Mamata pens letter to PM Modi, urges him to declare Bengali a 'classical language'

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has written a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and urged him to declare Bengali a classical language. In her letter, the Bengal CM requested the Prime Minister to issue necessary instructions to the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) so that Bengali is accepted as a 'classical language' at the earliest.

 

Mamata Banerjee said that Bengali is the second most spoken language in the country and 7th most spoke in the world. She also hit out at the Centre for not listening to state's long-pending demand of changing its name from West Bengal to Bangla.

 

"We had passed it (proposal of changing the state's name to Bangla) twice in the Assembly and clarified all their confusions. But yet we were not given



the name. If Bombay

can be Mumbai, Orissa can be Odisha, why are we not allowed the new name? Bengal's importance is being reduced," she said.

 

As the name of West Bengal begins with W, which alphabetically is at the end, officials are made to wait at meetings where representatives of other states are also present, Banerjee said. Opportunities to speak are allotted alphabetically.

 

The chief minister said if two states having the same name of Punjab could be there in India and Pakistan, a country named Bangladesh and a state named Bangla could also co-exist.

 

In her letter to Modi, she said there are already six officially recognised classical languages — Tamil, Sanskrit, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, and Odia.