Row Erupts After Delhi Police Letter Referred To Bengali As “Bangladeshi language,” BJP Hits Back

A major political row broke out on Sunday after a purported Delhi Police letter referred to the Bengali language as “Bangladeshi,” prompting a furious reaction from West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and her party, the Trinamool Congress (TMC). The TMC accused the Centre of insulting Bengali identity, while the BJP retorted that the party was “weaponising language” to defend illegal immigrants.

The controversy began when Banerjee shared an image of a letter, allegedly from the Lodhi Colony Police Station to Delhi’s Banga Bhawan, regarding the arrest of eight suspected illegal Bangladeshi nationals. The letter’s subject line reportedly read, “Translation of documents containing text written in Bangladeshi language,” and it requested an official translator proficient in the “Bangladeshi national language.” The authenticity of this letter has not been independently verified, and the Delhi Police has not yet issued a comment on the allegations.

In a scathing post on X (formerly Twitter), Mamata Banerjee called the reference “scandalous, insulting, anti-national, unconstitutional.” She stated, “Bengali, our mother tongue, the language of Rabindranath Tagore and Swami Vivekananda… is now described as a Bangladeshi language!! This insults all Bengali-speaking people of India.” She urged strong protests against what she termed the “anti-Bengali Government of India.”

Other TMC leaders echoed her outrage. Abhishek Banerjee accused the Centre of trying to “undermine the Bangla cultural identity” for “narrow political propaganda.” MP Mahua Moitra dismissed the possibility of a clerical error, calling it a “calculated action” by the BJP to “delegitimise Bengali and Bengal’s linguistic identity,” and demanded an apology from the Delhi Police.

The BJP responded strongly, accusing the West Bengal Chief Minister of politicizing a law enforcement issue. BJP IT cell chief Amit Malviya tweeted, “It is beyond shameful that West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is defending a lawful police action against illegal Bangladeshi infiltrators by weaponising language and stoking sentiment.” He asserted that all illegal immigrants would be dealt with strictly and that “vote-bank politics” would not compromise national security.

The issue also drew sharp reactions from prominent cultural figures in West Bengal. Film director Srijit Mukherji tweeted, “…that’s Bangla or Bengali, the same language in which your national anthem was originally written and one of the 22 official languages of India.” Singers Rupam Islam and Surojit Chatterjee also expressed their shock and dismay at the perceived ignorance and insult towards an official Indian language