New Delhi, Feb. 21: By the time the Lok Sabha MPs were done chattering in their mother tongues, Somnath Chatterjee had almost forgotten his own.
“Itna socha nahin tha (didn’t expect such a response),” he mumbled as he scrambled to get the highly excited flock back to work after an unusual zero hour of tribute to the tongue.
The Lok Sabha Speaker had today decided to celebrate the International Day of the Mother Language by allowing colleagues to speak in their mother tongues on the floor of the House.
So overwhelming was the response ? it started with Chatterjee speaking in Bengali ? and so diverse the languages spoken, that at the end of it all, the Speaker was virtually left at a loss for words.
The MPs waxed eloquent in a variety of languages, from Bengali to Sanskrit to Telugu to Malayalam to Tamil to Urdu to Bhojpuri and Manipuri. And when it was time to finish, they hadn’t had enough.
The regional language that was most used was Bengali, with a four-member team grabbing the opportunity to speak their mother tongues on the floor for the first time in their parliamentary careers.
Chatterjee kicked off the proceedings, briefly backgrounding the events behind bhasha diwas in Bengali. “In Dhaka, many people had gathered on this day to protect their matri bhasha. The police had then opened fire,” he said.
“The bhasha andolan was transformed into a movement for the liberation of Bangladesh from Pakistan,” CPM leader Basudeb Acharya held forth when his turn came.
CPI legislator Gurudas Dasgupta recalled Indira Gandhi in his speech, at which Sonia Gandhi turned towards Pranab Mukherjee and asked for a translation. “I remember today with great respect the martyrs of February 21 and Indira Gandhi,” Dasgupta said, spouting a couplet in Bengali before winding up.
Defence minister Mukherjee, the last Bengali speaker, used the occasion to slip in a word of praise for the government. “We have tried our best to promote every Indian language,” he said.
Again, Sonia reacted, this time looking up at the media gallery with a smile.
