Mamata keeps Urdu promise
Keeping the pre-poll promises she made to Muslims, West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday said Urdu would be given second-language status in districts with a 10 per cent or more Urdu-speaking population.
She also declared the restoration of the word “Madrasa” to the name of Aliah University. The Left Front government had dropped the word “Madrasa” when it gave Madrasa Aliah the status of a university.
The Muslims had voiced their strong displeasure over the decision but the Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee government had remained unmoved. Ms Banerjee said that through a small amendment in the law the word “Madrasa” would be restored.
She also announced that similar status would be granted to other linguistic minorities, like the Hindi, Oriya, Nepali, Gurmukhi and Santhali languages, in areas where the people speaking those languages exceeded 10 per cent of the total population.
Ms Banerjee’s announcements were welcomed by the Muslim community. Shamim Ahmed, who has carried on a sustained movement to press for the demand of making Urdu the second official language in the state, said: “What the CPI(M) government could not do in three decades, Mamatadi has done in a week.” Mr Ahmed claimed he had met Ms Banerjee in 2009 and apprised her of the rationality of the demand for Urdu. “The Trinamul Congress immediately included the promise to make Urdu the second language in its manifesto in the Lok Sabha election. She later included it in the Assembly election manifesto,” he added.
Mr Ahmed recalled that way back in 1981, the then chief minister, Jyoti Basu, had given orders to use Urdu in government offices in four areas: Kolkata, Garden Reach, Asansol and Islampur.
“He had, however, not given Urdu second-language status. But now there are large numbers of Urdu-speakers in at least nine districts,” he said, claiming that the number of Urdu-speaking people in Bengal exceeded one crore.
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