Chief minister Mamata Banerjee today wrote to the Prime Minister seeking the official recognition of Bengali as a classical language. “I have written a letter to the Prime Minister. We have done research and assembled scientific facts that show that the Bengali language originated over 2.5 thousand years ago.
We feel that this deserves to be classified as a classical language by the government,” Miss Banerjee said in a Press conference on Friday. She also took take a dig at the Centre for discriminating against the Bengali language. “Though they have given the acknowledgement of a classical language to several languages, they have deprived Bengali of that respect. 2.5 thousand years is not a joke,” Miss Banerjee said.
“Bengali is already acknowledged as an international language. If languages from other states are notified as classical languages, why can’t our language?” asked. The Union ministry of home affairs had earlier recognised six languages viz. Tamil, Sanskrit, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam and Odiya as classical languages. Lashing out at the Communist Party of India (Marxist) government that had ruled the state before Mamata Banerjee came to power, she said, “Those who were in government earlier had not thought of it and did not discuss it. They had not shown any interest.”
The Chief Minister said that if Bengali is given the acknowledgement of a classical language, a Centre of Excellence will be set up in the state. Miss Banerjee also asked what was still preventing the Centre to give its nod to the proposal for changing the name of the state from West Bengal to Bangla, for which the state Assembly already passed the requisite Bills. (With agency inputs)