goa. And on August 22, 1992, Konkani was added to the Eighth Schedule of the Indian Constitution, giving it national recognition as one of India's scheduled languages. This was a major victory for the Konkani movement. But even today, the language question is not entirely settled. The script issue — Devanagari as the official script — is accepted but the Roman script tradition continues in Catholic communities. The medium of instruction in schools — which we will examine in Lecture 28 — remains contested. And the fear that Konkani as a living language is endangered by Marathi, by English, and by Hindi in the modern media environment is a real and legitimate concern. Let me also briefly mention the linguistic plurality of Goa beyond the Konkani-Marathi binary. There are significant communities of Kannada speakers in the southern talukas of Canacona and Quepem. There is a Urdu-speaking Muslim community. There are Portuguese-Konkani speaking communities among older Catholics. There are increasingly large communities of Hindi and Bhojpuri speakers from migrant labour communities from North India. Goa is a genuinely multilingual society, and the official language question, while important, does not exhaust the linguistic reality of the state. [40–55 minutes: Activity and Discussion] Let me do something interactive. I want to take a quick informal survey of this class. I am going to ask a few questions, and I want honest answers. First: what language do you primarily speak at home? Put up your hands for Konkani, Marathi, English, Hindi, or other. [Take responses] Second: if you speak Konkani at home, which script do you read it in — Devanagari, Roman, or neither? [Take responses] Third: do you think Goa would be culturally richer or culturally poorer if Konkani gradually gave way to English as the dominant everyday language over the next fifty years? [Allow brief discussion] So let me ask you this directly: the Konkani activists of the 1970s and 1980s fought for decades for official recognition of their language. They succeeded. But today, how many young Goans are reading Konkani literature? How many are choosing Konkani-medium schooling for their children? The recognition came, but is the living practice following? This is the real measure of whether the language heritage is surviving. [Allow discussion — eight minutes] [55–60 minutes: Summary and Assignment] To summarise. The Language Issue in post-liberation Goa involved a three-way contest between Portuguese, Marathi, and Konkani. The Marathi lobby was represented by the MGP; the Konkani movement cut across religious communities but was divided by the script question — Roman versus Devanagari. Konkani was declared the official language of Goa in 1987 and was added to the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution in 1992. But the question of Konkani's survival as a living language — in the face of English, Hindi, and Marathi — remains open and urgent. Your assignment: find one piece of Konkani literature — a poem, a short story, a song lyric — in either Roman or Devanagari script. Translate it into English as best you can. Write a sentence about what it tells you about Goan culture. Bring it to class. Next lecture — Lecture 26 — we examine the Opinion Poll of 1967 in detail. This was the referendum that settled — at least officially — the question of whether Goa should merge with Maharashtra. It was one of the most dramatic political events in Goa's post-liberation history, and its outcome continues to shape Goan politics today. See you then!