Romi campaigners need to recognise the potential of ten roads for Romi's revival, and take support from other non-Nagari scripts
Just when the Romi movement seemed to be taking off, differences cropped up among campaigners. This threatened to take the drive for language justice off-track for another generation. For nearly 38 years, the unfairness and indignity of the death sentence given to Konkani in the Roman script has proven impossible to challenge, despite many attempts.
But, to be fair, Romi is not Goa's only divided house. Other groups within Goa suffer from their own differences and divisions as well. This is true with Nagari Konkani, and for Marathi. Look deeply, and you'll find that not everything is running well there too. But someone else's woe is little consolation.
Campaigners for language justice in Goa need to be clear about which road could work best for way ahead. Should the focus be political? Should it be literary? Or, can a campaign based on linguistic rights and human rights make a dent?
Some have seen the political road as the best route to fight discrimination against Romi. So far, the Global Konkani Forum had done a neat -- if not amazing -- job in getting over 50 village panchayats to pass resolutions in favour of Romi Konkani. This might not change the ground-level situation. But it creates the atmosphere, and takes the message across.
More difficult will be taking the issue ahead in the Goa Assembly, among the elected MLAs. Politicians are known to make use of people's sentiments. The party-divide within the Assembly being what it is, and the stands taken by Goa's MLAs over the language issue since 1987 (and even since the 1960s), makes this all very clear.
Virtually no politician there would want to change the eight words which delegitimise the official use of Romi Konkani in the land it has long served. The words from the Official Language Act, 1987 which say: "'Konkani language' means Konkani language in Devanagari script".
But the issue doesn't end here. At the grassroots, the largest group of Konkani users in Goa still rankles over how the script they are most familiar in cannot be used for official purposes.
Not just that, the delegitimisation of Romi Konkani spreads to other areas: book awards, education, textbook availability, higher education and research, government support to the media, radio and television (and the dialects deployed there), administrative use, festivals and events, road signs, institutional bias, lack of funding for publishing, official communication, in state-recognised cultural and literary domains, for jobs.
Given this situation, there are still other avenues which need to be explored to take up this cause. But, for that, the campaigners will need to think fast and think smart.
One group has been focussed on the dream of creating Romi textbooks in schools, even without official support. Scholarships and awards do exist, though few. Online initiatives to teach the Romi script are coming in, with the best currently being oddly enough from Mangaluru.
This comes in through short, free and easy-to-follow WhatsApp stories like 'Chamtto Monis (The Miserly Person)'. Using the same, the young priest Jason Pinto SDB, and Prof Flora Castelino of St Aloysius continue the clergy- and citizen-supported initiatives across the centuries of promoting the people's knowledge in an Indic language like Konkani.
Media and publications is a third track which needs to be worked on. Understandably, this is slow and painstaking work. Nevertheless, Goa (with Mangalorean support) has three of its own Konkani audio programmes globally -- at Southampton (Konkani Uloi London Fuloi), Toronto (Radio Mango) and Auckland, NZ (Sushegaad Daanpar).
Fourthly, the road of cultural representation is important. For Romi to be visible and unignorable, it needs to find space in awards and recognition, festivals and events.
A fifth road is the promotion that Romi Konkani publishing needs. Very little is happening here. In another era, persons like the priest-publisher late Fr Freddy da Costa understood this only too well. Using terms like 'entrepreneur' or 'businessman' might sound demeaning in this context, but that is what he was, and a good one at that.
Sixth, Romi has been holding strong in the liturgical space and world of religious texts. But there is only a little understanding of this. How many village-based parish magazines exist in this script-dialect? Can something be done to build this into a visible whole?
Seventh, Romi can't afford to neglect the digital space. Its cyberspace presence is a natural and logical fit, given the realities and language skills of today's generation. But this cannot be left to running in auto-pilot mode.
Employment opportunities need to be understood, analysed and generated in Romi. Today, after a generation of Nagari-alone policies, the Konkani field is hugely imbalanced in Goa. This has affected government employment, leading to the extent of causing discrimination against non-Nagari users. This can be the eighth road for Romi, if adequately worked on.
Ninth, given Romi's natural fit in the tourism sector, there is space for its language and associated music to make its dent felt there too. Till date, few seem to be working on this.
But, perhaps the road which seems most promising is for someone, somewhere, to recognise linguistic discrimination for what it is. This might seem like far-fetched and unlikely. But it need not be the outcome of a long-drawn-out and costly legal battle; though it could emerge unexpectedly.
Now too, the unfairness of the Romi situation needs to be recognised. Persons like the businessman-litterateur Datta Naik have already spoken out against it. Romi campaigners need to recognise the potential of these ten roads for Romi's revival, and take support from other non-Nagari scripts. As the poet Frost said in another context: "There are miles to go before I sleep/ There are miles to go before I sleep."
