A two-day National
Seminar organised by Jagotik Konknni Songhotton on “Scripts ad Languages in
Modern India with Special Reference to Konkani” was held on March 10 and 11,
2012 at Kalangann, Mangalore.
In his
introduction to the seminar, General Secretary of Jagotik Konknni Songhotton,
Eric Ozario clarified the official opposition of JKS that JKS was against the
unilateral imposition of a single script on Konkani speaking people of all
regions. He said that JKS was for recognition of all scripts but should there
be a need for a single script for official reasons then the decision should be
a democratic one. He said monoculture in the context of language and script of
Konkani smacks of fascism. According to him one of the mail purposes of the
seminar was to deliberate on the survival of Konakni in the globalisation
context with reference to the scripts being used.
The keynote of
the seminar was delivered by Valerian Rodrigues, Professor, Centre for
Political Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University,
New Delhi. He
remarked that script and language mark civilisations. Although language and
script are distinct they are related. The internal and external diasporic constitution
of Konkani speakers need to be factored in. He stressed the need to defend the
minority status of the language. Speaking on the question of resource he said
it needs to be discussed whether the resources within Konkani go to the
marginalised scripts and dialects within Konkani or to those which are
prominent. He also discussed the need to stay with a script and yet explore
ways of connecting to other scripts.
Speaking on
“Script and Language: Relationship and Contentions” Anvita Abbi, Professor of
Linguistics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi dwelt on the relationship
between script and cultures with a contrast between scripts found in India with
those of Europe, Egypt and China. She said all the scripts evolved in India are
derivatives of Brahmi script. Since in India oral tradition was more
predominant, the languages did not experiment on the aesthetics of the script,
as against the Roman script. She also said that the Brahmi script was also a
way of organising the phonetics system of the language. Due to these reasons,
she pointed that the scripts were mutually intelligible. She also drew
attention to the fact that scripts are also mediated by technologies and gave
the example of Roman script being used by various language users to communicate
via digital technologies. She also said that script diversity should not be
seen as a burden but as a blessing. As a way of addressing the present crisis
she suggested that Konkani could emulate her work on Great Andamanese where she
brought out a dictionary of Great Andamanese using three scripts. She warned
that shifting to one script or forcing people to use only one script could
render users of other scripts illiterate overnight. She concluded with a
reading of an extract from the resolution of the first session of the Konkani Parishad
whose primary agenda was to resolve the script question and wondered whether
nothing had changed in the script debates in the last seven decades.
The last
programme of the day was presentation of the play Tulsi. The play was written by Arun Raj Rodrigues based on the
novel by Ravindra Kelekar of the same name, directed Christopher, Ninasm and
presented by Kalakul Repertory, Mangalore
On the second
day, Alok Rai, Professor of English, Delhi
University spoke on “Language, Script
and Dominance in India”.
That the audience came to know through Prof. Rodriguez that Alok was the
grandson of Premchand added to the interest of the audience in his arguments.
Rai presented the case of Urdu-Hindi language and script conflict in the late
nineteenth and twentieth century. He delineated the origin of the Hindi-Urdu
conflict and traced their historical trajectories culminating in the present
dominance of Hindi over Urdu and attempts within Urdu to transliterate Urdu
literature from Perso-Arabic to Nagari script. Using the analogy of Hindi-Urdu
contentious relationship he argued that local contexts have their ramifications
far beyond their original contexts. As the unrest grows a host of other
political and economic issues join the initial context and the issue snowballs
into a major struggle. He dwelt on the possibility of looking at the script
issue in Konkani using this analogy. At the same time he also warned the
dangers of adopting the analogy as such an attempt runs the risk of overlooking
issues specific to the context it is applied to. Citing the words of his Sri Lankan
friend he said that a demand for one language might create two nations whereas
acceptance of two languages might create one nation. He concluded his presentation
asking what would be lost if a script died?
Asha Sarangi,
Centre for Political Studies, New
Delhi who spoke on “Languages and Territory: Issues of
Rights and Identities” brought in social science perspectives on the issue. She
argued for locating the issue of multiple vs single script in Konkani within
the larger political and social history and the present political and
linguistic context in India.
She said that the language was linked to the social person. She drew attention
to the fact that State Reorganisation committee did not make any reference to
Konkani. She located the origin of Konkani in Dravidian and Austro-Asian
language family rather than Indo-Aryan. She suggested that the Konkani language
and script issue also needs to be seen in its relationship to territories. She
felt that the role of print in shaping the existing divisions and debates on
script needs to be explored. She questioned the relationship of Konkani with
other languages namely, Tulu and Kannada, and the role and place of Konkani in
state functions such as law, policy, education and cultural aspects such as
music, and arts. She mentioned that while Tulu got a place long ago in Mangalore University, Konkani is yet to. She
stressed the need to enumerate the practices of Konkani. She insisted on
looking at the political economy dimension of the present issue. She said the
issue of script could deepen the question of language as a political right and
a cultural right. She indicated that not much of intellectual and activist work
with relation to equations with the state had taken place since the inclusion
of Konkani in the eighth Schedule of the Constitution.
Madhavi
Sardesai, Department of Konkani, University
of Goa, did not come for
the conference but sent a paper titled “The Case for a Single Script for
Konkani”. The paper was read by Anil Pinto, Department of English and Media
Studies, Christ University,
Bangalore. The
paper argued in favour of the Nagari script for Konkani citing its use by
Monsenhor Dalgado and Shennoi Goembab, and resolution of the first session of
the Konkani Parishad in 1939, second session in 1940, the third session 1942 to
make Nagari the official script. The other reasons cited by her are
cross-script ignorance of literature among Kokani speaking people of different scripts,
a century old legacy of Konkani literature in Nagari script, and need for a Nagari
script to from a “practical and Economic grounds.”
Barbara Roeber
from Germany
spoke on “An International Perspective on Scripts and Languages”. She discussed
the script issue in Europe in the context of Serbo-Croatian and Bulgarian
languages, in Africa in the context of the Coptic, the Ethiopian, the Tamashek
languages, in America in the
context of the Cherokee, the Aleutian, and the Cree languages, and in Asia
languages of Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Turmenistan, and Thai. She said
that in comparison to the script issue in all these languages, the script issue
of Konkani presented the most unique case as it used five different scripts.
She said language and script are “constitutive parts of the culture and form
the identity of a language community” and that a “written language acquires through
its script an important permanency of a culture.” For her the Konkani speaking
people of Karnataka had acquired their cultural identity by writing the
language in Kannada. She felt that imposition of one script of over users of
other script could make the imposed communities lose their culture and
identity.
Pratapananda
Naik, Director, Thomas Stephens Konkkni Kendr, Goa,
spoke on “The Case for Multi-scripts in Konkani.” He presented a brief history
of Konkani language with reference to scripts. He dismissed the claim that
Kannada was adapted in Karnataka by the migrated Konkani people. He gave examples
of text written in Goa in Kannada script in
the seventeenth century. According to him while Konkani is written five
scripts, in Goa until 1961 Konkani meant
Konkani in Roman script. He gave the statistics of statewise population of
Konkani speaking people, scriptwise distribution of periodicals, which showed a
vibrant print culture in Kannada script and statewise status of Konkani. He
mentioned that because of the imposition of Nagari script over Konkani in Goa, the Konkani schools were losing out to English
medium schools. Hence he made a case for multi-script arguing for the use of
script in a particular place depending on the extent of its usage. He said
different scripts in turn represent many dialects, which can be preserved only
through multi-scripts, emotional affinity, non-commercial dimension, education,
use of scripts, primacy of spoken dialects over script to unite people,
betrayal of Nagari script users by joining Marathi, politics of award in single
script, lack of demand for single script from users other than Nagari proponents,
non-acceptance of Nagari by the Hindus, popularity of Roman script despite lack
of state patronage, preservation of democratic aspirations, equation between
Aryan, Brahmin, Sanskrit and Nagari script were the other reasons given by him
against imposition of single script.
In his concluding speech, Prof. Rodrigues drew
attention to the majoritarian politics marginalising a vast population in India whose
basic worldview was acceptance of the plural. He suggested that the script
question also needed be careful of this tendency.
At the suggestion of Anvita Abbi, General
Secretary of JSK, Eric Ozario proposed the resolution to request Sahitya
Akademi to consider all scripts equally for awards. The Seminar passed the
resolution with voice vote.
Mr Ozario in his closing remarks said that
the next course of action would be to bring all the parties concerned with the
script issues on one platform to deliberate on the issue of script and come to
a collective decision through democratic process.
Certificates were distributed to all the
participants along with copies of Vazram
Mothiam CD.
13 March 2012
Anil
Pinto
The audio recording of the seminar presentations and discussions by Miguel Braganza can be found by clicking here.
