Silchar, May 6: The Bengali-speaking people in the three districts of Barak Valley have started demanding that Bengali be made the medium of communication for transacting official business in these south Assam districts.

Bengali is the mother tongue of a majority of people residing in these three valley districts.

The Barak Upatyaka Matri Bhasha Suraksha Samity has started flexing its muscles to re-assert its Bengali identity and right of language in the valley.

Mihir Lal Roy, the general secretary of the samity, today said it would soon launch an orchestrated campaign in the valley. The samity is demanding that the state government abide by the Assam Official Language Bill of 1960. The bill states that Bengali would be the medium of communication for transacting official business in the south Assam districts.

Roy said the increasing use of Assamese for conducting official business has triggered an outcry for the preservation of the rights of the Bengali language in Assam. He complained that the state government is flouting the bill by using Assamese in government letters, posters, brochures and publicity campaigns.

The members of the samity expressed their ire against the practice of the government by saying it smacks of “linguistic domination”. The samity complained that the government is practising linguistic discrimination in the supply of books to secondary and higher secondary school libraries in the Barak Valley districts. Of the total 170 books supplied to each of these school libraries, not a single book is in Bengali.

The samity, however, tasted victory when the central schools in the valley decided to introduce Bengali as an optional language in Classes VI to VIII.

The assistant commissioner of the central schools in south Assam, M. Radhakrishnan, last week assured a delegation of the samity that the arrangements as well as infrastructure for introducing Bengali as an optional language in these schools would be completed soon.

There are as many as seven central schools spread across the three Barak Valley districts.

The facilities for allowing the introduction of a mother tongue are extended to the students in a central school according to the provisions of Article 350 of the Constitution. This facility is part of the three-language formula in the curriculum of a secondary school.

The samity, in its next phase of action, is considering a proposal to send a delegation to Dispur to call on the ruling party ministers to plead for the execution of the Assam Official Language Act.