No one should try to play with Bengali language: Mamata

West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee Tuesday asserted that no one should try to play with or insult the Bengali language. She also asked whether there can be an India without West Bengal.

Banerjee pointed to Bengali litterateurs Rabindranath Tagore, who wrote the national anthem, and Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, who penned the national song of India, Vande Mataram.

"Nobody should try to play with our language or insult it," she said, asking, "Can there be Bharat without Bangla?"

On Monday, members of civil society and a section of intellectuals from West Bengal raised an outcry after a letter sent to Banga Bhawan in New Delhi by a Delhi Police inspector of the Lodhi Colony police station — seeking a translator for the “Bangladeshi language” — went viral on social media.

The use of the term “Bangladeshi language” to refer to Bangla has sparked outrage across West Bengal.

Pointing to the teachings of Ramakrishna Paramhansa, Banerjee said that he taught all to live in harmony.

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"I believe in Ramakrishna Paramhansa's teaching of harmony of all religions," Banerjee said, after laying the foundation stone of a guest house of Ramakrishna Math and Mission at Kamarpukur in Hooghly district.

"There is no division among us, we have learnt from Ramakrishna Paramhansa to live together with everyone," she said.

Stating that Swami Vivekananda had taught that 'unity is strength', Banerjee said that his mother tongue was Bengali, just as it was of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose or Raja Rammohan Roy. "Dharma is to treat other religions with love and respect," she said.

Urging all to read Ramakrishna Paramahansa's Kathamrita written by Mahendranath Gupta, Banerjee said that people call water by different names, but it is the same.

"Likewise, mother is called by different names, but she is the same," she said, before embarking on a visit to flood-hit Ghatal in Paschim Medinipur district.

Banerjee also declared the formation of Jairambati-Kamarpukur Development Board, with Swami Lokottarananda, the secretary of the Ramakrishna Math, Kamarpukur, as its chairman.