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Panaji: BBSM Stresses on Peaceful Bandh to Protect Languages on Jun 6
- Sun, Jun 05 2011 09:07:33 AM
Special Correspondent
Daijiworld Media Network - Panaji
Panaji, Jun 5: Bharatiya Bhasha Suraksha Mandal (BBSM), which has called for a statewide bandh on June 6, has said that they will protest peacefully and if required would sacrifice their lives to protect Indian languages from facing extinction.
BBSM has also claimed that the political parties including Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) and Shiv Sena (SS) have supported their strike.
Sahitya Academy award winning Konkani writer, Pundalik Naik, told reporters today that the state government will have to revert back its decision to give grants to English schools considering the condemnation to its anti-people stand.
“Whenever there are agitations to save Indian languages, people have sacrificed their lives. This time too, we are ready to lay our lives. Indian languages have survived because of masses and not on political patronage,” said Naik, a former chief of Goa Konkani Academy and active member of BBSM.
BBSM’s statewide bandh is to protest against Digambar Kamat-led overnment’s decision to include English as Medium of Instruction (MOI) in the primary schools. The schools teaching in Konkani and Marathi are given an option to teach in English and they will be provided grants to change their MOI.
BBSM President Shashikala Kakodkar told a press conference today that the entire protest would be peaceful. “We have excluded services like Pharmacies, Ambulances and Hospitals from the bandh so as not to make inconvenience to the people,” she said.
Kakodkar, former Goa Chief Minister, said that political parties like BJP, NCP, MGP and SS has supported their strike call. “There are some legislators within congress, who have backed us,” she said.
BBSM has appealed all the like-minded leaders, cutting the party line, to join the protest.
The former Chief Minister claimed that 67 institutions have supported the cause. She refused that the BBSM will make any last ditch effort by meeting Kamat to convince him to give up and revert back his decision.
Kakodkar said that if government does not reverse its stand after June 6 bandh, the agitation will continue forcing the government to undo all the actions he has taken against the Indian languages.