Jose Salvador Fernandes, Goa elected as the president of JKS

Media release

Mangaluru, Aug 31: Jagotik Konkani Songhotton (JKS) had convened a seminar, on Sunday August 27 at Kalaangann, here to discuss an important issue affecting the future of Konkani namely ‘The Imposition of Hindi in India and its impact on other languages, especially Konkani’.

85 delegates from different states of India and from the Gulf attended the seminar.

Prior to the seminar, there was a short celebration of the 25th ‘Konkani Manyata Divas’. ‘Sumell’, the Singing Club of Mandd Sobhann, sang two new songs on Konkani, written by Rony Crasta Kelarai and composed by Eric Ozario.

Dr Pratap Naik SJ, in his short message on Konkani Manyata Divas, gave a call to all Konkanis to inculcate the love of Konkani in their hearts. Mani Manivannan from Chennai and Arun Javagal from Bengaluru wished Konkanis on behalf of the Tamil and Kannada communities, respectively.

The seminar began with Eric Ozario, secretary general of JKS, explaining the purpose and importance of JKS organizing the seminar.

3 experts made their presentations.

Mani Manivannan, leader of the Tamil language movement, Chennai – in his presentation, spoke about the ‘Politics of Imposition and the Tamil reaction’. He explained how Hindi is being imposed from the time of the British rule in India. He said that it was like an imperial imposition rather than a democratic process because the power of the army was used to impose Hindi in Tamil Nadu in 1965. He also explained how the Tamils and the Tamil government have been resisting any sort of imposition on them. He said that any sort of imposition is an insult to one’s dignity, and hence should be fought against. He gave a brief description about how the Chennai Declaration for Language Rights was passed and how CLEAR was formed and is working to promote ‘linguistic equality’ in India.

Arun Javagal, leader of the ‘Hindi-Imposition-Resistance Movement’, Bengaluru – explained how Hindi is being imposed on us, in our day-to-day life. He said that it is not right to promote one language when there are so many other languages in India. In his presentation, he showed how linguistic inequality was being promoted in India. He stressed that it is the duty of the government to serve citizens in their own language, and not in a language that they do not follow. He said that we should demand for our language rights.

Dr Pratap Naik, Konkani linguist and researcher, Goa – explained how Hindi imposition affected Konkani. He compared the imposition of Nagari script in Konkani to the imposition of Hindi in India.

The paper presentations were followed by discussion.

Irine Rebello compered the programme.

The 20th book published by Mandd Sobhann, ‘Chalti Konkani’, a revised version, compiled by late Georgie Pinto Aikol and edited by Rony Crasta Kelarai, Eric Ozario and Preeti Lopes, was released on the occasion, by Fr Valerian Fernandes, editor of ‘Raknno’ and Fr Alwyn Serrao, principal of Padua college.

Roy Castelino, ex-president of the Karnataka Konkani Sahitya Academy, Eric Ozario ,Gurkar, Mandd Sobhann and Vithori Karkal, executive committee member, Mandd Sobhann, were present on the dais.

Jose Salvador Fernandes, Goa elected as president of JKS

Jose Salvador Fernandes from Goa was elected as the president of JKS during 6th global general assembly of Jagotik Konkani Songhotton which met on the same day at Kalaangann.

Eric Ozario, Mangaluru, was elected the secretary general. The other office bearers are –

K K Utharan (Kerala) – vice president (India), Clifford Arun D’Souza (Saudi Arabia) – vice president (Gulf countries), Dr Austin D’souza Prabhu (USA) –vice president (Other countries), Louis J. Pinto (Mangaluru) – treasurer, Kishore Fernandes (Mangaluru) – associate secretary, Joy Ciriaco Fernandes (Goa) – PRO.

The following were elected to the executive committee –

Shridhar Manjunath Kharvi (Bhatkal), Dr Vasant Shantaram Bandekar (Karwar), Lullus Cutinha (Bengaluru), Vincente Dias (Goa), Anthony Miranda (Goa), Santhosh Lotlikar (Goa), K Vishwanathan (Cochin), N Prabhakaran (Cochin), K Vijayan (Cochin), Grashan Rodrigues (Calicut) and Ancy D’Souza Paladka (Vasai).

The term of this Committee is 2 years.