Taking the debate of Hindi imposition to next level, political analyst and TMC troll Garga Chatterjee scored a self-goal on a live show by speaking in Bengali and fought with the anchor over Hindi imposition despite him being informed that the show was in Hindi.
Appearing on a debate on political violence in West Bengal and the face-off between Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and the Home ministry on the CNN News18, political analyst Garga Chatterjee decided to speak in Bengali as he thought that anchor Shreya Dhoundiyal and all other guests present on the show were pushing the agenda of Hindi imposition by speaking in Hindi.
https://twitter.com/CNNnews18/status/1137954623178756096?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Anchor Shreya Dhoundial, who is also a standby defence expert of the channel, asked whether Garga Chatterjee was trying to make any point by speaking in Bengali in a Hindi news show. However, Chatterjee reacted to Shreya Dhoundial by saying that she “should not have a guilty conscience”, when she asked him to switch to English if he was not comfortable in Hindi. He argued that if other panellists in the show are allowed to speak in their mother tongue Hindi on an English channel, he also should be allowed to speak in Bengali.
The debate on CNN News18 soon deviated from the main issue of political violence in West Bengal into a war of words between the anchor and Garga Chatterjee over the subject of whether CNN News18 is a Hindi or an English channel.
Soon, Shreya Dhoundial posted a clarification tweet saying that CNN News 18 is an English News Channel but the channel hosts two Hindi shows daily at 10 am and 7 pm. She also said that each guest who is invited to the show, including Garga Chatterjee was also informed that the show was in Hindi.
https://twitter.com/shreyadhoundial/status/1138753396846915584?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
If claims of Shreya Dhoundial are believed to be true, it is rather intriguing to know why was Garga Chatterjee began to propagate his agenda by speaking in Bengali despite the fact that he was informed that the show will be in Hindi. If he was against Hindi, he could have said no to a Hindi program. Garga Chatterjee perhaps successfully used the opportunity to deflect the issue by speaking in Bengali as maybe he did not have sufficient answers to counter the allegations on raising political violence in West Bengal under Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
However, Garga Chatterjee did not stop there. He took on to Twitter to post abusive tweets targetting Hindi speaking citizens.
https://twitter.com/GargaC/status/1139033864012099584?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
https://twitter.com/GargaC/status/1139068441275510784?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Garga Chatterjee, a vocal supporter of the TMC and an abusive troll has a habit of raking up issues to create polarisation on linguistic lines. Last year, Railway minister Piyush Goyal had announced Kolkatta city metro’s decision of including information in Bengali in its smart cards. Taking an opportunity to target ‘Hindi imposition’ Garga had interpreted the tweet as the ‘Hindi imperial centre’ had now sensed the power of ‘Bengali resistance’.
Due to dwindling viewership numbers, several English News Channels have started including Hindi programs. It was started by Arnab Goswami who started using both English and Hindi in his shows on Republic and allowed the panellists also to do so. This was followed by Time Now when they converted their morning show into Hindi. After that CNN-News18 had also started a Hindi show called Bottomline at the 7 PM slot.