BJP leaders condemn Amit Malviya’s remark terming Sylheti a ‘Bangladeshi Dialect’

A CORRESPONDENT

SILCHAR: Rajya Sabha MP Kanad Purkayastha and former MP Dr Rajdeep Roy vehemently opposed BJP leader Amit Malviya’s statement that Sylheti is a ‘Bangladeshi dialect’ alien to the Indian Bengalis. Earlier, the TMC Rajya Sabha MP, Sushmita Dev, too had sharply criticized Malviya’s statement asking him to tender an apology to the Bengali-speaking people. The TMC on Tuesday demonstrated against Malviya, the IT cell boss of the BJP, in Silchar.

Former Vice-Chancellor of Assam University Professor Tapodhir Bhattacharjee said that the motive behind labelling Bengali as a ‘Bangladeshi language’ was a dangerous one for a country like India where diversity in every sphere was the unifying bond among various linguistic and religious communities  and ethnic tribes.

Recently, Delhi police had arrested eight suspected Bangladeshi citizens and recovered certain documents pertaining to their nationality. Unaware of the language those documents were written in, one officer of the Delhi police wrote a letter to the authority of the Bangal Bhawan, the West Bengal Government’s office in New Delhi to hire some translators who had proficiency in ‘Bangladeshi language.’ This letter had triggered much anger among the Bengalis and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee accused the Home Ministry of insulting Bangla language. To counter Banerjee’s allegations and to defend Delhi police, Malviya in a long post on his social media page stated that there was no language called Bengali and Sylheti is a Bangladeshi dialect.

Sushmita Dev was the first to raise her voice against Malviya as she said that it was a pity that the IT cell boss of the BJP had such little knowledge of history and geography. “Sylheti is a Bengali dialect spoken by lakhs of Bengali people in both the Barak and Brahmaputra valleys, Tripura, Meghalaya, West Bengal, and various parts of the country. How could it be alien to Indian Bengalis,” Sushmita said.

Dr Rajdeep Roy too termed Malviya’s statement as ‘not only inaccurate but deeply unfortunate and condemnable.’ Calling himself ‘proud to be Sylheti and a Bengali from Assam,’ Roy reminded Malviya that more than 70 lakh people speak in Sylheti in the north east states.

MP Kanad Purkayastha too expressed dissatisfaction over Malviya’s statement. In a letter to Malviya, Purkayastha reminded that in the current Parliament there were three members including himself, Sushmita Dev, and Parimal Shuklabaidya who speak in Sylheti.

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