Kolkata: A dialogue script sent by the West Bengal State Education Department to be staged as a play in educational institutions to celebrate the 76th birth anniversary of Prime Minister Narendra Modi is noteworthy not just because of the overreach in the government stipulating its performance, but its language.The play is titled ‘Namo Seva: Anjana Kahini‘ which translates to ‘Namo’s service, the unknown story’.Detailed instructions follow regarding the number of characters and how it should be acted out. However, the standard of Bengali used in these dialogues, the manner in which sentences have been written, and the disastrous outcome of what is clearly an effort at translating from Hindi with AI in certain places have left people who grew up reading and teaching Bengali in a bind.Teachers are worried: if children are forced to memorise incorrect Bengali for these dialogues, what will they actually learn? When questioned about the language of the play, a senior West Bengal Civil Service official of the State Education Department declined to comment, offering only a brief reply: “Whatever needs to be done has all been sent.”Questions regarding the overwhelming number of errors in Bengali were sent to Minister of State for Education Kaushik Chowdhury and the Education Secretary Binod Kumar, but they had not responded at the time of publication.Renowned linguist Pabitra Sarkar said he was “getting nauseous as he was reading the play.” “How do I begin to point out the mistakes? This is shameless propaganda,” he said.So what is in the play?The story follows a reunion of friends in which Narendra Modi’s journey of service is revealed. The interaction among parents, children, and alumni is meant to reveal how India was transformed in an instant at Modi’s touch, starting with Gujarat. Yet, it says, he did not tire, and nor will he until the centenary of the nation’s independence in 2047.Five school friends, now around 40 years old, are accompanied by their four children. The characters’ names, family background, and timeframes are essayed in the script.The play asks for ‘acceptable excerpts’ from religious chants, saying that they can be from ‘য়া দেবী সর্বভূতেষু (Ya Devi Sarvabhuteshu)’ to “বন্দে মাতরম্ (Vande Mataram)’. These are referred to in the guidelines as ‘মঙ্গলচরণ’ (Mangalcharan). Dictionaries, however, state that no such word exists in Bengali, a point corroborated by linguists. The actual word is ‘মঙ্গলাচরণ (Mangalacharan)’ – a ritual performed to ward off obstacles before initiating any task in Sanatan Dharma.The play then advances step by step, starting with the devastating earthquake in Kutch, Gujarat, in 2001. That marked the beginning of Modi’s victorious journey in state politics. This phase highlights Modi’s role as chief minister and the reconstruction of Gujarat, spanning from October 7, 2001, to 2013.At a particular point, a character resembling Modi is supposed to emerge from the ruins and smoke and take oath in Gujarati.The play encompasses Modi becoming prime minister in 2014, the 2016 Uri attack and surgical strikes, indigenous capabilities and space programmes, the pandemic and vaccination, Operation Ganga and the return home, the reading down of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir, Raju’s story and digital transactions, solar energy, the metro, and opportunities for women – concluding with chants along with the audience and the resolve for a developed India.In that segment, a character says:“মোহিত – আমরা তো কলেজের সময় থেকেই দেখে আসছি মোদীজি কী ভাবে উন্নয়নের রাজনীতি শুরু করেছিলেন। কলেজে পড়ার সময় উনার একটা কথা আমার খুব অনুপ্রেরণা জোগাত…”(“Mohit: We have been seeing since our college days how Modi ji initiated the politics of development. During college, one of his quotes inspired me immensely…’).The spelling of ‘উনার’ differs from the Bengali use, along with the style of the sentence.Another part says:মঞ্চে মোদীজি (প্রকৃত কণ্ঠ) – “মানছি আঁধার ঘনিয়ে এসেছে, বন্ধুরা। মানছি রাতটা ঘোর আঁধারে ঢাকা, অন্ধকারটা ভীষণ ভারী। কিন্তু বন্ধু, আলো জ্বালানোতে তো কেউ বারণ করেনি!”(Modiji on stage [actual voice]: “I admit the darkness has deepened, my friends. I admit the night is covered in dense darkness, the darkness is very heavy (bhari). But, friends, no one has forbidden lighting a lamp!”)However, the word ‘ভারী’ (bhari/heavy) is used in Bengali to denote weight. Consequently, teachers have raised questions as to why ‘ভারী’ darkness was written instead of pitch-black or deep darkness, noting that it is a Hindi word with a different meaning. Furthermore, “to light a lamp (আলো জ্বালতে)’ was written as ‘জ্বালানোতে (jalanote),’ which is grammatically incorrect. A teacher from a Bengali-medium school in Kolkata, requesting anonymity, remarked, “Parents are already reluctant to teach their kids Bengali, as they themselves aren’t very fluent in it. On top of that, if a script sent by the government contains such use of Bengali, how can we correct students on spelling or sentence construction errors?”At some point, a child asks,”দাঙ্গা? কারফিউ? সেটা কী? (Riots? Curfews? What are those?)” when their parent speaks of the pre-Modi years.Looking proudly at her friends, the child’s mother says:“দেখ, এই নতুন প্রজন্ম দাঙ্গা কী জিনিস জানেই না! আমাদের তো দাঙ্গার দৌলতে মাঝেমধ্যেই স্কুলে ছুটি হয়ে যেত, হা হা!”“Look, this new generation doesn’t even know what a riot is! In our time, schools were frequently closed due to riots, ha ha!”There is no mention of the 2002 Gujarat carnage following which Modi becoming chief minister, the Northeast Delhi riots, and the numerous communal conflagrations that Modi’s rule has led to, along with the deaths of numerous jawans in the Pulwama terror attack, or Operation Sindoor.‘Diaper sales in Pakistan’The character Sonali is a journalist who supposedly covered Modi’s oath-taking ceremony right after graduating in 2014. Through her, the “corruption” and “terrorism” of the UPA era are voiced. In that context, she speaks of the Uri terror attack and surgical strikes. A child interrupts and says that they have heard of strike and non-strike in cricket, but not of a “surgical strike.”Sonali refers to the child as “bhai,” for some reason, and says, “Pakistan knows this very well! Just like you wear diapers when scared, diaper sales in Pakistan skyrocketed during the surgical strike!”A teacher from a school in South 24 Parganas, wishing to remain anonymous, questioned, “Is this the language children should speak? Do children wear diapers when scared? Does that need to be explained? Did diaper sales in Pakistan really surge during that time? What will children learn from this?”At some point a character says:“বাবা, মোদীজি কিন্তু দারিদ্র্য বইয়ের পাতায় বা সিনেমা দেখে শেখেননি। উনি নিজে সেই কষ্ট ভোগ করে উঠে এসেছেন। উনি নিজের মা হীরা বা-কে কাঠের উনুনে ধোঁয়ার মধ্যে চোখ জ্বালাতে দেখেছেন। উনার বাবাকে রেলওয়ে স্টেশনে কায়িক পরিশ্রমে চা বিক্রি করতে দেখেছেন।”“Modiji didn’t learn about poverty from book pages or by watching movies. He rose by enduring that suffering himself. He saw his mother, Hiraba, burning her eyes [chokh jalate] in the smoke of a wooden stove. He saw his father selling tea through manual labour at the railway station.”Anyone with a grasp of the Bengali language will question the meaning of ‘উনুনে ধোঁয়ার মধ্যে নিজের মাকে চোখ জ্বালাতে দেখেছেন (saw his mother burning her eyes in the smoke of the stove)”. ‘চোখ জ্বালানো (chokh jalano) literally implies setting fire to one’s eyes.Near the end of the play, there is a song:“আমরা যখন খুকুমণি ছিলাম, ভারত ছিল অন্যরকম। আমরা যখন ছোট্ট ছিলাম, মন চাইত আরও কিছু পেতে।”“When we were little girls [khukumoni], India was different. When we were small, our hearts longed to get more.”It is unclear why little boys are left out in this song.The degradation of the Bengali language does not end here. After explaining Modi’s activities alongside chants praising the Hindu deity Ram, the play concludes with “Bharat Mata Ki Jai” chants. But prior to that, there is an appearance by the Modi-like character, who is heard saying: “সৌগন্ধ আমাকে এই মাটির, আমি দেশ মিটতে দেব না, আমি দেশ ঝুঁকতে দেব না!” Although this is supposed to mean “I swear by this soil, I will not let this country be destroyed, I will not let this country bow down”, it is an incorrect and ungrammatical use of Bengali.A character named Mohit asks the audience to say “everything is possible” because Modi is present, and his dialogue reads: ‘গলা পর্যন্ত আওয়াজ আসছে না! পেছনের সারির সবাই উচ্চস্বরে বলুন…।” This translates to “the sound isn’t coming up to the throat” – an unclear line to say the least.Another noted renowned linguist who has been working in the field for nearly three decades, said, “I have gone through the script. The 10-page script has 75 wrong sentences and syntactical errors. There are plenty of wrong spellings too. Bengalis do not speak like that. Many words are not Bengali.”He explained, “The play itself is extremely bad and weak. The translation is equally poor. The play was written as pure propaganda with a particular motive. Moreover, Gen Alpha does not speak in this lingua franca either.”Like the teachers quoted in the piece, he too requested anonymity.