India News | Mamata Pays Tribute to Language Martyrs on Intl Mother Language Day

Kolkata, Feb 21 (PTI) West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee Monday paid tribute to language martyrs in Bangladesh and said India had come out in support of the historic language movement in that country.

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Speaking at a function in the city on the occasion of International Mother Language Day, Banerjee rued that many modern day parents are not interested to make their wards proficient in Bengali.

The day was also observed by Bangladesh Deputy High Commission in the city.

Banerjee said, "On this day we remember the sacrifice of martyrs in Bangladesh to establish the right to speak in the mother tongue. Our country had also come out in their support".

She said the date 21 is significant. Besides, being the International Mother Language Day it also evokes the memory of 13 men who "laid down their lives to establish freedom of expression and rule of democracy in Kolkata".

She was referring to the death of 13 Youth Congress workers on July 21, 1993 in the city in firing by the then Calcutta Police to quell a march to Writers Buildings, the seat of power of the erstwhile Left Front government, demanding that photo ID cards for voting be made mandatory.

Banerjee, who was then the state president of Indian Youth Congress, had herself lead the YC workers.

TMC, which was formed by Banerjee and leaders close to her on January 1, 1998, observe July 21 as Martyrs Day every year in the memory of those killed in the police firing .

"So 21st means fight for individual rights and fight for identity," she said and recited a poem penned by her in Bengali on the importance of July 21, personal liberty and right to expression and democracy.

In a dig at the Left Front, which she had dislodged from power in 2011, Banerjee said "Nothing was done to commemorate the language movement by our predecessors. It was we (TMC) who had first elected the memorial at Deshopriyo Park with my MPLAD fund when we were not in power. The sculpture for it was made by the famed artist Suvaprasanna."

After coming to power TMC had set up a park to pay tribute to language martyrs opposite Rabindra Sadan, the cultural center and theatre in the city. The sculptural work there done by the internationally acclaimed artist Jogen Choudhury.

"We are taking more steps to commemorate our martyrs who fought for the mother tongue," she said.

Banerjee was, however, quick to make it clear that she is not against against the use of other languages but believed in giving due respect to one's mother tongue.

"Do you think I don't love Hindi, Urdu, Nepali, English, Tamil, Marathi etc ? I love all languages. But why should we ignore our mother tongue during communication ? I am pained when some Bengali parents don't introduce their children to the language in the proper way," she said.

The Bangladesh Deputy High Commission organized a march from its office at Park Circus to the Shahid Minar grounds in the heart of the city during the day. In the evening several cultural programmes were organized at the deputy high commission.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)