The Bengali Language Movement was a socio-politico-cultural effort in then East Pakistan, now Bangladesh, advocating the recognition of Bangla as an official language of Pakistan. Such recognition would allow Bangla to be used in government affairs.
The wings of the state of Pakistan after its formation in 1947, were two regions split wide apart along cultural, geographical, and linguistic lines. In 1948, the government of Pakistan ordained Urdu as the sole national language, sparking extensive protests among the Bangla-speaking majority of East Pakistan. Facing rising sectarian tensions and mass discontent with the new law, the government outlawed public meetings and rallies.
The students of the University of Dhaka and other political activists defied the law and organized a protest on February 21, 1952. The movement reached its climax when police killed student demonstrators on that day. The deaths provoked widespread civil unrest. After years of conflict, the central government relented and granted official status to the Bangla in 1956.
In 2000, UNESCO declared February 21 as the International Mother Language Day for the whole world to celebrate, in tribute to the Language Movement and the ethno-linguistic rights of people around the world. We as a nation feel proud today that Bangladesh, Bangla and the supreme sacrifice of our language movement are being pronounced, much-admired, gratefully remembered and honoured world-wide.
The language movement
The Bengali Language Movement catalyzed the assertion of a Bengali national identity in Pakistan, and became a forerunner to Bengali nationalist movements, including the emerging of self rule consciousness in the 1954 general election, student movement in 1962, the six-point movement, the uprising in 1969, and finally, the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971. The supreme sacrifice of the martyrs of the language movement on February 21 became the epitome of inspiration for sustaining self consciousness and self dignity as a nation. It brought raised notions of establishing a nation state in the globe named after its language Bangla-desh.
Bangla-speaking people in East Pakistan made up 44 million of the newly formed Pakistan's 69 million people in 1947. The Pakistani administration, its government, civil services, and military, however, were dominated by West Pakistanis. In October 1947, a key resolution at a national education summit in Karachi advocated Urdu as the sole state language, and its exclusive use in the media and in schools.
Opposition and protests immediately arose. Students from Dhaka rallied under the leadership of Abul Kashem (1920-1991), the secretary of Tamaddun Majlish, a Bengali Islamic cultural organization. The meeting stipulated Bangla as an official language of Pakistan and as a medium of education in East Pakistan.
However, the Pakistan Public Service Commission removed Bangla from the list of approved subjects, as well as from currency notes and stamps. The central education minister of Pakistan made extensive preparations to make Urdu the only state language of Pakistan.
Public outrage spread, and a large number of Bengali students met around the campus of the University of Dhaka on December 8, 1947, to formally demand that Bangla be made an official language. To promote their cause, Bengali students organized processions and rallies in Dhaka. It was not a sudden instantly initiated or motivated movement. The demand and protests had a long historical backup.
The cultural history of Bangla
The prestige and position of Bangla in day-to-day life, the mother tongue of the people of Bengal, particularly of the Muslims, traced back to the seventeenth century, as documented in the poems of Abdul Hakim (1620-1690) of Swandwip Noakhali. The seventeenth century bard was hesitant to classify, if not condemn, those who were inborn in Bengal but hated Bangla.
From the mid-19th century, the Urdu language had been promoted as the lingua franca of Indian Muslims by political and religious leaders. Khanbahadur Ahsanullah (1873-1965), an educationist and social reformer, pronounced strongly in 1918, in one of his oration (Bangabhasha o Musalman Shahitya) that one must respect Bangla and recognize its incomparability over other languages like Urdu etc. Ahsanullah made this observation in the event of some inventiveness of contemporary intelligentsias to establish Urdu as the lingua franca of Muslims in Bengal.
As early as the late 19th century, social activists such as the Muslim feminist Roquia Sakhawat Hussain (1880-1932) were choosing to write in Bangla to reach out to the people and develop it as a modern literary language. Exactly 25 years prior to February 1952, two papers were presented on the second day of the two-day First Annual Literary Conference (February 27-28, 1927) of the Muslim Shahittya Shamaj, on the appropriateness in the use of Bangla in muslim society in general and in education. Kazi Nazrul Islam (1899-1976) inaugurated the Conference.
Abul Hussain (1896-1938), the Secretary and one of the founders of the Shahittya Shamaj, which led the Shikkha movement, in his paper put forward that the mother language barrier has been the major obstacle on the way of social development of the muslim community in Bengal.
The Language Movement laid not only the foundations for ethnic nationalism in many of the Bengalis of East Pakistan, but it also heightened the cultural animosity between the authorities of the two wings of Pakistan. In fact, Ekushey played an important role in making Bengalis aware of their cultural and national heritage and ultimately led to the creation of Bangladesh in 1971. After 1971, even today, Ekushey has been a guiding philosophy for any movement against oppression, injustice, disparity, and denial of civic rights, and in the comprehension of the socio-economic emancipation for the people of Bangladesh.
Dr Muhammad Abdul Mazid, former Secretary to the Government and Chairman, National Board of Revenue. [email protected]
