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| Fr. Victor Ferrao |
Can we avoid an oedipal relation to the issue
of official language that has come to haunt us again? An oedipal response is
always triggered by anxiety and fear. Perhaps,
we will have to be watchful lest we become captive to the Oedipus complex. We
Goans seem to be living with a fractured self. The mother tongue controversy is
also one ground that fragments us.
Konkani in spoken as well as written form is determinable. The mode of
speaking and writing of Konkani has religious, regional as well as caste lines
that draw lines of division among the people both in Goa and beyond it. If it
was possible to remove all these lines of division and reach an ideal Konkani,
will we have any Konkani left at all? Will not such an abstraction of Konkani
only blow away our mother tongue? Konkani lives and breathes in its speakers
and writers and hence, always remain in its pilgrim condition. Hence, like all
other classical languages that died on the altar of standardization, Konkani
might die if we snuff out its plural nature.
In fact, the return of the ghost of Official language seems to draw its
teeth from a reductive ‘nagrization’ of Konkani. Most Goans appear to agree
that ‘nagrized’ Konkani does not represent all speakers and writers of
Konkani. This sense of being left out by
the Official language may be the under current that fires a sense of
dissatisfaction which irrupts often in different ways in our society. Hence,
there is a profound resistance to a singularized representation of Konkani.
The question that we may need to ask: Can we
really represent the profound vibrancy, creative fertility and dynamic
plurality of Konkani? Can the legal aspect represent the social, psychological,
linguistic and anthropological dimensions of Konkani? Language like music
resists our tendency to capture it into reductive and static categories. Hence,
we need to understand that the dynamism of Konkani requires us to accept a kind
of non-unitary approach that is open to the excess or surplus that is both
enmeshed and springs forth from our mother tongue. This means we are challenged
to interrogate the uncritical acceptance of Konkani as self same through binary
of identity (same) and difference. By this logic every other forms of Konkani
are de-Konkanized and set aside. But can the fertility and dynamism of Konkani
be de-Konkanized in the power of law? It
appears that the oedipal hand of law is inadequate. Hence, we are challenged to
recognise that Konkani cannot be fully represented in caged legal, religious,
national and even caste categories, though all of them cross lines within it.
There is always the other Konkani that resists such reductive thinking. Hence, Konkani resists its devaluation and
degradation that is imposed with the arm of law in Goa. That is why a
non-unitary mode of thinking of Konkani might assist us understand why the
ghost of the official language has come back to haunt us after thirty peaceful
years.
It might assist us to understand the dynamic
plurality of Konkani if we continue this detour into musicology. Music is
enjoyed and appreciated by humans because it lends itself to recognition of a
sense of repetition of an experience. It is this sense of repetition that draws
humans and leads them to identify some sameness which produces pleasant,
enjoyable and meaningful affects. Like
the musical experience, Konkani, both in its spoken as well as written forms
works within the logic of sameness that is recognised and construed. But every
repeated experience of music is never the same. Indeed, a repeated musical
experience leads us to actualize the experience of joy and content in different
degrees the virtual potentials that embedded in it. This means every repeated
experience is somewhat new. The same is true about Konkani. It is through the
recognition of repetition that bestows on its speakers a sense of joy and
meaningfulness of life as Goans, that Konkani lives and flowers. It is in this
recognition of relation of repetition and difference that we can see how every
repeated speaking or writing of Konkani is creating difference. This
construction of difference in the very act of speaking , writing and even thinking becomes the spring board
for the eruption of the other Konkanis. Unfortunately, this other Konkanis are
viewed as corrupted and are deemed as causes of disruption. The truth is
Konkani can only be Konkani by inscribing difference into it. If we fail to
recognize this difference speaking in and through Konkani and view it in
positive terms, Konkani is certain to die.
The de-recognition of difference that is
pouring out of Konkani is the cause of the return of the ghost of the official
language. The rejection of the Romi version of Konkani has led a sizable number
of Catholics in Goa to seek substitute in English. The perception of caste
difference that is gushing forth from the ‘nagrized’ version of Konkani has
already pushed the bahujan Hindus towards Marathi. In some way we may have to grant that it is
the absence of the mother tongue that produces a sense of loss that seems to be
pushing some Catholics and the Hindu bahujans
towards English and Marathi respectively. Everyone is inscribing
difference in taking these positions. But unfortunately this difference is put
on a ladder of hierarchy of purity and pollution and thus converted into a
cultural capital that feeds into narcissism and its surrogates across all lines
of the above divide. Thus, the out pouring of difference in Konkani not just
constructs other Konkanis in Goa but also degrades some of them. The
degradation mainly happens because a certain difference that springs forth from
a ‘nagrized’ Konkani is put into a static mould and is regarded as a measure or
standard scale for every other Konkani. That is why we are challenged to hear
the inter-voices springing forth from Konkani. There may not be a final
solution to the language issue in the days to come. The law that grated
official language status to Konkani seems to have failed our society. The
wounds have not yet been healed and slight provocation might put us into a
conflict mode. This law has oedipalized in as much as it silenced and pushed
the other speakers of Konkani into latency. The latent other speakers of
Konkani have become anti-oedipus and are resisting their infantalization
loudly. Therefore, we might understand that it is in recognition of the
reducible plurality of speaking and writing of Konkani by everyone across the
lines of divide that we might bring healing and closure to this complex discomforting
issue that has returned to haunt us.
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