TOI CORRESPONDENT FROM LONDON: Elon Musk has backed a British MP’s disapproval of a sign at Whitechapel London Underground station being written in Bengali.
Reform UK MP Rupert Lowe, who Musk frequently retweets, and whose party is opposed to immigration, tweeted a photo of Whitechapel station showing its sign in English and in Bengali script and wrote: “This is London — the station name should be in English, and English only.”
Musk replied “Yes.”
Abdal Ullah, a Tower Hamlets councillor and founder of the British Bangladeshi Power & Inspiration, spearheaded the Bengali script sign. He told TOI it came about during events to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Bangladesh as there is a large British Bangladeshi community in Whitechapel.
“We did a number of events to celebrate the contribution of the Bangladesh community to Britain, like building the rag trade and the Brick Lane curry houses,” Ullah said. “During that time we initiated the lighting up of the London Eye in red and green, we organised a bike ride to promote climate change and British Bangladeshi artist Mohammed Ali created a mural in Brick Lane saying ‘Mateer Tan’ (Land is calling). At that time the Elizabeth line was about to open, so I initiated a plan to ask TfL to recognise the contribution of British Bangladeshis in the East End and to have the Whitechapel sign written in Bengali. Chinatown already had street signs in Chinese characters, even Brick Lane already had signs in Bengali. I did a campaign and TfL told me they thought it was a great idea to recognise our contributions and so we launched it,” he explained.
When the sign was approved, West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee did a tweet on it. “That was my claim to my fame and I was very honoured when she did that,” he said.
“So, to be woken up and nowtold that Elon Musk is commenting on it, well he clearly has nothing better to do,” Ullah said. “ He seems to have too much time for everything related to Britain. Lowe is just pandering to the right-wing and trying to attract attention,” he added.
Southall, known as Little Punjab, has had a sign in Gurmukhi script at its station saying “Southall” for many years. Even St Pancras International, the station for Eurostar, has signs in French.
Ansar Ullah, director of the Swadhinata Trust, a Tower Hamlet-based Bengali community group, said the sign was meant to acknowledge the community rather than because they could not read English. “I suspect Lowe’s comments were purely political.
But Hindi teacher Indu Barot said she was against the signage. “It makes Punjabis think Southall is their area and Bengalis think Whitechapel is their area. It is wonderful to see everyone promoting their languages. However, I sense a touch of politics in this, which seems to be dividing rather than uniting. We are living in Britain so the signs should just be in English,” she said.