West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee during International Mother Language Day celebrations, in Kolkata on Friday, February, 21, 2025
| Photo Credit: ANI
Emphasising that Bengali (Bangla) is a classical language and the “fifth largest spoken language in the world” West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday observed International Mother Language Day at an event in Kolkata.
Ms. Banerjee, however did not refer to the situation in Bangladesh and said that she will not speak about another country but her own. The Chief Minister, however, recited a poem in Bengali titled “shanti (peace) ’.
Earlier in the day, the Trinamool Congress chairperson took to social media and referred to the sacrifice made by the people of Bangladesh for Bengali language.
“Today is Bhasha Dibas, when people were martyred in Dhaka for demanding that Bengali be made the official language. My highest respect to the ‘language martyrs’ of Ekushe February. We must respect and love all languages,” Ms. Banerjee posted on ‘X’.
The International Mother Language Day, which is observed every year on February 21 is an important event that connects Bangladesh and West Bengal on the basis of a common language Bengali. Ever since the political turmoil started in Bangladesh in August 2024, the West Bengal Chief Minister has expressed hope that peace will return in the neighbouring country. On February 18, Ms. Banerjee had said in the State Assembly that her government has been successful in maintaining peace in West Bengal despite a political turmoil raging in Bangladesh.
The Chief Minister said at the event that the State government made a lot of efforts to ensure that Bengali was accorded classical language status. “With a lot of hard work we have been able to get classical language status for Bengali. Bratya Basu ( State Education Minister) worked hard for this and submitted lot of proof to prove Bengali is a thousand-year-old language,” Ms. Banerjee told the gathering at Kolkata’s Deshapriya Park.
The Union Cabinet in October 2024 conferred the status of classical language to Bengali along with Marathi, Pali, Assamese and Prakrit languages.
Observing that her government was working for the promotion of languages like Rajbanshi, Urdu, Gorkha and Ol Chiki, the Chief Minister said that people should show as much respect to other languages as he respects his mother tongue.
“There is bound to be a sentimental attachment with the Bengali language for the people whose mother tongue is Bengali but one must be equally respectful to other’s languages. I am paying tribute to every language on this occasion,” she said.
Those gathered at the occasion including the Chief Minister also paid tributes to veteran Bengali singer-songwriter Pratul Mukhopadhyay who passed away recently at the age of 83.
Published – February 22, 2025 10:12 am IST
