From 1952 to 2025: What India’s crackdown on Bangla reveals about faith-driven politics

Illustration: TBS

1952 may feel like distant history, when the people of then-East Pakistan laid down their lives to secure Bangla as a state language. At the time, the state sought to impose Urdu as the sole national language—not merely for administrative convenience but as part of a religiously defined national identity. Language became a weapon of exclusion, and Bangla speakers were forced to resist for their very survival. 

Seventy-three years later, a disturbingly similar struggle is unfolding in India. Many Bangla speakers are not only being branded as outsiders or dismissed as "Bangladeshis"; they are being harassed, detained, tortured, their homes bulldozed, and in many cases forcibly pushed across the border into Bangladesh.

This language-based offensive is a direct by-product of the BJP's politics—a classic example of what happens under a government driven by religious ideology. When governance is built on faith and exclusion, it inevitably seeps into culture, and language becomes one of its sharpest weapons.

It is precisely for this reason that on 4 September, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee described the crisis as "language terrorism" in the state's Legislative Assembly, as she condemned the torture of Bangla speakers in BJP-ruled states. The session descended into slogans, torn papers, and physical removals, with Banerjee warning: "Any party insulting Bangalis will not triumph in Bengal."

Earlier in July, Banerjee had also launched her Bhasha Andolan from Bolpur in Birbhum, the land of Rabindranath Tagore, to protest nationwide attacks on Bangali migrants. Leading a symbolic four-kilometre procession, she carried a portrait of Tagore while party workers sang protest songs, and women in traditional white-and-red saris blew conch shells. 

The movement combined ritual, culture, and politics, signalling that the defence of Bangla is not only a political cause but also a cultural and emotional one. Banerjee framed the harassment of Bangla speakers as an attempt to erase identity, drawing parallels with the historic 1952 language movement in Dhaka.

Amid this movement, social media has become a battleground as well, with hashtags like #BhashaAndolan trending among activists, writers, and students. Viral videos, poems, and artwork are being shared widely, turning the struggle into a pan-Indian digital campaign. 

Online spaces have also amplified the voices of Bangali migrants, highlighting everyday incidents of discrimination, from being refused jobs to being harassed in public spaces, and creating a record of patterns that might otherwise go unnoticed.

As mentioned earlier, this comes in the face of a broader, calculated political strategy by India's BJP-led state machinery—one designed to marginalise Bengali-speaking populations while stoking fears of 'infiltration' and outsider status.

In Assam, over 3,400 homes of Bangla-speaking Muslims, mostly Indian citizens, have been bulldozed in eviction drives tied to demographic engineering ahead of elections. Also across Delhi, Gurugram, Kolkata, and other cities, Bangla-speaking students and workers face profiling, detention, and harassment.

Mass raids round up hundreds of migrants, often ignoring valid IDs like Aadhaar and voter cards, while flimsy grounds such as dialect differences or Bangladeshi phone numbers are used to justify detentions. 

Over 2,000 individuals have been forcibly expelled across the India-Bangladesh border from May to July this year without due process, violating constitutional and international norms.

BJP IT-cell chief Amit Malviya's claim last month that "there is no language called Bengali," echoed by occasional references from state police calling Bengali "Bangladeshi language," has further fuelled discrimination. 

Opposition groups have denounced these measures as "linguistic apartheid," warning that they erode India's pluralistic heritage. 

Calcutta High Court, too, has criticised these actions, questioning the intelligence behind nationwide raids and cautioning against sending a "wrong and dangerous message" by targeting citizens solely based on language.

That said, labelling Bangla-speaking people in India—particularly the Muslims—as "Bangladeshis" is not new. Anti-Bangla sentiment in India has deep roots, dating back to post-partition migration anxieties and regional political rivalries.  

The economic fallout is equally stark. Bangla-speaking migrants from West Bengal often work in informal sectors—construction, domestic help, retail—where language and identity play a critical role. Fear of harassment or detention forces many to leave jobs, depriving local economies of skilled and semi-skilled labour and pushing families into financial instability.

In the 1960s and 1970s, Bengali migrants in Assam, Tripura, and parts of northern India were often treated as outsiders, accused of "infiltrating" India despite holding Indian citizenship. Sporadic violence, social exclusion, and systemic neglect created a perception of Bengalis as second-class citizens, laying the groundwork for the current wave of hostility.

When the BJP first came to power, then-Home Minister LK Advani claimed India harboured 20 million illegal Bangladeshi immigrants—a figure never substantiated. Though later admitted to have been passed down from the previous government, such statements have left a long shadow, framing Bengali-speaking citizens as outsiders and legitimising harassment.

The rise of Hindu nationalism ever since, and the politicisation of religion have only exacerbated these issues, leading to policies that marginalise linguistic minorities. For instance, the implementation of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam disproportionately affected Bengali Muslims, many of whom were born in India but were labelled as "illegal immigrants" due to their linguistic and religious identity.

Today, even in West Bengal—the historic heartland of Bangla—Bangla speakers are increasingly cornered. People have been harassed in public spaces simply for speaking Bangla, while students report being bullied in classrooms and workplaces sometimes deny opportunities to those who speak the language openly. 

In one viral incident, a commuter in Kolkata was verbally assaulted for speaking Bangla to a shopkeeper. 

In another instance just last month, four students from the University of Calcutta were assaulted by a group of Hindi-speaking traders in the Sealdah area of Kolkata. The altercation began over a dispute regarding the price of a mobile phone cover. The students were reportedly called "Bangladeshis" and were physically attacked, sustaining injuries that required hospitalisation. 

A recent viral video from West Bengal also showed a man chanting "Joy Bangla," only to be confronted by Suvendu Adhikari, BJP's opposition leader, who shouted "Hindur Baccha" (Son of a Hindu) and "Joy Hind." The aggressive response and the way security personnel intervened reflected the deep hostility between competing nationalist ideologies in the state—a divide that adds urgency to the 'Bhasha Andolan' and underscores its political symbolism.

The impact on Bangla as a language is profound. A language shrinks not merely when fewer people speak it, but when its speakers are forced to silence it out of fear. Cultural expressions—from songs and poetry to everyday conversation—are muted, and a slow erosion of identity begins.

The economic fallout is equally stark. Bangla-speaking migrants from West Bengal often work in informal sectors—construction, domestic help, retail—where language and identity play a critical role. Fear of harassment or detention forces many to leave jobs, depriving local economies of skilled and semi-skilled labour and pushing families into financial instability.

'Bhasha Andolan' pushes back against this silencing, reminding people that language is not only a means of communication, but a vessel of memory, history, and dignity.

This is a constitutional and moral crucible for India. Its strength has long rested on linguistic diversity enshrined in the Constitution. To normalise stigmatisation and denial of Bangla is to imperil that pluralistic vision and set a dangerous precedent for all minority languages, as well as religions and cultures.

West Bengal's resistance under Mamata Banerjee is therefore more than a political struggle—it is a fight for democratic and human rights. Bangla has triumphed before, but in today's climate, where linguistic and religious identities are weaponised and belonging is constantly questioned, its survival depends not only on its speakers but on whether India still upholds the pluralism it once promised.

What is unfolding in India today also serves as a cautionary tale for all countries that choose, plan, or dream, to pursue policies driven by religious interests or ideology. When governance prioritises faith over equality, the consequences inevitably spill into culture, language, and identity—leaving vulnerable communities exposed and societies fractured. 

In 2025, we cannot afford to let such regression happen again.