Open Letter to Advisory Committee on Medium of Instruction

           This letter is pursuant to an email that was dispatched to the Advisory Committee on Medium of Instruction on 12 October, 2013. Before we proceed, however, we would like to laud the decision of the Committee to open the debate on education in Goa to public consultation in a systematic manner. We believe that this bodes well not only for the discussion on the Medium of Instruction (MoI), but as a precedent for future dialogue on such matters that may occur in our society. Having said this, however, we would also like to state that this exercise can seem token if invitations for comment do not provide a longer period for the public to submit their statements. This would enable members of the public, and especially academicians and professionals, to place appropriately researched arguments before the committee. We therefore strongly recommend reasonable periods of time in future consultative initiatives.

           Our recommendations with regard to the MoI, as made in the email mentioned above, were as follows: first, that the Advisory Committee recognise the Constitutional right of those being educated to determine the medium of instruction that best serves their circumstances; second, that both English and Konkani in the Roman script be recognised as state-supported MoI; and third, that rather than seeing the MoI as a resolution of the complex social problems faced by our society, more sensitive pedagogies that recognise the reality of language uses be adopted. We explain these in more detail below.

Mother Tongue: A Discredited Concept

Presently, the entire MoI debate rests on the uncritical acceptance of the substantially discredited idea of the ‘mother tongue’. What is misrepresented by the adoption of this concept is the reality that many societies, South Asian included, are marked by multilingualism where people generally speak more than one language, the choice of which depends on the context. The same is true in Goa. Thus, a person may speak Konkani at home, Marathi at a political meeting or cultural programme, and English in the office. And this is not all, for within a single language, there are multiple forms, similarly context-specific and tied to the particular communicative function. For example, a tiatrist may speak a variant of Konkani particular to his social (i.e. caste and regional) location at home, but will speak Bardezi among his peers, and perhaps attempt literary Konkani as promoted by the Nagri Konkani protagonists when meeting with the same.

The MoI scheme in Goa that attempts to instil one language (either Konkani or Marathi) and one dialect (Antruzi in Konkani, along with the Puneri adopted by the Maharashtra government for Marathi), officially and through the education system, is problematic. Because, in doing so, it ignores the multilingualism that is an integral part of our society and homes. Imposing literary and generally upper caste forms of the language on students at the start of their curricular formation does more than undermine vernacular forms of language; it causes intense emotional and socio-cultural dysfunction. The process of learning when to use a particular language or language-form is a critical part of the process of self-formation. It is for this reason that educationists across the world have insisted on the utility of preliminary education being imparted, not in a ‘mother tongue’ but in a ‘functionally dominant language’. The latter is the language form that the learner and her or his immediate milieu is most familiar with. Thereupon, to have a literary form of the language that is deemed to be a ‘mother tongue’ thrust on the learner as the standard form can be profoundly destructive of the sense of self of those learners whose family form finds no resonance in this standard form. Clearly, therefore, the problem is not merely about MoI, but also about inflexible pedagogies and a misunderstanding of the reality of language uses and practices. Indeed, the tragedy is that rather than focus on the critical issue of the pedagogies that are used in the classroom, the debate in Goa has been diverted to the highly specious issue of MoI. We recommend that, regardless of the MoI, classroom practice be marked by multilingualism. Thus, the practices where English medium schools penalize the usage of vernacular languages is as much a problem as the imposition of an alien Konkani on students. Such practices contribute to imperfect learning and, in the case of vernacular languages, contribute to language loss.  

The People’s Linguistic Survey of India has recently found that India lost 200 languages in the last 50 years. The most comprehensive survey to have been conducted in the last 80 years, it suggests that there is a need to “[maintain] organic links between scholarship and the social context.” The current modus, especially with regard to the Konkani language, which imposes an alien dialect of the dominant castes on initial learners, is bound to contribute to the alarming trend of diminishing language diversity as cited by this survey. As pointed out earlier, this complicates the voluntary adoption of Konkani. Indeed, a class and caste sensitive reading of the controversy that is briefly discussed below reveals that it is precisely the imposition of an alien form of Konkani on the population (a population that would have normally opted for education in Konkani) that is partly responsible for the demand for English as a state-supported MoI.

 Rather than sticking to the rigid delineation of the MoI as the only way to resolve the problem, one way out of this conundrum would be providing for the use and instruction of diverse languages and scripts, including Konkani in the Roman script. This option would allow for the preservation and growth of cultural and linguistic traditions. In turn, this supports the development of the Arts, which are often underrepresented in the curriculum. Goa’s literary traditions are rich and diverse, and include the Tiatr which has been instrumental in keeping Konkani alive and vibrant. Though we propose that students at primary levels be given instruction in those language-forms most familiar to them, we additionally recommend that the study of Konkani literature as it is expressed in Goan literary traditions like the Tiatr be introduced into the curriculum at the appropriate time. The Tiatr differs significantly from other literary traditions in Goa by employing dialects and accents that find common usage, so the study of such cultural productions actually helps young learners see the connections between language and the arts. Identifying linkages between culture and language through education bridges society and academia. In this way, vernacular languages would not necessarily be under threat from education in English.

The Insidious Agenda

While the MoI debate superficially appears to be a secular one about the support for ‘mother tongues’ and Indian languages, at the heart of its rhetoric lies the attempt to discipline or even suppress the aspirations of working class and lower caste Catholics and Hindus, i.e. the Goan bahujan samaj. Thus, the attempt is being made by the so-called Konkani protagonists to force Catholics towards an alien form of the Konkani language, and by the leaders of the Hindu bahujan samaj to restrict lower caste Hindus to education in Marathi alone. A very plausible suggestion has been made that the votaries of the Marathi language as a state-supported MoI are motivated by the fear that allowing for English will spell doom to the Marathi language schools that they run. The fear of Konkani-Marathi has often been used to fuel mutual distrust between the Catholic and Hindu bahujan samaj, and prevent their unity on crucial other issues. Not only are such strategies morally reprehensible, they are also violations of constitutionally guaranteed minority rights.

            

          Furthermore, the demand for English as a state-supported MoI should not be seen as one made merely to suit ‘Catholic interests’. It would be grossly erroneous to see the Catholics in Goa as a monolithic community. Indeed, the multiple opinions vis-à-vis the issue of the MoI is demonstrative of the substantial class-caste differences and interests that divide Catholics in the state.

What is also deeply disturbing is the manner in which the Catholic-led demand for the inclusion of English as a state-supported MoI has been branded by certain sections as anti-national, thus prohibiting any attempt to look at the reason for the demand. There is also the repeated argument that the inclusion of English will destroy both the Marathi and Konkani languages in Goa. The situation may in fact be much more complex. For example, education in English in the colonial period did not prevent Goans from learning Konkani, nor did it prevent them from composing the prose, poetry, lyrics and music for which the Konkani language is famed not only in Goa, but around the world. Indeed, we would argue that it is precisely the imposition of education in a variant of a language that is not part of their repertoire that is causing the flight away from Konkani language schools in particular. The future of Marathi is similarly secure given that it is associated with a vibrant cultural tradition, and even forms part of the substantial anti-brahmin movement in Goa. This latter movement is far from dead and thus continues to spur the learning of the Marathi language. In any case, regardless of the MoI, these languages will be introduced to students at higher level classes under the three language formula of the education system in Goa.

            

           Many people in Goa choose to be educated in English for practical purposes. It allows them to avail of higher chances for employment, not merely in Goa, but across the world. A good portion of the Goan population gains employment through migration. Given that Goa benefits from the foreign exchange remitted by those that work beyond India’s borders, and also that it is the Constitutional obligation of the State to support citizens in their endeavours, the government must support these attempts at ensuring future employability.

Looking at the issue from the level of politics, any decision of the Government of Goa to restrict the grant of aid to only schools that provide education in Marathi or Konkani in the Nagri script would be violative of the fundamental rights of children and their parents.

Recommendations

In light of the discussions above, we reiterate our recommendations as follows:

(1)                             That the Advisory Committee recognise the Constitutional right of those being educated to determine the medium of instruction that best serves their circumstances;

(2)                             That both English and Konkani in the Roman script be recognised as state-supported MoI; and 

(3)                  That rather than seeing the MoI as a resolution of the complex social problems faced by our society, more sensitive pedagogies that recognise the reality of language uses be adopted. 

(Subsequent to delivery to the presentation of this open letter to the Advisory Committee, this open letter was published in the edition of Goa Today dated November 2013.

This letter was written in association with 9 others who are listed below)

About the Signatories

Jason Keith Fernandes trained as a lawyer and anthropologist, and is interested in social policy.

R. Benedito Ferrão is a writer and educator whose academic focus is Goa and the diaspora.

Albertina Almeida is a lawyer and human rights activist.

Amita Kanekar is a teacher and writer.

Dale Luis Menezes studies medieval history at JNU, New Delhi.

Anjali Arondekar is Associate Professor of Feminist Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Nandita de Souza is a developmental pediatrician at the Sethu Centre for Child Development & Family Guidance, Panaji.

Anibel Ferus-Comelo is a parent, educator and policy analyst.

Sujata Noronha is an educator with a focus on Early Literacy and Children's Literature.

Chrissie D’Costa is an English language teacher and trainer.

 

The Rot and Racism in Paradise

India seemed to have be taken aback when the murder of a Nigerian national in the Goan village of Parra, early on 31^st October, led to a rabid outburst of racism in the state. There appears to have been a sense of shock and disbelief that such racism should rear its head in Goa, a place that if not actively seen as a paradise, is definitely seen as being “cosmopolitan”. But despite appearances, all is not well in the state of Goa and trouble has been brewing for some time now, the recent episode only a more dramatic evidence of the rot that has consumed the state.

While the murder in Parra had already raised tensions, the pot boiled over when a group of compatriots of the deceased decided to follow and intercept the police hearse carrying the corpse. They subsequently mounted a brief protest on the national highway, demanding that due process be carried out in the investigation of the murder of their fellow Nigerian. This situation had barely been resolved by the police when what seemed like a mob lynching of some Nigerians took place. In the course of the resultant violence, a couple of Nigerian nationals were beaten with sticks and iron rods within inches of their lives. In a bizarre twist this subsequent event became the focus of the local media where, rather than being portrayed as the victims, the Nigerians became the target for an all-out campaign of vilification. Thanks to the unorthodox manner of their protest the Nigerians were seen as having deserved the violence meted out to them. This was compounded by the fact that they were now projected as solely responsible for the vibrant drug trade, especially in the beach belt of the state. The manner in which the episode was reported and responded to, where reference was made to the physical attributes of the protesting Nigerians demonstrated quite clearly that the entire episode was being viewed through the lens of race. Take, for example, the manner in which reportage focused on the manner in which some of the protestors took off their shirts, or the statement attributed to the chief minister that, “some of them are seven feet tall. It would take at least 100 of our policemen to handle a crowd of 50 Nigerians”. As if to make things worse, now all Nigerians in Goa have come under the scanner where, in response to publically articulated demands that all Nigerians be deported from the country, the chief minister assured the populace that those Nigerians in the country without a visa would indeed be deported. In response to this demonization of the Nigerians, a number of Nigerians were asked by their landlords to leave the lodgings they had rented, even as the gram sabha of the village of Parra passed a resolution that requested villagers to desist from renting their properties to Nigerians.

Perhaps it was the eventual involvement of the Nigerian High Commission that converted what would otherwise have been a local issue into one of national interest. It was reported that an envoy of the High Commission suggested that “thousands of Indians living there will be thrown out on the streets if forcible eviction of Nigerians in Goa does not stop.” This seems to have further enraged not just persons in Goa, but Indians at large who responded in disbelief that an African nation was challenging them. These Indian responses were no less lacking in racist content given that they suggested that it was impossible that Indians were living in Nigeria illegally, and that Nigeria had better think twice since they needed India to purchase its crude oil, among other similar sentiments.  This response is not surprising given the media-led hyper-nationalism that seems to dominate the contemporary public sphere.

In a number of the debates that have ensued both in the print, as well as social media, Goans have protested loudly and vociferously that they are not racist. They have backed up this assertion by pointing to the fact that the Nigerians in question were in fact blocking a National Highway and that there are many Nigerians who are involved with the drug trade.  To their minds they are not unfairly focussing on the Nigerians. It is just that in this case the Nigerians have rightfully become the centre of state and public interrogation. While these excuses may not exculpate the vicious evidence of racism in Goa, it is true that this is not the first case of racialized responses to the social upsets in Goa.

While the Nigerians are being blamed for “spoiling our boys and girls” today, this cry has been echoing in Goa ever since the time this territory was opened up to tourism. When the British national Scarlett Keeling was found dead on a beach in 2008, there were similar outbursts of racist, and sexist, rhetoric, where the victim and her mother were blamed for their ‘loose’ lifestyles and the mother’s bad parenting. The focus on this mother and daughter allowed for gratuitous statements against ‘white trash’ and the undesirability of having such tourists in the state. In other words, though white, they were not white enough. If in the late 70s and early 80s it was the European and North American white hippies who were accused of immorality and drug abuse, in time that bias has shifted to include the Russians and the Israelis as well. These latter two groups have been identified not merely for drug use, but also for engaging in prostitution while also at the same time excluding Goans from those parts of the beach belt that the Israelis and Russians have reportedly staked out for their exclusive use. The case of the latter has been marked by an added fear that the Russian mafia has been buying up property in North Goa. And finally there is the response to Indian tourists, and those Indians who have second homes in Goa, who are disparaged for their arrogance, disrespect towards locals, and general lack of “civilised” behaviour.

This racism is not surprising given our caste culture, which nurtures a biased belief in hierarchy and discrimination, all of which is also tied to skin colour, so that it is very normal for black people to be treated worse than whites.  So much of the rhetoric in this case is uncannily similar to the experience of dalits in India, where as acts of violence against these communities are increased whenever they are seen to step out of line. One other way to explain these racialized responses would be to refer to the nature of the tourist industry and the peculiar manner in which it has incarnated itself in Goa. While appearing counter-intuitive, it may be precisely because Goa has been actively constructed as paradise that the kind of racism that has been manifest in its public spheres has emerged. From the time of its violent integration into the Indian Union in 1961 Goa has been distinguished, both in the Indian as well as in the international imagination, as a separate space, a Europe in India. Within this context Goans came to be articulated as a monolithic, almost European, community marked by a tendency toward fun and frolic. In the context the Goans are problematically related not just to blacks but persons who are not quite white as evidenced from the reference to the Keeling episode. This creation of a distinct identity as not quite Indian was encouraged by the state government in the interests of promoting tourism. Despite the manner in which this marketing generated revenues for the state, there was a negative spill-over with Goa being seen as a place where the rules that normally bind people can be cast off with impunity. Thus much to the chagrin of the locals, Goa is created as the apt location for a variety of activities including, but not limited to, binge drinking, drug consumption, or the wearing of clothes that one would not think of wearing at ‘home’. Even more galling is the fact that it is not just the tourists who act with impunity, but that the local dispensation casts aside all manner of rules to privilege the interests of non-local businesspersons. Thus, there has been growing resentment against the building boom and the resultant steep cost of real-estate that ensures that properties are now largely available only to moneyed non-Goans. There is also the case where both off-shore and on-shore casinos were set up in violation of regulations and despite active and continuing protests against the same. When the protests are lodged, the response of state authorities, often, is that the due process of law has been followed in obtaining permission for these businesses. The ferocity of the rhetoric against the Nigerians, the lack of sympathy for the murdered Nigerian national, and the explosion of support for the lynching of the others must be seen in the context the twining of the normalised disdain for Africans, the sense of exploitation, and the feeling that the due process of the law does not support the lives of locals. After all, popular justice is as a rule meted out not to the guilty, but to the weak who are scapegoated to regain a temporary sense of balance.

The lynching itself bears further scrutiny especially since it has been widely reported and hailed as an act of a long-suffering local population. As the drama of the moment passes and more facts come to light, it increasingly appears that the lynching was carried out by thugs who sought to use public outrage to settle scores with the Nigerians. The issue is clearly linked with the conflicts between the Nigerians and local gangs; where the murder of the Nigerian national on the 31^st was merely a spike in a longer period of conflict between these two groups. Indeed, it should be highlighted that the lynching itself took place after the blockage of the national highway had been resolved by the police. The Nigerians who were lynched were not a part of the earlier demonstration but had only just arrived at the scene.

What this episode seems to have made glaringly obvious, even to the national media, is the manner in which the drug trade in Goa is sustained by a close nexus between segments of the police and politicians. Truly, it stands to reason that a group of foreigners would dare to challenge the state in the manner that these particular Nigerians attempted only if they had a history of knowing that the law would look the other way as they flexed their muscle. As the days have progressed, more and more local opinions have joined the initial lone voices to suggest that the Nigerians were in fact the red herring that had been thrown in and the focus of the debate really ought to be about the larger fish that continue to swim in the sea of Goa’s drug trade. These declarations have also inquired how it was that so many Nigerians seem to have been in Goa without valid documents. Surely this was the result of the authorities deliberately looking the other way. Despite these voices, however, the local attention continues to be focussed on the Nigerians, which is somewhat disappointing given that it ensures that the larger problems themselves will remain unresolved. As if to illustrate this sad fact, just prior to the eruption of the episode, the media in the state was following, with some interest, the conclusions of the legislative house committee led by legislator Francisco (Mickky) Pacheco that had been set up to report on the police-politico-mafia nexus associated with the drug trade in the state. In particular this committee was expected to report on the alleged involvement of Roy Naik, son of former Home Minister Ravi Naik, in the state’s drug trade. Unfortunately, just like the case involving the Nigerians, the report of the committee also seems to have been scarred by the partisanship that affects all debates within the state. Most credible sources seem to agree that regardless of party membership, the drug trade in the state is sustained by the patronage of MLAs.

In all of this, the constant ray of hope has been the Chief Minister’s affirmations that no matter what the provocation citizens cannot take the law into their own hands no matter what. Following this, and perhaps also because of the international attention that the case has attracted, the state machinery has followed up with its assertion that those guilty of murdering the deceased and lynching the other Nigerian nationals will be prosecuted. One person has already been arrested and others are said to be absconding. Sources in the police department indicate that there has been a temporary lull in the drug trade in the state thanks to the administration’s actions subsequent to these incidents. One can only hope that this temporary disruption of the drug trade in the state will create the space for a more substantial resolution of the drug problem in the state.

                There should be no doubt that there is serious trouble brewing in Goa. The corruption in the state runs deep where, since the past few decades, there has been a systematic attack on the accountability of institutions and the rule of law resulting in a profound sense of cynicism within the state. The racism that one witnesses in Goa subsequent to the 31^st October is merely one more facet of this profound lack of confidence in the state and the belief that it is only through taking the law into their own hands that the citizenry will be able to address change. Simplistic logics, however, rarely resolve complex problems. They merely provide a false, and temporary sense of unity, and the fear is that where it was the Nigerians who were attacked in this instance, the day is not far when the social tensions that are being produced will result in locals setting themselves on each other. The day may not be far when Goa will be the classic example of paradise lost.

(A version of this post was first published in DNA India.com on  9 Nov 2013)