Bengali film industry posers for BJP in language controversy
Times of India | 6 August 2025
Kolkata: Tollywood has joined politicians across party lines who have come in support of CM Mamata Banerjee, who criticised Delhi Police on Sunday over a notice issued to Banga Bhawan in the national capital. The notice sought help to translate the "Bangladeshi language" for an ongoing trial.
Reactions poured in from the likes of Prosenjit Chatterjee, Kaushik Ganguly, Srijit Mukherjee, Rupam Islam, Rahul Arunoday Banerjee, and Parambrata Chattopadhyay.‘Dhumketu' director Kaushik Ganguly said Bengali is his favourite language. "For eight years, I taught the Bengali language. I never knew that there was any ‘text' in the ‘Bangladeshi' language," said Ganguly, citing that Delhi has plenty of well-versed academics in Bengali and the authorities can easily approach them to get clarity on the language. "Delhi has numerous universities and many esteemed professors of the Bengali language. Can't the administration approach them to clarify their understanding of the Bengali language? William Carey learned Bengali passionately to understand the soul of Bengal. If today's administration is unclear about the language, seek help; otherwise, their severe ignorance will repeatedly be exposed in official letters. Although numerous regional dialects have emerged from the Bengali language, the only ‘text' is in Bengali," Ganguly said.
Earlier, ‘Padatik' director Srijit Mukherji took to social media to point out: "That's not Bangladeshi language, morons, that's Bangla or Bengali, the same language in which your National Anthem was originally written and one of the 22 official languages of India.
"On Monday, actor-director Parambrata Chattopadhyay took to social media to express his views on the subject with a clear disclaimer that it is "not a political post". The actor-director questioned if the Delhi Police's act is symptomatic of a certain mindset that innately "otherises" all other languages and cultures in the country apart from what's practised and spoken in the mainstream.
He stated, "The method of discerning might attract debates, but I support the principle of not letting foreign nationals seep into Indian territories and becoming voters illegally. But I am also an aware individual who's equally proud of being an Indian and a Bengali! That makes me wonder, is there a separate language called ‘Bangladeshi'? Dialects and accents can differ, but it's the same language, our language, my mother language... ‘Bangla'! Or ‘Bengali'!" Chattopadhyay added that post-Partition, people on both sides of the border in Punjab and Bengal share many commonalities, which is not only historical but also linguistic and cultural. "A large percentage of Pakistanis speak Punjabi, or some even Sindhi or Gujarati! But in India, do we call native Punjabi or Sindhi speakers ‘Pakistani language' speaking people? Then how or why does Bangla become only Bangladeshi?"On the sidelines of an event on Monday, Chatterjee said he would stand beside the CM. "The Bengali language will be there forever. I will extend my support to the chief minister in her fight against this language terrorism," he said.
On Tuesday, Trinamool Rajya Sabha leader Derek O' Brien extended his thanks for the statements made. "We have noticed the statements made. We thank them for speaking up. This is not just a political issue, but an issue which impacts all of us who love Bengal," he said.