Maharashtra's language war reaches West Bengal. Actor Prosenjit Chatterjee is the first victim

The Print

2 days ago

Earlier this month, at the trailer launch of his Hindi film Maalik in Mumbai, Bengali superstar Prosenjit Chatterjee asked a reporter a simple question: 'Why do you need to talk in Bengali?' Chatterjee, the only Bengali among the actors on stage, said this when a journalist asked him a question in Bengali.
In today's Bengal, it seems it is not enough to be Bengali, you will also have to sound Bengali. While the language war in other states is targeted at those who can't speak the local language, in Bengal, even those whose mother tongue is Bengali have to constantly prove their Bengali-ness. Even Prosenjit Chatterjee, who has spent decades playing the lead in Bengali films, is not exempt from this farman .
What Bengal thinks today, India thinks tomorrow. This old adage has gotten so crusty with overuse that it's time for a new one. How about: What Maharashtra thought yesterday, Bengal thinks today? Before my fellow Bengalis jump at me, this is about the language war and its unsuspecting victims. In the Bengal chapter of that war, the victim is not a hapless economic migrant from another state, but the state's biggest superstar Prosenjit Chatterjee.
At this point, Chatterjee's Maalik co-star, Rajkummar Rao, translated the reporter's query into Hindi, drawing loud cheers from all present. Chatterjee's reason for asking the reporter why she was speaking in Bengali may have simply been out of regard for her co-stars who were not Bengali, and also the event was not taking place in Kolkata but Mumbai. But his line 'Why do you need to talk in Bengali?' led to non-stop trolling.
'Why such allergy in the Bengali language?' a Facebook user asked, adding: 'Not too long ago, Chatterjee had given explosive comments on the poor state of the Bengali film industry. He had lamented that the market for Bengali films has not expanded. And now he is ashamed of speaking in Bengali.'
When days passed and the trolling did not stop, Chatterjee issued an apology on Instagram, saying that a Bengali journalist had asked him a question in Bengali and that he had known her for a while and was quite fond of her too. 'Since most of the people there did not understand Bengali properly, I thought that if I responded in the language, people present there might not understand me,' he wrote.
Chatterjee said that's why he asked her why she was asking the question in Bengali. But only that particular clip was picked out and shared widely online. 'As a result, many have been hurt by this. I, too, was hurt and continue to feel hurt… I believe this misunderstanding started from that day. Because I can't imagine insulting my mother tongue. Bengali is the language of my soul. And the feelings of people from my native place will always matter the most. This thought will continue to exist till my last breath.'
This should have cleared up matters, but it didn't. Trollers were not over with attacking Chatterjee yet. Quoting Chatterjee's response in a Facebook post, Bengali actor Joyraj Bhattacharjee wrote that a post written to address hurt Bengali sentiment should not have had spelling mistakes. Bhattacharjee then went on to put out the correct spelling of the Bengali word that Chatterjee had spelt wrongly, saying that in other times this would not have been a big deal, but in the current circumstances, it was.
Why would an innocuous comment put a matinee idol in such a spot you wonder. And didn't incidents like this happen in Maharashtra?
Language war everywhere
While language racism may be relatively new to West Bengal, Maharashtra's homegrown political parties like the Shiv Sena and the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) have long had issues with migrants who come to Mumbai. These parties have attacked Hindi speakers who they allege take over jobs of the Marathi manoos (Marathi people) while not caring to learn the local language.
Their grouse was reignited after the Maharashtra government, in April, issued a resolution making Hindi a compulsory third language for students of Classes 1 to 5 in English and Marathi medium schools. But amid allegations of Hindi imposition by the Opposition, the state government issued a revised resolution on 17 June making Hindi an optional language. However, later the resolution was withdrawn.
The language war in Maharashtra made global headlines. 'A rickshaw driver was assaulted after refusing to speak in the state language Marathi, a shopkeeper was slapped by political activists for using Hindi, and a bank employee was threatened for defending his use of Hindi and English,' The Independent wrote on 15 July.
And it is not just Maharashtra, but in southern states like Karnataka and Tamil Nadu too, the Centre's three-language policy outlined in the National Education Policy 2020 has created political storms. While Tamil Nadu has opposed Hindi imposition since the 1930s, Karnataka recently declared that it intended to continue with the two-language model of Kannada and English, particularly in government schools.
In West Bengal, though, there is a different dimension to the language war against Hindi and for Bangla.
Also read: India's language policy failed Hindi, not Stalin or Thackeray brothers
'Bengalis harassed in BJP states'
On 16 July, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee took to the streets in Kolkata and warned that there would be protests across the country if Bengali migrant workers are harassed in BJP-ruled states. Banerjee said around 1,000 people from West Bengal have been arrested and put in 'detention camps' in BJP-ruled states and that the central government had surreptitiously issued a notification to BJP-ruled states to harass Bengali-speaking people and detain them at the slightest suspicion.
While reports of the targeting of Bengali-speaking migrant workers have come from several parts of the country, including Odisha, Maharashtra, and Delhi, stressing on the issue of Bengali identity had helped Banerjee with the 2021 Assembly polls.
It is in such politically-charged times that Prosenjit Chatterjee innocuously asked a Bengali reporter in Mumbai why she was speaking in Bangla. But beyond politics, historical sociologist Satanik Pal told me that the Chatterjee incident is a symptom of deep-seated insecurities that has affected the Bhadralok psyche in Bengal. 'The diminished Bhadralok can only direct his ire at those who digress from the predetermined path of cultural domination in the diminishing space of cultural supremacy. Such incidents are best ignored,' Pal said. Hardly any consolation for Prosenjit Chatterjee who is still getting trolled.
It is often said about Bengalis that they are like frogs in a well. They fail to acknowledge there is a world outside. And as the language war rages on and hatred for other tongues reaches new levels, Bengal should turn to Rabindranath Tagore. While the bard had strongly advocated for the primacy of Bangla, he understood the importance of other languages for wider perspectives and deeper knowledge.
Deep Halder is an author and journalist. He tweets @deepscribble. Views are personal.
(Edited by Aamaan Alam Khan)