Varanasi: Mahila Mahavidyalaya of Banaras Hindu University organized a function to celebrate the International Mother Language Day on Saturday.
The International Mother Language Day is celebrated each year on February 21. Since February 21 was a holiday due to Mahashivratri celebrations, it was held on Saturday at the Heritage Hall of MMV. The Bengali Section of MMV has been organizing this celebration for the last three years.
The program started with offering of tribute to the founder Mahamana Madan Mohan Malaviya by the Principal Prof Inu Mehta, the chief guest Prof Prakash Kumar Maity, the head of BHU’s Bengali department, and the former Principal of MMV Prof Chandrakala Tripathy. It was followed by the BHU Kulgeet presented by the students.
Addressing the function, Prof Maity recollected the historical events that led to the recognition of this day as the International Mother Language Day and highlighted the importance of study of Bengali language, which is spoken by more than 27 crore people around the world. “Bengali is taught in various universities worldwide, including UK, USA, Japan and Korea. However, the number of Indian universities teaching Bengali is fast declining and we should focus on the development of the language that brought in a revolution,” he added. Prof Tripathy spoke about the present social issues.
The morning session ended with by a short cultural program presented by students. It was followed by afternoon session inviting guest speakers like Prof Vibha Rani Dubey of Sanskrit section, Dr Namrata Rathore Mahanta of English section, Dr Urvashi Gahlout of Hindi section and Dr Mohammad Afzal Hussain of Urdu section. The program ended with recitation of the popular Bengali poem ‘Banalata Sen’. The program was compared by Dr Soma Dutta.
