West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has written a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and urged him to declare Bengali a classical language. In her letter, the Bengal CM requested the Prime Minister to situation needed directions to the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) in order that Bengali is accepted as a ‘classical language’ on the earliest.
Mamata Banerjee mentioned that Bengali is the second most spoken language within the nation and seventh most spoke on the earth. She additionally hit out on the Centre for not listening to state’s long-pending demand of fixing its title from West Bengal to Bangla.
“We had handed it (proposal of fixing the state’s title to Bangla) twice within the Assembly and clarified all their confusions. But but we weren’t given the title. If Bombay
will be Mumbai, Orissa will be Odisha, why are we not allowed the brand new title? Bengal’s significance is being lowered,” she mentioned.
As the title of West Bengal begins with W, which alphabetically is on the finish, officers are made to wait at conferences the place representatives of different states are additionally current, Banerjee mentioned. Opportunities to communicate are allotted alphabetically.
The chief minister mentioned if two states having the identical title of Punjab could possibly be there in India and Pakistan, a nation named Bangladesh and a state named Bangla may additionally co-exist.
In her letter to Modi, she mentioned there are already six formally recognised classical languages — Tamil, Sanskrit, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, and Odia.
Bengali language dates again to third or 4th century BCE, says Mamata
Banerjee connected the abstract of a scholarly work undertaken by the state authorities, which dated the origin of the Bengali language to the third or 4th Century BCE.
This “will very briefly state the substance of our contention and submit how Bengali eminently qualifies to be classified as a Classical Language by the Ministry of Home Affairs,” she wrote to the Prime Minister.
Apart from being the nationwide language of Bangladesh, Bengali is an official language of West Bengal, she mentioned including that it’s the second most spoken language in India in addition to the seventh most spoken language on the earth. Bengalis have a wealthy heritage and tradition relationship again to prehistoric occasions, she mentioned.
The chief minister additionally referred to the language’s wealthy historic evolution encompassing “both oral and written traditions”.
Mamata websites archaeological proof
She additionally cited the “evidence – from archaeological findings, inscriptions, references in ancient Sanskrit and Pali texts, and a substantial body of pre-seventh-century Bengali literature underpins its classical heritage”.
“I would be grateful if you kindly issue necessary instructions to the MHA so that the claim of Bengali language as a classical language is accepted at the earliest,” she concluded.
Later talking to reporters, Banerjee, blamed the the erstwhile Left Front authorities, with out naming it, for not taking over the matter of the ‘Bengali’ language with the Centre.
“We should have got it long back, but it’s because of our idiocy, we did not get it. Because those who were here (in power in Bengal) before us never thought in this manner. They were more interested in doing politics,” she mentioned.
Banerjee mentioned that she was additionally sending 4 volumes of the analysis works to the MHA.
“We have constituted teams of officials and scholars to carry out this research. Bengali could have got the classical status long back. It has a history of 2,500 years. Once granted the status, it will make Bengali one of the world’s most important languages,” she confused.
With inputs from PTI
