“One must first love Bengal. One must first understand Bengal, know Bengal and only then can one even think of capturing it,” Mamata said at an event celebrating the International Mother Language Day here in Calcutta. “Those who do not know Bengal, who do not understand it—what will they do here?” Mamata asked. She asked why the BJP had insulted Bengal polymaths one after another, such as Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, Raja Rammohan Roy, Swami Vivekananda and SriRamakrishna. The International Mother Language Day, established by Unesco in 1999, is a tribute to the 1952 Language Movement in Bangladesh (East Pakistan then), where students sacrificed their lives for the Bengali language.

Source: The Telegraph February 22, 2026 01:28 UTC