Word splitting & hyphenation conventions in roman transliteration

[S Krishna]

>At 11:40 11.02.99 PST, Christopher Fernandez wrote:
>> All India Roman (AIR) script will serve India best.[...]
>>
>> Are there any reasons why India cannot make a switchover
>> to AIR script?

To which Hayavadana says:

>yes: it will make literacy easier to achieve, and there are some people
who don't want that. the sangh parivar has already said that nobel
laureate amartya sen's proposal to boost literacy in india as a way to
combat poverty is part of a christian conspiracy to convert the whole
country to christianity and destroy hinduism... the old conversion bogey
again.>>

  AAAAAAAH! This is one sin for which the Hindu Right should not
be given credit.. The Credit goes to the super-secular Congress Party.
In the 40s, when this was proposed by Subhash Chandra Bose and
propogated by others, the Congresswallahs protested, the more notable
protesters( as my understanding goes) being Sampurnanand and SArdar
Patel. The idea was quickly shelved.

  How exactly would working with the Roman script make literacy easier
to achieve? Afterall, the Chinese script is far more complicated than
most others but the Chinese rates of literacy( if they can be believed,
of course) have been much higher than in India.....

Regards,
Krishna

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