‘Bangla speakers being hounded, sent to detention camps’: Mamata calls for language movement

“Massive terror has been unleashed on Bangla; speaking in Bangla is not allowed, they (BJP) will decide who eats fish or eggs. Bengal will not accept this. The rights of all people will be protected here … There is a conspiracy against our language … Whoever speaks Bangla is being detained in BJP-ruled states,” Banerjee said from the stage in central Kolkata’s Dharmatala area.

She alleged that a “secretly prepared notification” had been sent to BJP-ruled states, instructing anyone suspected of speaking in Bangla to be arrested and lodged in detention camps for a month. “People are being sent to holding areas even if they are visiting relatives. The first circular was issued by the Government of India before the elections. Over 1,000 people have been imprisoned, some in Madhya Pradesh, some in Odisha, and others in Rajasthan,” she said.

The TMC chairperson alleged that people from the Matua community, a politically influential Scheduled Caste (SC) group in West Bengal, were also “facing oppression”. “During elections, you seek votes from the Matua and Rajbanshi communities, but after the elections, you oppress them. The Assam government has sent an NRC (National Register of Citizens) notice to a Bengali in Cooch Behar,” she said. As the CM addressed the rally, the party brought to the stage Cooch Behar resident Uttam Brajabasi who earlier this year received a notice from a Foreigners Tribunal in Assam questioning his citizenship status.

Banerjee called on people to “dismantle the BJP’s double-engine government” and warned the TMC would take the fight to Delhi if Bengalis continued to get “targeted”.

“If the oppression of Bengal and Bengalis continues, this fight will reach Delhi. If Bengalis are arrested outside for speaking Bangla, this battle will be fought in Delhi. I am not one to back down and leave a fight midway. Surely, you remember the Singur, Nandigram … In protest against the terrorism and insult of Bangla, we will hold processions every Saturday and Sunday starting on Nanoor Diwas (July 27), with people from all linguistic communities … I urge our MPs to protest at the Mahatma Gandhi statue in Delhi … Our oath today is that as long as we live, we will neither allow terror against our language, nor will we accept disunity,” she said.

On July 27, 2000, 11 landless farmers, all TMC supporters from minority and SC communities, were killed in the village of Nanoor in Birbhum district. In 2010, a sessions court awarded life term to 44 CPI(M) workers in the case. The CM’s “bhasha andolon” call is also politically significant as it is an attempt to link the current situation to the Language Movement of 1952 that took place in erstwhile East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) over the demand to make Bangla one of the official languages of Pakistan. Now, February 21 is annually celebrated as International Mother Language Day in honour of the movement.

Banerjee said while there were 22 lakh Bengali migrants across the country, 1.5 crore migrants live in Bengal. “We love Hindi, we love Gujraati. Buy, why do you (BJP) conspire against Bangla?” she asked.

‘No SIR in Bengal’

Questioning the Election Commission’s (EC) voter verification drive in Bihar, the TMC chief said, “I respect the EC. But, in Bihar, more than 40 lakh names have been cut off from the voter list. They (EC) are planning a similar move in Bengal. I am saying clearly. We will not allow that. We will gherao the EC office in Delhi if needed.”

She also took a dig at Prime Minister Narendra Modi and her Assam counterpart Himanta Biswa Sarma without naming them. “You read out two words in Bangla from the teleprompter,” she said in a jibe at the PM. “What is the situation in the country? The US President is controlling you. Why couldn’t you conquer Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK)? … When the American president sent our people, ropes tied to their waists, why didn’t you protest? Look at yourself in the mirror and then speak up.”

Targeting Sarma, Banerjee said, “You can’t control Assam, but you are poking your nose in Bengal … If you continue this, I will ask Sushmita Dev (TMC Rajya Sabha MP) to start a movement in Assam. All of us will go there.”

She issued a rallying cry for the 2026 Assembly polls — “Jobdo hobe, stobdho hobe. Amader darshon, tomader bisorjon (they will be seized, they will be silenced. Our ideology, your downfall) — and told TMC leaders and workers, “We must win more seats in 2026 and then march to Delhi to defeat the BJP.”

In his speech, TMC second-in-command and Diamond Harbour MP Abhishek Banerjee, the CM’s nephew, labelled the BJP “Bangla birodhi (anti-Bengal)” and asked why the party was annoyed by Bangla-speakers. “The BJP wants to take Bengalis to detention camps for speaking their language. I want to tell them clearly: After the 2026 elections, we will send you to detention camps after defeating you democratically.”