Several INDIA partners on Monday rallied behind Trinamool in condemning the labelling of Bengali as a “Bangladeshi language” by Delhi police, who report to the Union home ministry, while the BJP continued to brazen it out.
But attempts by the BJP’s IT cell chief, Amit Malviya, to explain the blunder away resulted in further gaffes, prompting further outrage. Malviya claimed there is “no language called ‘Bengali’” and that the Sylheti dialect — spoken widely in northeastern India — was “nearly incomprehensible to Indian Bengalis”.
Mamata Banerjee held a strategy meeting online with her MPs to ensure they went full throttle in Parliament on the alleged linguistic discrimination against Bengali-speaking Indians, and against the Election Commission’s controversial special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.
INDIA partners such as the DMK, Rashtriya Janata Dal, CPM, CPI, CPIML Liberation and the Congress lambasted the BJP over the “Bangladeshi language” tag for the second-most widely spoken language in India.
“The Delhi Police, under the Union Home Ministry, has described Bengali as a ‘Bangladeshi language’. This is a direct insult to the very language in which our National Anthem was written,” Tamil Nadu chief minister M.K. Stalin said in a statement.
Stalin and many other southern politicians have been fighting their own language war against what they see as a BJP-RSS plan to impose Hindi across the country.
“Such statements are not inadvertent errors or slips. They expose the dark mindset of a regime that consistently undermines diversity and weaponises identity,” Stalin posted on X.
“In the face of this assault on non-Hindi languages, Hon’ble @MamataOfficial Didi stands as a shield for the language and people of West Bengal. She will not let this attack pass without a fitting response.”
Stalin was referring to a Trinamool-circulated image of a communication, carrying a Delhi police letterhead, that refers to the Bengali language as a “Bangladeshi language” and “Bangladeshi national language”.
The letter — coming amid detentions and alleged torture of migrant Bengali labourers in BJP-ruled territories — has attracted condemnation across Bengal’s political spectrum with the exception of the BJP.
The Congress’s deputy leader in the Lok Sabha, Gaurav Gogoi, too called out
the BJP.
“The arrogance of the BJP blinds them to the dehumanisation of the Bengali
people of West Bengal and Northeast India,” Gogoi wrote in a statement.
“Today the BJP IT cell insults the Bengali language spoken by lakhs of people in Tripura, Meghalaya and the Barak Valley of Assam,” Gogoi’s statement added.
“First, the BJP asks the Bengali people to declare themselves as Bangladeshis first through the CAA, and now the party insults their language as being foreign. The BJP do not want a united India. They are only interested in reopening old scars.”
CPI general secretary D. Raja wrote that the Delhi police’s comment was not a slip but “deliberate hate”, a “part of the BJP’s vile campaign against Bengalis in several BJP-ruled states”.
“Bengali is an Indian language, a national language like all our languages and the language of Jana Gana Mana, our National Anthem. The BJP, Amit Shah & Delhi Police should feel ashamed in insulting the Bengali people and a language that has shaped India’s history,” he said, seeking an apology from the Delhi police.
Manoj Jha of the RJD and CPI-ML Liberation general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya too castigated the ruling establishment on the issue.
The CPM issued a statement underscoring that Bengali is a language recognised by the Eighth Schedule of the Indian Constitution and spoken by millions in India.
“But Delhi Police thinks Bengali = Bangladeshi. A snapshot of the BJP-RSS’s vision of India: Ignorance + communal targeting,” it said. “We strongly condemn this criminalisation of language and identity.”
Malviya’s folly
Malviya, who happens to be the BJP’s Bengal co-minder, too, added fuel to the fire while trying to defend the “Bangladeshi language” label.
“Let me explain. Delhi Police is absolutely right in referring to the language as Bangladeshi in the context of identifying infiltrators,” he wrote.
“The term is being used to describe a set of dialects, syntax, and speech patterns that are distinctly different from the Bangla spoken in India. The official language of Bangladesh is not only phonologically different, but also includes dialects like Sylheti that are nearly incomprehensible to Indian Bengalis,” he added.
Sylheti, however, is the principal form of Bengali spoken in Assam’s Bengali-majority Barak Valley, home to an estimated 5 million people, and by many in other parts of the Northeast, including sizeable areas of northern Tripura.
“There is, in fact, no language called ‘Bengali’ that neatly covers all these variants. ‘Bengali’ denotes ethnicity, not linguistic uniformity,” Malviya added, compounding his folly.
“So when the Delhi Police uses ‘Bangladeshi language,’ it is a shorthand for the linguistic markers used to profile illegal immigrants from Bangladesh — not a commentary on Bengali as spoken in West Bengal,” he claimed.
“For context, Ananda Math was written in Bangla of the era, against the backdrop of the Sanyasi Rebellion. The iconic Vande Mataram was composed separately, in Sanskrit, and later grafted into the novel. Jana Gana Mana, originally composed and sung as a Brahmo hymn, was written in Sanskritised Bangla. Such nuances are clearly lost on the poorly lettered Mamata Banerjee.”
Vande Mataram is written in a mix of Sanskrit andBengali.
Trinamool mounted a scathing counteroffensive.
“Amit Malviya, speaking on behalf of the BJP, appears to be suggesting that Bengali is not even a recognised language in India. This is not a slip of the tongue or a display of ignorance, but a deliberate and calculated attempt to insult and marginalise Bengalis,” Bengal industry minister Shashi Panja said.
Sources in the BJP admitted in private that the party had served fresh ammunition to Mamata on a platter amid her steadily intensifying Bhasha Andolon (Language Movement) against the BJP’s “Bengali phobia”.
“When the electoral rivalry in Bengal is dominated by such discourse, Mamata enjoys an edge and we are often found wanting. Statements that could backfire are best avoided now,” a source said.
Political scientist Subhamoy Maitra said the BJP was “complicating matters every single day for themselves, with little contribution from Trinamool”.
As for the Delhi police letter, a station house officer appears to have writtenit, requesting Banga Bhavanto provide a translator for eight people arrested on suspicion of being illegal Bangladeshi immigrants.