Can there be Amicability on MoI?

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There just cannot be amicable solution to this issue. There can be only political solution. Simply because the BJP needs the Church and the Church wants English medium. Just like the Congress.

Everybody is eagerly waiting for a decision on Medium of Instruction from chief minister Manohar Parrikar for the last three months. It’s now expected this week, even may be by today.

The Congress publicly admits that one of the reasons it lost the Assembly election miserably is its decision on Medium of Instruction. It means the people, who defeated Congress, expect the BJP to act otherwise. But what does the BJP manifesto say?

“BJP subscribes to universal scientific principle of primary education in the mother tongue. Grant-in-aid accordingly will be released to primary level schools (1^st to 4^thstandard) with medium in regional languages. However, keeping in mind the problems faced by a number of schools due to the faulty and legally inferior policy of the Congress government and sentiments of certain sections of the population, BJP assures an amicable solution to the problem.”

Parrikar nowadays has been repeatedly saying that he won’t be able to satisfy any side, fully. He is right. There just cannot be amicable solution to this issue. There can be only political solution. Simply because the BJP needs the Church and the Church wants English medium. Just like the Congress.

It is not a different case with other fighters on the opposite side. The petitions, including Pandurang Nadkarni, withdrew the petition on MoI, based on a mere assurance of the Manohar Parrikar government to withdraw its earlier circular of Digambar Kamat government on MoI. Why it did not make new circular a precondition to withdraw the case is still a question mark.

It is also surprising that the leaders of Bharatiya Bhasha Suraksha Manch, especially from Konkani movement, have been hailing Parrikar even before it has made its policy clear on the MoI. Some of them even captured important positions. Rajdeep Naik thus needs to be hailed since he continued refusing the Yuva Chaitanya Puraskar in the Kamat government as well as Parrikar government. Days have come for the elders in the Konkani movement to learn from the youngsters...

Anyway, the question right now is... what will Parrikar do?

He is expected to do three things.

Firstly, he needs to differentiate between elementary education and the rest of education; not primary education and secondary education. The principles of elementary education – till standard Fifth in some states and till standard Fourth in some states – are different from rest of the education, as far as the language of instruction is concerned. If Parrikar believes in it, then he needs to MEAN it.

Secondly, the whole MoI issue in 1991 became a fiasco simply because the teachers were never trained in Konkani in DEd institutes, but only in English, but to teach in Konkani. It needs to be seen if Parrikar now plans to starts teachers’ training in Konkani medium.

The third thing, of course, is which is the mother tongue of Goans? Everybody speaks Konkani. Some of them still call it Konkani the dialect of Marathi while some call it a language in itself. If elementary education should be imparted in mother tongue, will Parrikar clarify which is the mother tongue of Goans? Konkani or Marathi; or both? If both; on what basis?

If not; will we agree to his ‘not satisfying anybody fully’ merely a political solution?