Bengal’s chief secretary Nandini Chakravorty has written to the Union home secretary requesting the inclusion of Rajbanshi and Kurmali languages in the Eighth Schedule to the Indian Constitution.

“It is pertinent to mention that a significant segment of the state’s population belongs to the Rajbanshi community,” the letter written on February 19, stated.

The letter added that several lakhs of people in various districts of Bengal speak
Kurmali.

The Government of West Bengal has consistently remained committed to the promotion and development of significant and widely spoken regional languages within the state, the letter by the chief secretary stated.

“A substantial and growing number of people in the state presently use Rajbanshi and Kurmali languages.
The aspirations and sentiments of members of these communities are intrinsically linked to these two languages as well. In respectful acknowledgement of the aspirations and emotional attachment of these marginalised communities, the Government of West Bengal hereby submits a formal proposal to the Government of India for inclusion of Kurmali and Rajbanshi languages in the Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of India,” it stated.

The Bengal letter to the Union home secretary, Govind Mohan, comes almost two months after Jeevan Singh, the absconding chief of the Kamtapur Liberation Organisation (KLO), released a purported video message in November appealing to the members of the Rajbanshi community to ensure the defeat of the Trinamool Congress during the ensuing Assembly elections.

The state will go to polls this year and the Election Commission will announce the schedule soon.

In the message, the KLO chief had appealed to the Trinamool legislators and MP to sever ties with the ruling party in Bengal and help bring down the present state government during the polls.

The Rajbanshi community is significantly spread across several constituencies in parts of the north Bengal districts, where the BJP has scored better than the ruling Trinamool since the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

According to the 2011 census, the Rajbanshis are the single largest Scheduled Caste group in Bengal, comprising more than 18% of the state’s 21.4 million SC population.

The Kurmali community also has a strong presence in various parts of Bengal, including Purulia, Bankura, Jhargram, Balurghat, and Jalpaiguri.

“In Purulia, the Kurmali-speaking community is almost 40% of the district’s population. The state government’s appeal to the Union government holds major significance because Kurmali remains a shared language for communication across parts of Bankura, Purulia, the Jungle Mahal, and large parts of Jharkhand,” said Sanat Kumar Mahato, a mathematics teacher at Sidho Kanho Birsha University and a Kurmali language scholar.

The chief secretary’s letter also explains how the Bengal government amended the West Bengal Official Language Act 1961 in 2018 to include the Rajbanshi and Kurmali languages.

“Subsequently, areas with more than 10% speakers of the respective languages were identified, and Rajbanshi and Kurmali were declared as official languages in those specified areas of the state,” the letter explains.