Musk reacts to ‘Bengali’ signboard at London station

LONDON: A signage written in English and Bengali at a London railway station has come under scrutiny with a UK MP demanding that it “should be in English, and English only”.

Rupert Lowe, the Great Yarmouth MP, took to his official X account and posted a picture of the dual language signboard at the Whitechapel Station. “This is London - the station name should be in English, and English only,” Mr Lowe, a Reform UK MP for Great Yarmouth, said on Sunday. His post went viral and also invited a comment from tech billionaire Elon Musk, who owns X. “Yes,” he responded. Mr Musk, a close ally of US President Donald Trump, had recently called for Nigel Farage to be replaced as Reform UK leader and had appeared to endorse 67-year-old Lowe.

While some users backed the UK MP, others said it was “not wrong” to have signs written in other languages. A Bengali signage was installed at the Whitechapel Tube station in 2022 to pay tribute to the contribution the Bangladeshi community has made to east London.

Tower Hamlets council had funded dual language signs throughout Whitechapel Station as part of wider improvements. The area is reportedly home to the biggest Bangladeshi community in the UK. West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had praised the move.

“Proud to note that the London Tube Rail has accepted Bengali as a language of signage at Whitechapel Station, signifying the increasing global importance and strength of the 1000-year-old language,” she said in a post on X in March 2022. It underlines that the diaspora should work together in common cultural directions. It is a victory of our culture and heritage. In a subsequent post, she said the move underlined that the “diaspora should work together in common cultural directions”. “It is a victory of our culture and heritage,” Mr Banerjee said.