How a Delhi Police letter triggered a Trinamool vs BJP war over ‘Bangla’ and Bangladeshis

Sharing the letter on August 3, West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee alleged that Bengali is now described as a 'Bangladeshi' language.

The BJP and Trinamool Congress are engaged in a war of words after a letter from the Delhi Police referred to Bengali as the Bangladeshi national language.

The Trinamool called it a deliberate attempt to strip a constitutionally recognised Indian language of its identity and demanded an apology.

As West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee targeted the Centre, the BJP hit back, accusing her regime of shielding illegal Bangladeshi settlers.

What happened?

Eight people who were suspected to be Bangladeshi nationals residing in India without any passport or visa have been arrested in Delhi by the police. They were booked under the “Foreigners’ Act”.

On July 24, Inspector Amit Dutt from Lodhi Colony Police Station to Officer-in-charge of Banga Bhawan, requested for a translator to decipher documents seized from suspected Bangladeshi nationals.

According to Indian Express, it stated that police needed an interpreter “proficient in Bangladeshi national language” to translate documents for a case involving eight persons “strongly suspected to be Bangladeshi nationals residing illegally in India”.

“Upon inquiry, copies of national ID cards, birth certificates, bank account details etc. were found from these suspected Bangladeshi nationals. The suspected Bangladeshi nationals were arrested and remanded in judicial custody on the order of the honorable court concerned,” the letter stated.

What did opposition parties say?

Sharing the letter on August 3, West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee alleged that Bengali is now described as a “Bangladeshi" language. “Bengali, our mother tongue, the language of Rabindranath Tagore and Swami Vivekananda, the language in which our National Anthem and the National Song (the latter by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay) are written, the language in which crores of Indians speak and write, the language which is sanctified and recognised by the Constitution of India, is now described as a Bangladeshi language!! Scandalous, insulting, anti- national, unconstitutional,” she said on X.

Trinamool national general secretary and MP Abhishek Banerjee, who also shared the letter on X, alleged that it was a calculated attempt by the BJP to “defame Bengal".

Tamil Nadu CM M K Stalin also commented on the issue, calling it a “direct insult" to the very language. “This is a direct insult to the very language in which our National Anthem was written. Such statements are not inadvertent errors or slips. They expose the dark mindset of a regime that consistently undermines diversity and weaponises identity. Such statements are not inadvertent errors or slips. They expose the dark mindset of a regime that consistently undermines diversity and weaponises identity,” he said on X.

How did BJP react?

BJP’s West Bengal president Samik Bhattacharya justified the Delhi Police’s action and said there is a difference in the dialect of the Bengali language spoken and written in West Bengal with that of Bangladesh.

Amit Malviya, West Bengal BJP co-incharge and IT cell chief, claimed nowhere in the Delhi Police letter is Bangla or Bengali described as a “Bangladeshi" language.

According to him, the Delhi Police is “absolutely right” in referring to the language as Bangladeshi in the context of identifying infiltrators. He said the term is being used to describe a set of dialects, syntax, and speech patterns that are distinctly different from the Bangla spoken in India.

“… There is, in fact, no language called “Bengali” that neatly covers all these variants. Bengali denotes ethnicity, not linguistic uniformity. So when the Delhi Police uses “Bangladeshi language,” it is a shorthand for the linguistic markers used to profile illegal immigrants from Bangladesh—not a commentary on Bengali as spoken in West Bengal,” he said on X.