Konkani people

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Konkani people
Kōṅkaṇī Lōk
Regions with significant populations
Goa 878,432
Karnataka 706,397[1]
Maharashtra 522,000
Kerala 113,432[2]
Dadra and Nagar Haveli 27,000
Hinduism, Christianity, Islam
Related ethnic groups
Indo-Aryans · Kannadigas · Tuluvas · Marathis
Distribution of native Konkani speakers in India

The Konkani people (Koṅkaṇī lok also Koṅkaṇe, Koṅkaṇstha) are a linguistic community found mainly in the Konkan Coast of south western India whose mother-tongue is the Konkani language. They originate from coastal Karnataka and Goa.


  • Koṇ meaning top of the mountain.

Thus the name Konkane, comes from the word Konkaṇ, which means the people of Konkan.[3]









The then prehistoric region consisting of Modern Goa and some parts of Konkan adjoining Goa were inhabited by the Homo sapiens in Upper paleolithic and Mesolithic phase i.e. 8000–6000 BC. The rock engraving in many places along the coast has proven the existence of hunter-gathers.[7] Nothing much is known about these earliest settlers. Figures of Mother goddess and many other motifs have been recovered which do not really shed light on the ancient culture and language.[8] Traces of Shamanic culture have been found in Goa.[9]

It is believed that tribes of Austric origin like Kols, Mundaris, Kharvis may have settled Goa and Konkan during the Neolithic period, living on hunting, fishing and a primitive form of agriculture since 3500 BC.[10] According to Goan historian Anant Ramakrishna Dhume, the Gauda and Kunbi and other such castes are modern descendants of ancient Mundari tribes. In his work he mentions several words of Mundari origin in the Konkani language. He also elaborates on the deities worshiped by the ancient tribes, their customs, methods of farming and its overall impact on modern day Konkani society[11] The Negroids were in an Neolithic stage of primitive culture, and they were food-gatherers rather. Traces of Negroid physical characteristics are found in parts of Goa, at least up to the middle of the first millennium.[11] The Proto-Australoid tribe known as the Konkas, from whom is derived the name of the region, Kongvan or Konkan with the other mentioned tribes formed reportedly the earliest settlers in the territory.[12] Agriculture was not fully developed at this stage, and was just shaping up. The Kols and Mundaris might have been using stone and wood implements as iron implements were used by the megalithic tribes as late as 1200 BC. The Kol tribe is believed to have migrated from Gujarat.[9] During this period worship of mother goddess in the form of anthill or Santer, was started. Anthill is called as Roen (Konkani:रोयण), this word has been derived from the austric word Rono meaning with holes. The later Indo-Aryan and Dravidian settlers also adopted anthill worship, which was translated to Santara in Prakrit by them.[11]

The later period[edit]

Baji Rao I, the second Peshwa of the Maratha Empire, was a Konkani and belonged to the Chitpavan community[13][14][15]

The first wave of Vedic people came and settled from Northern India in then Konkan region about 2400 BC. Some of them might have been followers of Vedic religion.[16] They were known to speak earliest form of Prakrit or Vedic Sanskrit vernacular. This migration of the northerners is mainly attributed to the drying up of the Sarasvati River in Northern India. Many historians claim only Gaud Saraswat Brahmins and few of the other Brahmins to be their descendants. This hypothesis is not authoritative according to some. Balakrishna Dattaram Kamat Satoskar a renowned Goan Indologist and historian, in his work Gomantak prakruti ani sanskruti, Volume I explains that the original Sarasvat tribe consisted of people of all the folds who followed the Vedic fourfold system and not just Brahmins, as the caste system was not fully developed then, and did not play an important role.(see Gomantak prakruti ani sanskruti,Volume I).

The second wave of Indo-Aryans occurred sometime between 1700 to 1400 BC. This second wave migration was accompanied by Dravidians from the Deccan plateau. A wave of Kusha or Harappan people a Lothal probably around 1600 BC to escape submergence of their civilisation which thrived on sea-trade.[9] The admixture of several cultures, customs, religions, dialects and beliefs, led to revolutionary change in the formation of early Konkani society.[16]

The classical period[edit]

The Maurya era is marked with migrations from the East, advent of Buddhism and different Prakrit vernaculars.[17] Greeks settled Goa during the Satavahana rule, similarly a mass migration of Brahmins happened from the north, whom the kings had invited to perform Vedic sacrifices.

The advent of Western Satrap rulers also led to many Scythian migrations, which later gave its way to the Bhoja kings. According to Vithal Raghavendra Mitragotri, many Brahmins and Vaishyas had come with Yadava Bhojas from the North (see A socio-cultural history of Goa from the Bhojas to the Vijayanagara). The Yadava Bhojas patronised Buddhism and settled many Buddhist converts of Greek and Persian origin.[18]


13th–19th century AD[edit]

Turkic rule[edit]

In 1350 CE, Goa was conquered by the Bahmani Sultanate of Turkic origin. However, in 1370, the Vijayanagar Empire, a resurgent Hindu empire situated at modern day Hampi, reconquered the area. The Vijayanagar rulers held on to Goa for nearly 100 years, during which its harbours were important landing places for Arabian horses on their way to Hampi to strengthen the Vijaynagar cavalry. In 1469, however, Goa was reconquered, by the Bahmani Sultans. When this dynasty broke up in 1492, Goa became a part of Adil Shah's Bijapur Sultanate, who made Goa Velha their second capital. The Bahamanis demolished many temples, and forced the Hindus to convert to Islam. To avoid this religious persecution, several Goans families fled to the neighbourhood kingdom of Soonda.[19]

Portuguese rule[edit]

The Portuguese Conquest of Goa occurred in 1510 on behalf of the Portuguese admiral Afonso de Albuquerque. Goa (also Old Goa or Velha Goa) was not among the cities Albuquerque had received orders to conquer: he had only been ordered by the Portuguese king to capture Hormuz, Aden and Malacca.[20] Goa Inquisition was established in 1560, briefly suppressed from 1774–1778, and finally abolished in 1812.[21] The Goan Inquisition is considered a blot on the history of Konkani people and Goa. Its ostensible aim was to preserve the Catholic faith, the Inquisition's beginning in 1561 and its temporary abolition in 1774, some 16,202 persons were brought to trial by the Inquisition. Of this number, it is known that 57 were sentenced to death and executed in person; another 64 were burned in effigy. Others were subjected to lesser punishments or penanced, but the fate of many of the Inquisition's victims is unknown.[22]

The inquisitor's first act was to forbid any open practice of the Hindu faith on pain of death. Sephardic Jews living in Goa, many of whom had fled the Iberian Peninsula to escape the excesses of the Spanish Inquisition to begin with, were also persecuted.[23] Seventy-one autos da fe were recorded. In the first few years alone, over 4000 people were arrested.[23] In the first hundred years, the Inquisition burnt at stake 57 alive and 64 in effigy, 105 of them being men and 16 women. Others sentenced to various punishments totalled 4,046, out of whom 3,034 were men and 1,012 were women.[24] According to the Chronista de Tissuary (Chronicles of Tiswadi), the last auto da fe was held in Goa on 7 February 1773.[24]

According to Indo-Portuguese historian Teotonio R. de Souza, grave abuse was practised in Goa in the form of 'mass baptism' and what went before it. The practice was begun by the Jesuits and was later initiated by the Franciscans also. The Jesuits staged an annual mass baptism on the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul (25 January), and to secure as many neophytes as possible, a few days before the ceremony the Jesuits would go through the streets of the Hindu quarter in pairs, accompanied by their slaves, whom they would urge to seize the Hindus. When the slaves caught up to a fugitive, they would smear his lips with a piece of beef, making him an 'untouchable' among his people. Conversion to Christianity was then his only option.









The victims of such inhuman laws of the Inquiry Commission included a French traveller named Charles Delone. He was an eyewitness to the atrocities, cruelty and reign of terror unleashed by priests.[26] He published a book in 1687 describing the lot of helpless victims. While he was in jail, he had heard the cries of tortured people beaten with instruments having sharp teeth. All these details are noted in Charles Dellon's book, Relation de l'Inquisition de Goa (The Inquisition of Goa).[26]




The adverse effects of the inquisition were tempered somewhat by the fact that Hindus were able to escape Portuguese hegemony by migrating to other parts of the subcontinent[29] including to Muslim territory.[30]


Impact on culture and language[edit]

In stark contrast to the earlier intense study of the Konkani language and its cultivation undertaken by the Portuguese priests as a communication medium in their quest for converts during the earlier century, the Inquisition brought about xenophobic measures intended at isolating new converts from the non-Christian populations.[32] This suppression of Konkani was in face of the repeated Maratha onslaughts of the late 17th and earlier 18th centuries, which for the first time posed a serious threat to Goa, and by extension, the Portuguese presence in India itself.[32] The Maratha threat, compounded by their religious zeal, led the Portuguese authorities to initiate a positive programme for the suppression of Konkani in Goa.[32] As a result, the ancient language of Konkani was suppressed and rendered unprivileged by the enforcement of Portuguese.[33] Urged by the Franciscans, the Portuguese viceroy forbade the use of Konkani on 27 June 1684 and further decreed that within three years, the local people in general would speak the Portuguese tongue and use it in all their contacts and contracts made in Portuguese territories. The penalties for violation would be imprisonment. The decree was confirmed by the king on 17 March 1687.[32] However, according to the Inquisitor António Amaral Coutinho's letter to the Portuguese monarch João V in 1731, these draconian measures did not meet with success.[a][34] With the fall of the "Province of the North" (which included Bassein, Chaul and Salsette) in 1739, the assault on Konkani gained new momentum.[32] On 21 November 1745, Archbishop Lourenzo de Santa Maria decreed that to qualify for priesthood, the knowledge of, and the ability to speak only in Portuguese, not only for the pretendentes, but also for all the close relations, men as well as women, confirmed by rigorous examinations by reverend persons was an essential prerequisite.[32] Furthermore, the Bamonns and Chardos were required to learn Portuguese within six months, failing which they would be denied the right to marriage.[32] The Jesuits, who had historically been the greatest advocates of Konkani, were expelled in 1761. In 1812, the Archbishop decreed that children should be prohibited from speaking Konkani in schools and in 1847, this was extended to seminaries. In 1869, Konkani was completely banned in schools.[32]

The result of this linguistic displacement was that Goans did not develop a literature in Konkani, nor could the language unite the population as several scripts (including Roman, Devanagari and Kannada) were used to write it.[33] Konkani became the lingua de criados (language of the servants)[35] as Hindu and Catholic elites turned to Marathi and Portuguese respectively. Ironically, Konkani is at present the 'cement' that binds all Konkanis across caste, religion and class and is affectionately termed Konkani Mai (Mother Konkani).[33] The language only received official recognition in 1987, when on the February of that year, the Indian government recognised Konkani as the official language of Goa.[36]

Konkanis today[edit]

The Konkani community, however, rebounded from every setback. With the end of the British and Portuguese Empires in India, the community has made significant strides. Konkanis today are an urbanized community. A large section of the community works in the banking sector, given their background in trade and commerce. However, the community has diversified into various professions and made a name for itself in the industrial, technical and medical fields. A high percentage of Konkanis are now engaged in tertiary occupations as compared to other communities. A large number migrated to Bangalore, Mumbai and other large cities after Independence. Today, nearly half of the Konkanis can be found outside India, particularly the Anglosphere, United States and the Arab states, either as naturalised citizens or expatriates.[citation needed]

See also[edit]

Notes and references[edit]

  2. ^ "Census of India – DISTRIBUTION OF 10,000 PERSONS BY LANGUAGE". Retrieved 1 July 2011. 
  4. ^ Language in India
  6. ^ Krishnat P. Padmanabha Menon; Jacobus Canter Visscher (1924). History of Kerala: a history of Kerala written in the form of notes on Visscher's letters from Malabar, Volume 1. Asian Educational Services,. pp. see page 196. 
  9. ^ a b c Kamat, Nandkumar. "Prehistoric Goan Shamanism". Prehistoric Goan Shamanism. The navahind times. Retrieved 30 March 2011.  Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; name "kamat" defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  26. ^ a b L'Inquisition de Goa: la relation de Charles Dellon (1687)
  31. ^ Dalrymple, William, White Mughals (2006), p. 14
  36. ^ Goa battles to preserve its identity – Times of India, 16 May 2010


  • Hindu Temples and deities by Rui Pereira Gomes
  • Caste and race in India by Govind Sadashiv Ghurye

External links[edit]