MBA urges President to 'save Marathi' in Goa

Panaji, May 2 (UNI) The Marathi Bachao Andolan (MBA), led by former chief minister Mrs Shashikala Kakodkar, has sought President A P J Abdul Kalam's intervention in ''saving Marathi and its pristine culture from extinction in Goa due to the 'anti-Marathi' policies of the state government''.

In a memorandum to the President on March 30, MBA president Mrs Kakodkar and other members said ''the state government has intentionally and systematically started strangulating Marathi language as the medium of instruction at the primary level by replacing it with English''.

The memorandum also carried about 1.2 lakh signatures of people from eleven talukas which were collected in a campaign launched since June last year. These signatures were collected even from Christians-dominated Tiswadi, Bardz and Salcete talukas.

The President had assured the delegation that he would look into the matter, the MBA has claimed.

''The number of children taking primary education in Marathi is far more than those taking education in English and other languages, which shows Marathi is the language of the majority in Goa,'' Mrs Kakodkar told news persons here today.

Yet the Congress government is closing down Marathi schools on the pretext that there is less enrolment, she alleged.

The delegation, she said, had also brought to the notice of the President that the government had rejected the proposal of the private institutions to take over the primary schools to continue teaching Marathi.

The MBA, she said, would chalk out an ''action plan'' on May 7 ahead of the June 2 Assembly elections. The MBA has a five-point charter of demands which includes scrapping of the government policy of permitting private English medium primary schools in place of Marathi schools.

The other demands include withdrawal of the ''Marathi suppression policy by making English education compulsory at the primary level'', encouraging private institutions to take over government primary Marathi medium schools intended to be closed, and permission to open more Marathi schools.

The MBA has alleged that the state government has put ''in cold storage'' the recommendations of an experts committee which had probed the causes for closure of government-run Marathi primary schools.

The delegation informed the President that oral communication in Goa takes place in Konkani, which is the official language, but Marathi is the medium of written communication for most Goans and this had been so even during the Portuguese regime 450 years back.

UNI