New Delhi, June 25: For the BSF, Bengali is one of the languages for guarding the country’s borders.

Border Security Force personnel are being taught to speak and understand Bengali, a language the force says was the first step in improving interaction with people living along the border with Bangladesh and elsewhere in the Northeast.

“We have made Bengali one of the languages taught at the BSF’s 10 training centres and the officer’s academy,” additional director-general A.K. Mitra said. The centres have a combined capacity of training about 7,000 recruits.

Recruits have the option of taking up a course in either Bengali or Urdu, languages that are spoken in states where the BSF is deployed. “We are encouraging Bengali as it is the language spoken by people on either sides of the Indo-Bangladesh border, also spoken in Assam and understood in Tripura,” Mitra said.

In the long term, the BSF is looking to get its personnel to tone down their strong Haryanvi or eastern Uttar Pradesh accent and understand the nuances of Bengali.

As for troops already deployed in the eastern sector, Mitra said they have been issued 10-page booklets that list commonly used phrases in Bengali. The BSF headquarters has been told that troops were carrying the booklets, besides weapons, and using them well.

The BSF took the decision to introduce Bengali last year in view of frequent quarrels with the local population. It turned out that there were limits to how much the locals could communicate with the BSF troops in sign language. And even when one of the local residents could converse in Hindi, they found the tone and tenor of the BSF personnel too rude.

“It was very difficult to earn the trust of the local population living along the border under these circumstances. And since people on both sides of the border speak the same langu-age, BSF men often meted out the same treatment,” said an officer.

Forty per cent of the 157 battalions of the BSF are deployed in Bengal, Assam and Tripura. It has not been very difficult for troops from the north to pick up the language. However, soldiers who are from the south found it difficult. Luckily, there are not too many of them.

Impressed with the BSF’s initiative, some army units in the eastern sector have also been thinking of carrying out a similar experiment.

Mitra said it was still too early to claim a major success in breaking the communication barrier between BSF personnel and the Bengali-speaking population. “The real benefits will come in the long term.”

“We have certainly made a good beginning and the reports from the border posts are encouraging.… After all, they just need to communicate. They don’t need to be literary figures,” Mitra added.