Margao, (South Goa) Oct 28: Former Goa chief minister Luizinho Faleiro, who was part of the Konkani language movement, said that Chief Minister Conrad Sangma would be able to help in getting recognition to Khasi and Garo languages.
During a visit to his residence here, he spoke about the struggle the leaders of the Konkani language movement went through to achieve constitutional recognition to the language.
Faleiro, who is the former All India Congress Committee leader in- charge Meghalaya and other Northeastern states except Assam, said that inclusion of Khasi and Garo in the 8th schedule to the Constitution should be achieved through peaceful means though many Goan leaders were jailed as they had agitated for recognition to Konkani language.
“The constitutional recognition to Khasi and Garo languages should be achieved through peaceful means, I am sure that the chief minister will be able to achieve the goal”, Faleiro said.
Though Khasi is included in the tentative list of 38 languages seeking recognition, Garo is yet to find place in the list.
Many leaders and pressure groups from Garo Hills have reiterated the need to place Garo in the tentative list.
Unlike Meghalaya where the statehood movement was initiated first, the political stalwarts of Goa started the language movement first as there was a hurry to declare Marathi as the official language since the ruling party which was from Maharashtra tried to influence the Goans to embrace Marathi.
The only similarity in this regard with Meghalaya is that Assam wanted to impose Assamese on the people of Khasi-Jaintia and Garo Hills resulting in the Meghalaya statehood movement.
While Goa statehood was achieved in 1987, Konkani got recognition in 1992 as culmination of the language cum statehood movement from 1980s.
Faleiro (72) recently released the account of the struggle of Goans in his book “The battle for Konkani and statehood of Goa”.
