Centre waging language war against people of Bengal: CM Mamata Banerjee
Mamata Banerjee
on Thursday accused the BJP-led Centre of unleashing 'a language war and linguistic terrorism' on Bengal and its people.
Banerjee used the 45th death anniversary of Bengal's biggest matinee idol,
Uttam Kumar
, to repeat her call for a 'Bhasha Andolan' and rip apart BJP-governed states where hundreds of Bengali migrant labourers were being detained or pushed into Bangladesh on suspicion of being Bangladeshis.
'A kind of linguistic terrorism has been declared against the Bengali language, the fifth most spoken in the world. Around 30 crore people speak Bengali but Bengali speakers are being sent to jail. I cannot accept this and I believe you cannot either,' she said. 'There should be zero tolerance for people being detained just for speaking Bengali. This issue is not mine alone, it is everyone's. Bengal is everything for us.
We must protect this land,' she added.
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Banerjee later posted on X about the latest reports of Bengalis being hounded in Haryana's
Gurugram
. 'Have been receiving reports of detentions of and atrocities on Bengali-speaking people. West Bengal Police is receiving these reports from Haryana Police in the name of requests for identity searches,' she said, adding there were 'increasing reports from other states like Rajasthan of illegal pushbacks' of Indian citizens having 'all proper documents to Bangladesh dir-ectly!!'
'Hapless, poor Bengali workers' were being tortured, she posted, adding she was 'shocked to see these terrible atrocities in double-engine' states. 'What do you want to prove?' she asked
BJP
.
Banerjee, speaking at the Mahanayak Samman award ceremony earlier on Thursday, exhorted the audience to watch 'all kinds of films... but not neglect Bengali cinema' and highlighted the melodious quality of Bengali songs from the golden era. 'There is a sweetness, a richness of language and melody, in Bengali music that will never fade,' she said, commenting on the recent trend of not using Bengali songs in Bengali television serials.
'Where is Bengali in our songs? It is all just loud and flashy music. We already have Bollywood for that. South Indian films, too, are popular. But Tollywood should have more Bengali songs, not just music. I am not asking anyone to disrespect other languages. But that does not mean we lose our own (culture). We are proud of all languages but we cannot achieve anything by forgetting Bengali. Let all languages grow in harmony and unity,' she said, adding that the next edition of the Kolkata International Film Festival would give greater importance to Bengali films.
Banerjee recalled watching movies with her mother in the single-screen theatres of Bhowanipore and mentioned that her only regret was not having met Uttam Kumar. 'It has been 45 years but we can never forget him. I believe he is the nation's pride, a symbol of our culture and character. I met Suchitra Sen before her passing. I also knew Supriya-di for a long time. I know Sharmila-di and Tanuja-di too,' she said after conferring the Mahanayak Samman awards to make-up artist Somnath Kundu, production designer Ananda Addhya, actor Gargee Roy Chowdhury and singers Iman Chakraborty and Rupankar Bagchi.
Veteran director Goutam Ghose, who turned 75 on Thursday, received the Mahanayak Shreshtha Samman. 'We started this recognition in 2012. Twenty-five people received the Mahanayak Award till 2024. We have honoured 41 personalities from the film industry as Barsha Shera, 147 people have been given the Bishesh Chalachitra Award and 22 have received the Lifetime Achievement Award in cinema,' Banerjee said, lauding actor Prosenjit Chatterjee for creating a new exhibition model where viewing rooms would be arranged for 40–50 people across 100 locations in Bengal.
Banerjee then stressed the importance of artistes' and technicians' health. 'We have a health insurance scheme of Rs 5 lakh for 4,800 artistes; around 20,000 people benefit from this scheme if we include their families. The state's Film Workers' Welfare Fund helps needy artistes and technicians,' she said, adding that she would inaugurate the Sangeet Academy soon.
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