Tag: English

Popular Essays

Lessons that Students Learn: MoI in Times of CAA

By DALE LUIS MENEZES

It is four years since the tragic death of Hyderabad Central University scholar Rohith Vemula. Driven to commit suicide by a deeply casteist and discriminatory educational system, Vemula now is a symbol of liberation for all students who hail from minoritized- and discriminated-against backgrounds. In the context of the recent country-wide protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019, Vemula’s memory fortifies protestors to soldier on. (more…)

Popular Essays

A Goan Waltz around Postcolonial Dogmas

By JASON KEITH FERNANDES

 

Some days ago I found myself invited to a ball in Lisbon hosted by the Austrian embassy in Portugal. Revived after more than a decade, the current initiative was conceived of a way to generate funds for deserving causes. In this inaugural year, funds were raised in support of A Orquestra Geração, which is the Portuguese application of the El Sistema method created in Venezuela. Another objective was to introduce Portuguese society to aspects of Austrian, and in particular Viennese, culture.

 

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Popular Essays

A response to ‘Archbishopancha Sermao’

By KAUSTUBH NAIK

 

The Catholic communities in Goa have been at the receiving end of a vicious hate campaign spearheaded by the Bhartiya Bhasha Suraksha Manch (BBSM). BBSM’s vocal activist Naguesh Karmali recently made a statement saying that the ‘Church is worse than the Portuguese’, while Uday Bhembre urged the ‘75% majority population of Goa to rise up against the domination of 25% minority’. Reflecting on this hate campaign against the Catholic communities, Archbishop of Goa, at the annual Christmas civic reception held at his palace, remarked that newer forms of intolerance can be seen in the state today which are polarizing the majority against the minorities. In response to this speech by the Archbishop, the resident editor of Marathi Daily Lokmat, Raju Nayak, wrote a special editorial titled ‘Archbishopancha Sermao’ (Archbishop’s Sermon dt. 30th Dec. 2015) which claimed to analyze the Archbishop’s speech as well as the Church’s role in the crafting of Goa’s secular fabric.

 

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Popular Essays

The Shame of Speaking Konkani – II

By DALE LUIS MENEZES

 

The writing of a second installment to my article ‘The Shame of Speaking Konkani’ (published a fortnight ago), is partly for emphasizing the problem at hand and partly fortuitous. I say fortuitous because, in response to my article, Damodar K Kamat Ghanekar wrote a letter to the editor (4 September, 2015) and had a rather interesting anecdote to narrate in the same. The manner in which the abovementioned anecdote is narrated further allows us to see how shame and humiliation operates within Konkani language politics.

 

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Popular Essays

The Shame of Speaking Konkani

By DALE LUIS MENEZES

 

In this column I would like to discuss one of Alfred Rose’s most popular songs, Anv Konknni Zannam (I Know Konkani), which he sang along with his wife, Rita Rose. Given that the issue of language – particularly ‘mother tongue’ – is being hotly debated in Goa presently, this particular song provides an opportunity to reflect on a serious issue about the Konkani language that is rarely spoken about.

 

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Popular Essays

Fala Farsi? Notes on Multi-Lingual Practices for Goa

By DALE LUIS MENEZES & VISHVESH KANDOLKAR

 

The indefinite hunger strike of Savio Lopes and members of Forum for Rights of Children to Education (FORCE) for government grants to English as Medium of Instruction (MoI) have exposed the shallow and undemocratic language politics – under the guise of ‘mother tongue’, ‘Goan identity’, ‘Konkani’, ‘Marathi’, etc – in Goa. While arguing for a robust multi-lingual outlook as well, we would like to open up the conversation to a host of other languages that Goans can profitably engage with.

 

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Popular Essays

Whose Medium is it Anyway?

By ALBERTINA ALMEIDA

 

It is only a mirage that the contours of the language debate in Goa are shifting. Though now assuming overtones of a religious divide in the medium of instruction controversy, at the heart of the agitation lie the fault lines of caste and class, which predate even the language agitation of the mid-’80s.

 

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