Bangla bolta hain manei Bangladeshi? The politics of language plaguing Bengalis across India

On Wednesday, 16 July, West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee mobilised supporters in Kolkata to protest what she described as the “harassment” of Bengalis in BJP-ruled states. Over the past few months, an increasing number of reports have confirmed Bengali migrant workers have been put under the police radar, their Aadhar checked repeatedly, they asked to furnish documents proving they are legal citizens of India, “You are all Bangladeshi. You are Muslim, speaking Bangla, means you are Bangladeshi”

Last week, Chief Minister of Assam and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)leader Himanta Biswa Sarma stated that people writing Bengali as their mother tongue in the census would help identify how many “foreigners” from Bangladesh live in Assam. He implied this was a way to quantify illegal immigrants and linked the use of Bengali language to this issue.

The Politics of the Bangla Language

“"অর্থ কী, তুমি ভাবো অর্থ কী? অর্থ কী, আমি ভাবি অর্থ কী?" (Artha ki, tumi bhabo artha ki? Artha ki, ami bhabi artha ki?)

A quote from Sukumar Ray’sHaJaBaRaLa explores the ambiguity and subjectivity of meaning. It highlights the futility of language and how it encompasses human identity and existence.

While in South Asia, the Bengali language once stood as the rallying cry of a freedom struggle waged between two nations to reclaim an identity and resist the imposition of an alien tongue, today Bengali speakers scattered across India find themselves gripped by a disquieting fear of being forcibly relegated—or ‘pushed’—into Bangladesh, their cultural homeland transformed into a spectre of exclusion.

Indian authorities have initiated a sweeping crackdown across the nation to uproot Bangladeshi nationals residing illegally within its borders; yet, entwined in the fraught discourse of national identity lies a common thread—the Bengali language.

Bangla – the mother tongue of Indians residing in West Bengal, and migrant workers from the state. Bangla is also the national language of Bangladesh – an island that was part of India before the Partition of 1947 that followed India’s independence from British rule.

Crackdown on Bangladeshis or Bengali Speakers?

Delhi Police have been conducting extensive inspections across bustis in the national capital, meticulously verifying residents’ Aadhaar and ration cards to determine whether individuals are Indian citizens or Bangladeshi nationals. When approached by a TV9 reporter, one visibly irate Bengali resident sharply retorted, “Bangla bolta hain manei Bangladeshi” (If I speak Bengali, does that make me a Bangladeshi?), poignantly capturing the anxiety gripping many Bengali speakers amidst this sweeping scrutiny.

A report by Scroll recounts the ordeal of a Muslim migrant worker from Bengal, who after arriving in Odisha, was visited by local police three days later and demanded to furnish Aadhaar cards. Upon complying, he was sent to a camp alongside a dozen others, where he was told, “You are all Bangladeshi. You are speaking Bengali means you are Bangladeshi,” reflecting a charged conflation of language with nationality. Notably, this worker hails from Murshidabad district in Bengal and is Muslim, underscoring the intersectional challenges faced by such communities.

On 9 July, Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra drew attention to a similar plight via a video posted on the microblogging platform X (formerly Twitter), stating, “23 workers from Mirzapur village Panighata GP in my constituency are being illegally detained with 421 other Bengali workers at interrogation centre by Orient Police Station in Jharsuguda, Odisha despite full documentation,” highlighting the indiscriminate nature of these detentions.

Further compounding concerns, Scroll reported that a ragpicker and his wife from Bangali Basti in Delhi’s Rohini were ‘pushed’ into Bangladesh despite presenting proof of their Indian citizenship, revealing the precarious position of Bengali-speaking residents.

More recently, as per a report in The Hindu, Haryana police allegedly detained 26 Bengali-speaking individuals from Assam in Gurugram beginning Sunday morning on suspicion of being illegal Bangladeshi immigrants, a move confirmed by eyewitnesses and local residents.

Earlier on May 2, TMC MP Yusuf Pathan penned a letter to Union Home Minister Amit Shah, alleging that workers from his Baharampur constituency were subjected to “targeted attacks” involving robbery, looting, and intimidation aimed at forcing them to vacate their homes and workplaces. In the aftermath, approximately 20,000 workers purportedly fled Odisha.

In a separate communication to the Odisha government, Bengal’s chief secretary Pant criticised the demands placed upon detained migrant workers to produce ancestral land records dating back generations, branding such requirements “unreasonable and unjustifiable” for itinerant labourers.

These incidents collectively underline a troubling conflation of linguistic identity with nationality, fueling widespread fear and marginalisation among Bengali-speaking populations across India, and raising urgent questions about the governance, justice, and humanity of ongoing immigration enforcement policies.

(The article was first published by the Mint on July 17, 2025)