Did Delhi Police call Bengali ‘Bangladeshi language’? Political firestorm erupts as Mamata decries cultural ‘insult’

Amid the ongoing row over the alleged arrest of Bengali-speaking people from various parts of the country, a fresh controversy has erupted after West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee accused the Delhi Police of calling Bangla a Bengladeshi language.

Banerjee was referring to a letter by an officer of the Delhi Police, investigating a case under the Foreigners' Act, to the Banga Bhawan in the national capital. The letter had sought a translator for the "Bangladeshi national language" following the arrest of eight people, suspected of having illegally crossed over into India from the neighbouring country.

THE WEEK couldn’t independently verify the authenticity of the letter.

Banerjee termed the mention of "Bangladeshi national language" in the letter as “scandalous, insulting, anti-national, unconstitutional”. 

“This insults all Bengali-speaking people of India. They cannot use this kind of language, which degrades and debases us all,” she said.

“We urge immediate strongest possible protests from all against the anti-Bengali Government of India, who are using such anti-Constitutional language to insult and humiliate the Bengali-speaking people of India,” the chief minister said.

Banerjee said that Bengali is not only her mother tongue but also the language of Rabindranath Tagore and Swami Vivekananda. She also mentioned that Bengali was the language in which both India's national anthem, 'Jana Gana Mana' by Rabindranath Tagore, and national song 'Vande Mataram' by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay were written.

Trinamool Congress MP Abhishek Banerjee, too, attacked the Delhi Police, saying the mention of ‘Bangladeshi language’ in the letter was a calculated attempt by the BJP to defame Bengal.

"It is yet another calculated attempt by the BJP to defame Bengal, undermine our cultural identity and equate West Bengal with Bangladesh for narrow political propaganda,” he said.

The BJP, however, justified the Delhi Police action, saying the cops were referring to the dialect spoken by the arrested persons.

Party's West Bengal unit president, Samik Bhattacharya, said that there is a distinctive difference in the dialect of the Bengali language spoken and written in West Bengal compared to that of Bangladesh.

BJP leader Amit Malviya termed Mamata Banerjee’s reaction to the Delhi Police letter as “misplaced” and “dangerously inflammatory”.

“Nowhere in the Delhi Police letter is Bangla or Bengali described as a ‘Bangladeshi’ language. To claim otherwise and call upon Bengalis to rise against the Centre is deeply irresponsible. Mamata Banerjee should be held accountable—perhaps even under the National Security Act—for inciting linguistic conflict,” he said.