Kolkata: Those who want to stay in Bengal will have to speak in Bengali. That is what West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and Trinamool Congress (TMC) chief has already declared. While outside Bengal, in Parliament, two newly-elected TMC MPs, Nusrat Jahan and Mimi Chakraborty, took oath in Bengali on Tuesday as members of the Lok Sabha and ended their oath-taking with “Jai Hind, Jai Bangla and Vande Mataram”, political analysts have said that it is Mamata Banerjee’s resorting to “language nationalism” or “linguistic chauvinism” that is now threatening to divide people in Bengal. Already, hoardings and posters have been put up by the state government and the Kolkata Municipal Corporation in Kolkata and various districts, proclaiming the “glory of Bengali language and culture”.
Banerjee has claimed that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is a party of “outsiders” with its support base mainly in the Hindi heartland. She has warned people that if any “outsider” entered any locality and offered them “bribe”, they should immediately report the matter to the nearby police station. She has also claimed that the BJP has been trying to bring leaders from outside and trying to create communal tension in various areas of Bengal, by allegedly trying to divide people on communal lines. The TMC’s strategy has been to brand West Bengal BJP as a party of non-Bengalis and alienate the Bengali-speaking population from them.
On Tuesday, BJP state president Dilip Ghosh said in Parliament that Banerjee is now trying to divide Bengalis and non-Bengalis in West Bengal. “Arjun Singh, who joined BJP from TMC, is now an enemy of the Trinamool Congress as he is a Bihari. When Singh was in TMC, there was no divide,” Ghosh said. He also said that Banerjee wanted to be the Prime Minister. “No one can become PM by winning just 22 seats. She has been bringing people from Bangladesh. She called an actor from Bangladesh to campaign for the Lok Sabha elections. Is that actor not an outsider? Are Rohingyas not outsiders? Is someone from Italy not an outsider? But if PM Modi and Amit Shah come, they are termed outsiders.”
Partha Pratim Biswas, a senior professor at Jadavpur University, said: “If Banerjee wants to root for more linguistic nationalism, it will be dangerous not only for democracy, but for her too, as the BJP will silently use this weapon to target her and claim that she is responsible for creating a divide between Bengalis and non-Bengalis. Already, after Banerjee’s declaration that if one wanted to stay in Bengal, one needed to speak in Bengali, BJP has used this issue to counter Banerjee in Parliament too. This will not only help the BJP gain more mileage in Bengal, but Banerjee will become more cornered in the state.” Maidul Islam, assistant professor of political science at the Centre for Studies, however, said that linguistic polarisation is not a new phenomenon.
Partha Chatterjee, state parliamentary affairs minister, however, said: “It is not us who are trying to divide Bengalis and non-Bengalis. The BJP has been trying to portray to the people that the TMC is trying to divide people on the basis of language. Mamata Banerjee has tried to uphold Bengal’s rich cultural heritage.”