West Bengal makes Bengali compulsory for all government work

Bengali is mandatory for official work at every level of the West Bengal government from 1 September 2026, under a rule Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari announced in the Legislative Assembly on 20 July.

“From September 1, the use of the Bengali language will be mandatory at every level of the state government,” Adhikari said, according to PTI. The BJP had ended the Trinamool Congress’s 15-year rule in the state about two and a half months before the announcement, PTI noted.

What the order covers

According to PTI, the rule covers file notings, departmental correspondence, government notifications, citizen services and communication with the Centre. Letters to the Union government will go in Bengali along with Rajbhasha Hindi. Outlook India reported that such correspondence has so far been mostly in English.

Adhikari also urged police and law-and-order services to use Bengali for registering FIRs and complaints, for citizen information and for public safety and awareness messages, ANI reported.

Bengali in West Bengal's administration

• 20 July 2026Adhikari announces the rule in the Assembly
• 1 September 2026Bengali mandatory at every level of state government
• Bengali + Hindilanguages for letters to the Union government

Amit Shah’s letter

Adhikari announced the decision by reading out a letter, written in Bengali, from Union Home Minister Amit Shah. Shah urged wide use of Bengali in land records, public services, digital administration and advertisements, and suggested Bengali and Hindi in place of English for dealings with the Centre, PTI reported. Adhikari said the state had accepted the suggestions.

The letter invoked Syama Prasad Mookerjee, founder of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, whose 125th birth anniversary fell on 6 July. ANI reported that the move fulfils a commitment in the Bengal BJP’s manifesto to promote the Bengali language.

Reactions across parties

“It took 75 years to make Bengali language mandatory in West Bengal,” BJP state spokesperson Debjit Sarkar said, according to The Week. He asked critics who speak of “saffronisation” to consider the decision.

Trinamool MLA Kunal Ghosh, from the Mamata Banerjee camp, called the move largely symbolic. “You cannot become pro-Bengali merely by issuing a notification,” he said, according to PTI. He questioned how judges transferred from outside the state would function entirely in Bengali.

Santanu Sen, from the breakaway Trinamool group led by Leader of the Opposition Ritabrata Banerjee, welcomed the decision. “As a Bengali, I feel proud,” he said, according to PTI.

State Congress president Shubhankar Sarkar welcomed the move but said Bengali needed development in classical and modern forms, including textbooks in subjects such as medicine and law, The Week reported. CPI(M) leader Rabin Deb called it a good step if the government kept its promises, but said the BJP was pursuing an RSS agenda across the country.

Questions of practice

Linguist Pabitra Sarkar, a former vice-chancellor of Rabindra Bharati University, welcomed the decision. “This is something that had long been promised but never fully implemented,” he said, according to PTI. He said Nepali in the Darjeeling hills and Santhali in Jangalmahal should get equal administrative importance, and told The Week that government staff would need training and that the change could not happen overnight.

Political scientist Biswanath Chakraborty said the BJP wanted to neutralise an issue that had helped the Trinamool. “So far, the TMC projected itself as the custodian of Bengali identity,” he said, according to PTI. Assembly Speaker Rathindra Bose said efforts to increase the use of Bengali in the legislature had already begun.

LokVox could not confirm from an official source how far the rule is being applied in government offices since 1 September.