What shows the linguistic profiling of Bengal migrant workers about the deeply rooted bias in India

India is celebrated for its linguistic diversity. However, it is this variety that occasionally creates challenges. Political conflicts in India are often articulated by “language wars”, as linguistic feelings make it easier for the masses to choose pages. Vice versa, Language war Also symbolize more deeply sitting socio -political conflicts of our society. One current case is the roosters of Bengal migrant workers in several countries. These workers, mainly Muslim or dalite, are suspected of being illegal immigrants in Bangladesh or Rohingyas and hastily transporting to Bangladesh, which causes all formal interventions in the process.

Bengalian migrant worker in Neu -Delhi, Maharashtra, Odisha and Assam have suspended such harassment in the past few months. The resulting political discourse has focused on the Bengal language, since its speakers are now being attacked in these states distributed by BJP.

The amount of migrants

On July 3, 2025, at least six hiking workers living in Pune were arrested by the Maharashtra police Because of the suspicion of being illegal Bangladesh immigrants. They belonged to the Matua community, a Namashudra Dalit community in West Bengalen, which emigrated to India from Bangladesh in 1947 and 1971 to escape the partition violence. The BJP has been promising Indian citizenship for decades and has used this feeling to receive support from Matua-dominated constituencies. Matuas has an identity card, which was issued by the All India Mahasangh instead of the proper citizenship documents and signed by BJP MP and Foreign Minister Shantanu Thakur.

Source: web

In 2023, the deputy interior minister of the union, Ajay Kumar Mishra, announced that these cards had sufficient evidence of citizenship for the Matuas until the CAA was implemented. Ironically, even these cards were currently unable to prove their indian.

Assam Prime Minister (cm) Naimanta biswa Sarma Recently said that the letter from Bengali will quantify the number of foreigners in Assam as a mother tongue in the census documents. This provoked West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee to remind Sarma of Bengali’s Indians.

In ChhattiSkarh, nine Bengal migrant workers were recently recorded in ChhattiSkarh because they did not create proper documents. Sweety Biwi, a resident of Birbhum, was transported to Bangladesh by the police in Delhi, although she claimed to be an Indian. Uttam Kumar Brajabashi, a farmer of Rajbanshi (a Bengal Dalit) in the Cooch Behah, was announced by Assams foreigners in Tribunal, in which he had to prove his citizenship. Unhappy reports on the direct transport of Bengali hiking workers who were transported directly to Bangladesh also came from Odisha.

The emergency does not end there. India and Bangladesh have an approximately 4,000 km long border, which has recently been fenced. COOCH Behar (India) and Lalmonirghat (Bangladesh) are coherent districts. In several cases, Bangladesh refused to enter these Bengal workers who claimed that they were Indian citizens. In an incident, India had to take 65 people back when Bangladesh refused to accept them. On May 28, 2025, 13 people were stranded at the zero point in Lalmonirghat when both countries refused to access them. In addition, thousands of people have disappeared since they were declared “foreigners” in India.

Bengali’s “strangeness”

The problem began on May 19, 2025 when the Ministry of the Interior published a directive To recognize, identify and deport illegal immigrants from Bangladesh and Myanmar. Therefore, linguistic profil creation became the easiest way to assemble Bengalis as a suspected foreigner in the unorganized sector. Add the Assam Prime Minister (cm) fuel to the fire. Naimanta biswa Sarma Recently said that the letter from Bengali will quantify the number of foreigners in Assam as a mother tongue in the census documents.

Source: PTI

This provoked West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee to remind Sarma of the “Indians of Bengali”. She referred to remarkable Indians such as Subhash Chandra Bose and Rabindranath Tagore, who are celebrated nationally. She also reminded the national anthem and the national song to remind Sarma of the role of the Bengal language in the formation of national symbols. However, Sarma’s comment did not refer to Bengali’s foreign food in India, but caused the years of Assamen-Bengalian conflict in Assam.

In 1985, more than 2,000 Bengal Muslims of Assamesen Hindus, Koch and Tiwa Stamm were massacrated in the former Nagaon district. Known as Nellie massacre, this incident was a result of the Bengal Muslims who wanted to exercise their voting rights in Assam to prove their Indian citizenship. The Bengal language in Assam has a disturbing Hsitor of conflicts, massacres and discrimination. Himanta biswa Sarma’s comment fans of this split feeling by articulating the current refugee crisis in linguistic terms.

In 1961, the government of Bimala Prasad Chaliha decided to impose Assamese as the official language of the valley. Since there is a considerable Bengal population in Assam, they called for Bengali as an official language. As a result, Bengalen and Assamesian collided, which led to the death of 11 Bengalian Hindus in Silchar due to police sayings. This movement is popularly known as Barak Valley Agitation, and a monument was built at the Silchar train station station, which is reminiscent of the martyrs of the “Bengal language”.

Twenty years later, in 1985, more than 2,000 Bengal Muslims of Assamesen Hindus, Koch and Tiwa Stamm were massacred in the former district of Nagaon. Known as Nellie massacre, this incident was a result of the Bengal Muslims who wanted to exercise their voting rights in Assam to prove their Indian citizenship. The Bengal language in Assam has a disturbing Hsitor of conflicts, massacres and discrimination. Himanta biswa Sarma’s comment fans of this split feeling by articulating the current refugee crisis in linguistic terms-a simple way to cause the discourse against immigrants in the indigenous assamorous public memory.

Language and informal sector

Language conflicts that take an ugly turn in India are not new in India, and the worst -affected group is the working class everywhere, especially the unorganized sector. The industrial cities in India experience the seasonal migration of workers from various countries for various informal jobs. Balken stoves in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, for example, employ workers from West and South -odisha and subject the terrible working and living conditions and lean wages that border on torture. The language becomes an additional obstacle for the workers in order to speak against a state authority in the event of an incident of the violation. Odisha himself hires workers from West Bengal for the informal sector, as is emphasized in the recent incidents of harassment.

Source: web

A predominant Bihari population in Maharashtra works in the informal sectors, as a street dealer and worker. The Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) cited by Raj Thackeray was responsible for widespread violence against Hindi-speaking workers from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar in 2008. There were reports of killing workers and amputations by hookcars who were amputated by the state from the state for a mass exodus of north Indian workers. As a result, the local industries suffered a loss of RS. 500 Crores. The MNS recently introduced another agitation, in which it itself molested formal sector sector from northern India.

Who is a language movement moving?

In the past few months, India has experienced a flood of debates about Hindi’s arbitration by the Union government. The anti-Hindi campaign was headed by the ruling DMK government of Tamil Nadu, which vehemently criticized the trilingual mandate of national education policy. However, this anti-Hindi mood in Tamil Nadu has not conducted violence against Hindi-speaking migrants in the state.

The government has actively thwarted the BJP’s efforts in Tamil Nadu to cause hostility among the Hindi-speaking hiking workers against locals. Instead, the larger Dravidian anti-Hindi discourse tries to uncover the hidden mechanisms of the Hindutva state to the lower limit of the federal structure of India. In contrast, any other model of linguistic pride that other people lead to their language profiles as “foreigners” and have chased them through intimidation or chasing away.

Language conflicts that take an ugly turn in India are not new in India, and the worst -affected group is the working class everywhere, especially the unorganized sector. The industrial cities in India experience the seasonal migration of workers from various countries for various informal jobs.

In this light you will find that the linguistic profiling of migrant workers is not carried out solely on the basis of the Bengal language. In a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the former Member of the Congress, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, said that migrant workers were shown to the people in Bangladesh as “accent of the spoken language”. Speaking in Bengali is not synonymous with a Bangladesh state member. When Mamata Banerjee asked for an apology from Sarma, he quickly indicates the difference between indigenous Bengalis and Bangladeschinfilfiltrators. This is about another language community whose identity in India has associated several negative connotations: foreigners, illegal immigrants, infiltrators, job stealers, criminals, etc. Therefore to act against the obvious anti-Bengal-venbhente. parallel.

If we do not deal with these prejudices that are propagated by the Indian folk media and the state against a refugee community, the working class will continue to be harassed due to their linguistic identity. India in turn has to formulate a suitable mechanism in order to tackle the persistent refugee crisis. The lack of the same will lead to such arbitrary measures for other people for difficult reasons as the accent of their speech.

Solanki Chakraborty is a doctoral student at the Center for English Language Studies at the University of Hyderabad. Her work deals with the history of language teaching and learning in colonial India. She is interested in reading and writing about pedagogy, language policy in India and food history.