When the going gets tough, play the parochial card. This seems to be the motto of our cynical politicians. The latest to jump on the bandwagon is West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress boss Mamata Banerjee.
Blindsided by the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) stupendous success in West Bengal in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Mamata Banerjee is now pandering to the latent Bengali sub-nationalism.
On June 14, addressing a rally in Kanchrapara in North 24 Parganas warned non-Bengalis that to live in West Bengal they would have to speak in Bengali. "We have to bring Bangla [Bengali language] forward," she thundered.
There are better ways to promote a language than to shove it down the throat of non-native speakers. People learn a language when there is an economic benefit accruing from it (and in rare cases because of the love of the language).
But Mamata Banerjee is not alone in stoking the son-of-the-soil vs outsider debate.