Sandesh Prabhudesai
5 Feb 1998
"Do not get involved in linguistics and other petty local
squabbles at this stage. Think of national situation and elect good people to rule
us". The appeal has been made by nightingale of India Lata Mangeshkar.
A Goan by origin, Mangeshkar is presently in the tourist state along
with her sisters Usha and Meena and brother Hridaynath. Her public appeal came as a
spontaneous reaction to what Goa’s top politicians were exhibiting on the public
platform, at a function in the city today, where she laid a foundation stone for the
Marathi Bhavan.
It all began when union law minister Ramakant Khalap started accusing
the then Congress MLAs, in the presence of Congress chief minister Pratapsing Rane, for
half-heartedly supporting the issue of making Marathi the official language along with
Konkani in 1986.
"I don’t agree with this Konkani-Marathi controversy. Goans
speak Konkani and it’s a language of Goa. Don’t fight over it", she
appealed to the politicians sitting on the dais. She seemed quite upset with the way the
linguistic issue got a political overtone at the function.
She also appealed to the gathering not to get involved in such
controversies but realise the real issue before the country today. "Considering the
Indian situation today, the real issue is whom to elect to rule us. May be because I am a
singer I do not understand why people get involved in such issues", she said.
Though she got a thundering applause from the overpacked hall,
politicians were not in a mood to listen to her advise. Chief minister Pratapsing Rane,
who spoke after her, charged that the union law minister for drafting the language bill,
which was ultimately passed by the Goa Assembly. Khalap once again got up and denied it.
Since its liberation, Goa’s politics is moving around the language
controversy, where people are divided over the issue of whether Konkani or Marathi is the
language of Goans. The official language bill, which was passed following a state-wide
violent agitation, grants status of official language to Konkani while Marathi has been
permitted to be used for all officials purposes.
Politicians still provoke the voters, taking advantage of the game of
words used in the official language act, though both languages are literally granted
status of official language.
Meanwhile, Lata Mangeshkar, along with her brother Hridaynath, will be
felicitated by Goans on Saturday here. The felicitation has a greater significance as it
is the first "people’s function" she is wholeheartedly attending.
In the past, she had expressed reservations about Goans since her
father Dinanath was more humiliated rather than helping him in their difficult times by
the people of her native place of Mangeshi as well as other Goans, in Mumbai, during her
childhood.
While Hridaynath was the first one to break this deadlock few years
ago, she has now announced a donation of Rs one lakh for the Bhavan, on behalf of Dinanath
Mangeshkar Trust.
