NEW DELHI: Tamil Nadu chief minister MK Stalin on Monday took on Delhi Police‘s use of the term “Bangladeshi language” for Bengali in an official statement, calling it a direct insult to the “very language in which our National Anthem was written.”“The Delhi Police, under the Union Home Ministry, has described Bengali as a ‘Bangladeshi language.’ This is a direct insult to the very language in which our National Anthem was written,” he said in a post on X.The statement which refers to Bengali as a “Bangladeshi language”, he said, was an “inadvertent errors or slips” but an effort to “weaponise identity”.“Such statements are not inadvertent errors or slips. They expose the dark mindset of a regime that consistently undermines diversity and weaponises identity,” he said.Expressing support for West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee, Stalin said, “In the face of this assault on non-Hindi languages, Hon’ble @MamataOfficial Didi stands as a shield for the language and people of West Bengal. She will not let this attack pass without a fitting response.”The notice showed a Lodhi Colony inspector’s requisition to Banga Bhavan officer-in-charge in Chanakyapuri, seeking help to translate “texts written in Bangladeshi language” in Hindi and English.Terming it “scandalous, insulting, anti- national, unconstitutional”, Banerjee had said, “This insults all Bengali-speaking people of India. They cannot use this kind of language which degrades and debases us all. We urge immediate strongest possible protests from all against the anti-Bengali Government of India who are using such anti-Constitutional language to insult and humiliate the Bengali- speaking people of India.“Banerjee has accused the BJP of politicizing language, alleging that Bengali-speaking migrant workers outside the state were being wrongly labeled as Bangladeshis and deported.
