Kurukh to be made one of state's official languages: Mamata

The state government will recognise Kurukh as one of its official languages, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee announced on Tuesday.

She was addressing a gathering to pay homage to the language martyrs at Deshapriya Park on Tuesday evening. February 21, popularly known as "Ekushe February" is celebrated throughout the globe to remember the brave souls who demanded Bengali to be the official language of East Pakistan and were gunned down by the Pakistan administration.

Banerjee said that a committee headed by noted Sanskrit scholar Nrisingha Prasad Bhaduri has been set up to study the language of the Rajbanshis living in north Bengal and prepare a syllabus. She said Kurukh which is used by the Oraon had been declared an endangered language by the UNO. She said: "We have respect for the regional languages and have recognised Hindi, Nepali, Alchiki and made them official languages. We should pay respect to all the regional languages."

Banerjee said that throughout the globe, people pay respects to the language martyrs. She recollected her visit to Bangladesh at the invitation of Sheikh Hasina to attend the February 21 function in Dhaka in 2015. "It was a once in a lifetime experience to attend the function and pay respects to the language martyrs on the midnight of February 21."

On Tuesday morning she went to the Ekushe Udyan Park, opposite MP Birla Planetarium in Kolkata and paid respects to the martyrs by laying garlands on the Bhasha Shahid Smarak. She also read out her own poems to remember the language martyr's day.

A statue to commemorate the language martyrs opposite Birla Planetarium was garlanded and a programme was held on Tuesday morning. Seminars, workshops on Bengali language and cultural programmes were held throughout the state. Speakers at the seminars urged the state government to use Bengali more in administrative work. They regretted that despite the state government communiqué, noting on official files is mostly in English. They regretted that this generation's young adults could not speak fluent Bengali and were using mixed language. They also seldom read rich Bengali literature. The speakers urged the state government to take measures to attract young people to study literature in their mother tongue.