Kolkata: Undoubtedly, February 21 is a special day for Bengalis and for language-lovers across the world as it is the day when they celebrate “International Mother Language Day.” Despite using English as the most preferred working language throughout the year, on this particular day, Bengalis in general gear up to make a display of their emotions towards Bengali as a language.
How genuine are the sentiments of Bengalis towards their mother tongue? ETV Bharat talked to a bunch of people, most of whom feel that such sentiments are just for the sake of display.
However, such a display of emotions changes drastically when these same Bengali parents line up to get their children admitted to English- medium schools, according to senior Trinamool Congress leader Dr. Manas Ranjan Bhunia. He also says that we hardly protest when a language is force-fed to us. In his words,
“However lavishly we might celebrate February 21, we suffer from an inferiority complex if we cannot get our children admitted in English medium schools. But when the same students face harassment because of weak English vocabulary, we do not protest.”
According to educationist and former principal of the-then Presidency College, Dr Amal Kumar Mukhopadhyay, the people of Bangladesh are lovers of Bengali as a language in the true sense of it. “They gave their lives for the sake of this language. In Bangladesh, only Bengali is used as the official language for all official communication. However, here we prefer to speak either English or other mixed languages. But we celebrate February 21 in a major way. This in my opinion is sheer hypocrisy,” Dr. Mukhopadhyay said.
Even on the silver screen, Bengali is taking a back seat in the face of challenges from Hindi and other south Indian languages. Thespian and actress, Sohini Sarkar told ETV Bharat that, "slowly Bengalis are going far away from their roots. Being a Bengali does not mean that we will have to wear traditional Bengali attire every day. I can study various languages while making sure that we do not neglect our own mother language. Ignoring our mother language will not take us far,” she said.
