accused of polarising Goa's good people as never
before. (The Week, Jan 18-24, 1987)

The figures noted above of the Herald's circulation
don't seem to be very accurate. It was more like a few
hundred in its Portuguese days -- specially towards the
fag end of playing the role of being the "only
Portuguese language daily published in Asia". But Row
Kavi raises a point long back which probably didn't get
the attention it deserved.

By the time the 1985-87 language agitation was drawing
to a close, this writer was a chief sub-editor at the
Herald. Perhaps the cynical games visible all round
convinced one about not getting caught up in the
meaningless emotionalism that was ruling both
linguistic camps. Basic questions were not being
raised. What primarily was a caste-fuelled was being
fought out along linguistic lines. Many of those who
took up these issues -- as subsequent events showed --
were more keen on cornering a share of the spoils for
themselves and their kin, rather than really empowering
the commonman (and woman) to utilise a language they
could be more at home in. Rajan's own role was critical
in shaping the language issue the way it worked out.
The average Catholic became a hard-core, if later
disillusioned by the subsequent twist of events,
supporter of the Konkani camp, without quite
understanding the unstated issues involved.

On the language front, like many other controversies in
the state, this one too polarised journalists. The
United News of India news agency, though its then Goa
correspondent Jagdish Wagh, then put out a 10-take
article which echoed the Marathi side of the arguments.
Rajan's first response was to dump it in the
waste-paper basket. To one's mind, it made sense that
both 'camps' knew each other's positions on the issue.
Specially because this was one issue where the average
Catholic reader -- who hardly reads Marathi -- was
largely unable to keep abrest with the thoughts of one
side of the debate. To Rajan's credit, he was quick to
accept a suggestion from a junior, and decided that the
article be carried on the edit page. But if one thought
he did this because of the need for a diversity of
voices, that was simply untrue. Some days later, a
gleeful Rajan informed that it was just as well he had
taken up that suggestion, since the UNI write-up had,
in turn, provoked a series of lengthy polemical
responses from the Panjim-based Konkani hardline
supporter Datta Naik written to