'Attempt to portray Bengalis as outsiders': TMC slams Delhi Police's 'Bangladeshi language' reference

Trinamool Congress on Sunday slammed Delhi Police for using the term "Bangladeshi language" while referring to Bengali, calling it an official attempt to strip a constitutionally recognised language of its identity and portray millions of Bengali-speaking Indians as “outsiders”.

In a post on X, Trinamool shared a copy of a letter written by an inspector posted at the Lodhi Colony police station addressed to the officer in-charge of Banga Bhawan in New Delhi, requesting for a translator for "Bangladeshi language".

The letter said during the course of an investigation, eight persons "strongly suspected to be Bangladeshi nationals residing illegally in India without any valid passport or visa were arrested".

Copies of national ID cards, birth certificates, bank account details, etc, were found from the "suspected Bangladeshi nationals", the letter said.

The inspector claimed the identification documents contained "texts written in Bangladeshi, which need to be translated to Hindi and English", requesting for an official translator/interpreter proficient in "Bangladeshi national language".

"Is there no limit to BJP's hatred for Bengalis? After repeatedly harassing and detaining Bengali-speaking workers across BJP-ruled states, Amit Shah's Delhi Police has now crossed all lines by officially branding our mother tongue, Bangla, as ‘Bangladeshi language',” Trinamool said in a post on X.

“Make no mistake – this is not a clerical error. It is a calculated insult, an official attempt to strip a constitutionally recognised Indian language of its identity and portray millions of Bengali-speaking Indians as outsiders in their own country,” it said.

Bangla is spoken by over 25 crore people globally and recognised as one of India's 22 official languages, it said.

“Calling it ‘Bangladeshi' is a deliberate affront, a vile attempt to delegitimise the language, erase its Indian roots, and brand Bengali speakers as outsiders,” Trinamool said, as it demanded an “unconditional apology, immediate correction, and strict action against the officials responsible for it”.

CPI (ML) Liberation general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya also slammed Delhi Police, and said that “persecution of Bengali-speaking migrant workers as 'suspected Bangladeshi nationals' has now become an outright negation of India's second-most spoken language as 'Bangladeshi language'”.

“Never before has India's multi-religious, multi-lingual mosaic faced such a bulldozer of stupid majoritarian arrogance and parochialism. Fascism is a threat to not just democracy and diversity but also India's national unity,” Bhattacharya said.

“We, the people of India, will have to resist this attack on India's linguistic diversity and multicultural unity with all our might,” he added.