The Asian Tribune
www.asiantribune.net
NEW DELHI: If a person speaks Bangla, it doesn’t mean that his identity should come under a scanner.
Bangla or Bengali, is one of the major Indian languages and it is not anyone’s fault that it is also an international language that has over 150 million speakers in Bangladesh too.
The recent incidents in different states where Indian citizens who speak Bangla were allegedly mistreated or detained (even deported), have brought focus on this issue.
In West Bengal, Mamata Banerjee has already raised the issue and said that there is a continuous targeting of Bengali
speakers who visit other states. She even accused Union government and said that a secret notification has been issued to arrest Bengali speakers. “I will speak more Bangla. Now, send me to the camp”, she yelled.
Just when the linguistic issues are heating up in other parts of the country, this latest instance
has come as a shock. Any such incident that sends a signal to any group that it is being mistreated due to its cultural, ethnic, linguistic or racial identity, affects the integrity of the nation.
It can have far-reaching consequences and hence it must be ensured that the police should not do an overreach.
In fact, many Bangladeshis
come to India with documents and Indians visit Bangladesh, for jobs and businesses, apart from tourism and meeting the relatives.
The excessive focus on the infiltration from Bangladesh, has led to a situation that newspapers and media have created a huge suspicion in North India.
Of late, this has spread to Southern regions too.
On Wednesday, Mamata said that the BJP ruled states are targeting the Bengali speakers and demanded an immediate stop to harassment of the Bengali speakers in the country.
TMC h as said that there are nearly 2.2 million people from West Bengal who work in other states of the country and despite
having the valid documents, they face harassment.
Fazal Mondal and his wife Taslima were termed illegal Bangladeshi immigrants in Maharashtra and sent to Bangladesh. The B’desh border guards then sent them back to India.
Right-wing groups had earlier entered a house in Kushinagar in UP and thrashed salesmen from West Bengal. Last week, Calcutta High Court directed state government to take steps to ensure release of Bengali speakers detained in Odisha. Now, HC has told authorities that just because people speak Bengali, they can’t be deported. It has asked Union govt too to submit affidavit in this regard.
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