Goemkarponn Desk
PANAJI: AAP Velim MLA Cruz Silva today has written to Commissioner of Linguistic Minorities demanding recognition to Roman Lipi in Goa Official Language Act.
“It’s a grave injustice is done to Roman Script, by granting official status only to Konkani language in Devnagari script, in Goa’s Official Language Act (OLA),” said MLA Cruz
He further said that the omission of Roman Script in the OLA, is considered as the greatest betrayal of the peoples wishes, specially of the Linguistic Minorities community, who fought and seven people died as Martyrs, to make Konkani as the Official Language of Goa, during the time of the historic Konkani language agitation of 1987.
“Since the Roman Script has suffered great injustice and discrimination for the last 36 long years, I would like to request you to give Roman Script its rightful place in the Official Language Act, as per section 29(1) of the Constitution of India,” he added
Silva said that under Linguistic Minorities Commission of India, Article 29 and 30 of the Constitution provides safe guards to linguistic protection of the minorities, as their fundamental right.
“Under Article 29 (1) of the Constitution, we are alleging, script-based discrimination of the Konkani language, as the Official Language Act (OLA) of Goa recognises only Devnagari as the official script of Konkani, and has discarded Roman Script, which is mostly used by the minority community of my constituency and of Goa in general.
MLA also pointed out that under article 29 (1) states that any section of citizens, residing in India, or any part thereof, and having a distinct language has the right to protect and conserve the same.
“Under this clause, it is our fundamental right to protect the Roman Script from discrimination,” he added
