In the postcolonial landscape of Goa, the struggle over the script of the Konkani language—between the state-endorsed Nagri (Devanagari) script and the Roman (Romi) script historically used by Goan Catholicsaë as well as Hindus —reveals a deeper contestation over identity, power, and decoloniality.
The imposition of Nagri as the sole official script for Konkani by the Goan state marginalizes Romi Konkani, rendering Goan Catholics subalterns in their own linguistic and cultural milieu. Drawing on postcolonial and poststructuralist thinkers such as Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Michel Foucault, Homi K. Bhabha, and Dipesh Chakrabarty, here I strive to argue that Romi Konkani represents a decolonial praxis that transcends the binary structures of colonial knowledge systems and the purity/pollution paradigms of upper-caste hegemony.
By reclaiming the Roman script, Goan Catholics assert a hybrid, subversive identity that challenges both colonial legacies and postcolonial nationalist narratives.
Gayatri Spivak’s seminal question, “Can the Subaltern Speak?” (1988), resonates profoundly in the context of Goan Catholics who use Romi Konkani. Spivak argues that the subaltern is not merely oppressed but structurally excluded from hegemonic discourses, denied the means to articulate their subjectivity.
The Goan Catholic, whose linguistic heritage in Romi Konkani spans centuries, is rendered subaltern by the state’s imposition of Nagri as the “authentic” script for Konkani. This imposition delegitimizes Romi Konkani, framing it as inauthentic, impure, or a colonial residue—a narrative that aligns with upper-caste Hindu assertions of Nagri’s cultural purity.
Spivak’s framework illuminates how the Catholic Konkani speaker is condemned to silence, their script erased from official recognition, education, and cultural legitimacy. The subalternity of the Goan Catholic lies in this exclusion from the epistemic frameworks that define “authentic” Konkani identity. Thus at several levels Konani itself is dekonkanized .
This subjection is further elucidated through Michel Foucault’s concept of “subjugated knowledges” (1980). Foucault describes subjugated knowledges as those marginalized by dominant discourses, suppressed through mechanisms of power that privilege certain forms of knowledge over others.
The Roman script, used by Goan Catholics and others since the 16th century for religious, literary, and cultural expressions, embodies a subjugated knowledge system. Its marginalization by the postcolonial Goan state, which privileges Nagri as a marker of “Indianness” and Hindu cultural continuity, reflects a disciplinary power that seeks to homogenize Konkani identity.
The Goan Catholic, in Foucault’s terms, occupies a subjected position, disciplined by the state’s linguistic policies to conform to a hegemonic script that erases their historical agency. Yet, the continued use of Romi Konkani by Catholic communities—through ritual, literature, theater, and music—demonstrates a resistance to this subjection, a reclaiming of their decolonial voice.
Homi K. Bhabha’s concept of hybridity (1994) offers a powerful lens to understand Romi Konkani as a decolonial practice. Bhabha argues that colonial encounters produce hybrid identities that disrupt the binary oppositions of colonizer/colonized, pure/impure.
The Roman script, introduced by Portuguese missionaries, was indigenized by Goan Catholics over centuries, becoming a vehicle for Konkani literature, hymns, and cultural expression. This process of indigenization transformed the Roman script into a site of cultural agency and contestation distinct from its colonial origins.
Romi Konkani, therefore, embodies a hybridity that resists both the colonial legacy of Portuguese rule and the postcolonial imposition of Nagri as a marker of Indian authenticity. Bhabha’s notion of the “third space”—a liminal space where new identities are negotiated—applies to Romi Konkani, which exists beyond the either/or structures of colonial knowledge systems.
It is neither wholly colonial nor wholly “Indian” in the nationalist sense but a unique articulation of Goan Catholic identity.The decolonial status of Romi Konkani is further reinforced by its rejection of the purity/pollution paradigm central to upper-caste Hindu epistemologies.
Dipesh Chakrabarty’s critique of historicism in Provincializing Europe (2000) highlights how postcolonial societies often reproduce colonial frameworks by privileging certain cultural forms as “authentic.”
In Goa, the privileging of Nagri Konkani aligns with a Brahmanical narrative that associates Devanagari with Sanskrit and Hindu cultural purity, while Romi Konkani is stigmatized as “polluted” by its association with Catholicism and Portuguese colonialism.
By embracing Romi Konkani, Goan Catholics challenge this paradigm, asserting a decolonial identity that does not seek validation within upper-caste frameworks of purity. Their refusal to adopt Nagri is a rejection of the homogenizing impulses of postcolonial nationalism, which seeks to erase difference in favor of a singular, Hindu-centric Indian identity.
The persistence of Romi Konkani in literature, music, and community practices—despite its official marginalization—demonstrates a decolonial praxis that aligns with Walter Mignolo’s concept of “decoloniality” (2007). Mignolo argues that decoloniality involves delinking from Western and nationalist epistemologies to create alternative ways of knowing and being.
Romi Konkani, as a script and cultural practice, delinks from both the colonial legacy of Portuguese linguistic dominance and the postcolonial hegemony and imperialism of Nagri Konkani. It represents a form of epistemic disobedience, where Goan Catholics assert their right to write, speak, and create in a script that reflects their historical and cultural specificity.
Moreover, the use of Romi Konkani disrupts the linear temporality of colonial and postcolonial narratives. As Chakrabarty notes, postcolonial societies often adopt historicist frameworks that privilege a singular narrative of progress.
The Goan state’s endorsement of Nagri Konkani as the “authentic” script aligns with this historicism, framing Romi Konkani as a relic of colonial backwardness. However, Goan Catholics’ continued use of Romi Konkani challenges this narrative, asserting a temporality that is neither precolonial nor postcolonial but plural and heterogeneous.
This aligns with Bhabha’s idea of “time-lag” (1994), where marginalized communities create alternative temporalities that resist the teleology of nationalist progress.
The struggle for Romi Konkani is not merely a linguistic debate but a decolonial act of reclaiming agency, identity, and epistemic legitimacy. Through Spivak’s lens, we see the Goan Catholic as a subaltern denied a voice by the delegitimization of their script.
Foucault’s framework reveals the disciplinary power that subjugates Romi Konkani, while Bhabha’s hybridity illuminates its subversive potential as a third space of cultural articulation.
Chakrabarty’s critique of historicism and Mignolo’s decoloniality further underscore how Romi Konkani transcends the purity/pollution paradigms and nationalist epistemologies that seek to erase it. By writing, singing, and speaking in Romi Konkani, Goan Catholics assert a decolonial identity that is plural, hybrid, and resistant to both colonial and postcolonial hegemonies.
In this act, they not only reclaim their voice but also redefine what it means to be Goan in a postcolonial world.
References
Bhabha, Homi K. The Location of Culture. Routledge, 1994.
Chakrabarty, Dipesh. Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference. Princeton University Press, 2000.
Foucault, Michel. Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972–1977. Pantheon Books, 1980.
Mignolo, Walter D. “Delinking: The Rhetoric of Modernity, the Logic of Coloniality and the Grammar of De-coloniality.” Cultural Studies, vol. 21, no. 2–3, 2007, pp. 449–514.
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. “Can the Subaltern Speak?” Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, edited by Cary Nelson and Lawrence Grossberg, University of Illinois Press, 1988, pp. 271–313.
