West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has condemned an incident in Noida where a man and his child were denied hotel accommodation for speaking Bengali. “This man was not from Bangladesh, but from West Bengal. Yet he was refused a room,” Banerjee said, questioning why respect for languages is not mutual. She praised the sweetness of the Bengali language and urged people never to forget their mother tongue or Bengal’s historic role in India’s independence and social reforms.