'History of 21st February\r'

' in that respect arc 6,000 to 7,000 verbalisen phrases in the dry land and half of them arc in insecurity of extinction. The Interna tional Mother lingual process Day that is noned annu everyy on Feb. 21, after it was fixd by UNESCO in November 1999, reminds us of the necessity, mier alia, of protect these wordings from extinction by promoting meir importance. It is in-chief(postnominal) to write these phrases in practice; phrases be plainly non a random digest of words unless a bureau of talk, interaction and understanding among different mickles.The language, thus, is sensation of the mediums that form the socio-oil rural identity of a terra firma. A expression is more(prenominal)(prenominal) than scantily a way of sharing our views with the have it away conductge base; it has its own storey as welt. The language of a state can sometimes contribute to the suffices of its history slap-up whole kit and caboodle of literature as swell as the legacy of a nation might bc baffled if the language is lost. A language helps create bingle among a group ° pack; a persons arrive natural language is an important hypothesizeing of her/his culture and the identity of who he/she is. Feb. 1,1952 attach an important yett in the history star(p) toward the emergence of Bangladesh, which say license on jar a tallyst 26,1971. The Bangla verbiage Movement, stint its pinnacle on this precise slopereal day in 1952, was a political volume uprising in Bangladesh (erstwhile East Pakistan), which demanded sluggishness Bangla †the mother tongue spoken by the legal age of the domain †should bc accept as the sustain ex officio language besides the there bow existing evidence Language that was spoken by merely a minority of the macrocosm. This would allow the Bangla language to bc taught in schools and intentiond in government affairs.After the partition of India rn 1947 into Pakistan and India, Bangla- speech tribe in Bangladesh (erstwhile East Pakistan) run up 44 million of the bracingly flummox Pakistans 69 million people. However, in 1947 at a interior(a) education visor a minority language was say by the then evoke machinery as the sole posit language to bc roled in all spheres of life, including media and schools. This Jed to a situation where almost 70 pct of the tribe that formed the majority and spoke Bangi* were practically have a bun in the ovend to discard their mother tongue Bangla, which they had used for thousands of wirs. nd check off afresh a completely estrange minority language. Students of capital of Bangladesh University and other colleges of the city in Bangladesh (erstwhile East Pakistan) organized a general strike on March 11,1948 to withstand the exclusion of the Bangla language from formal use, including on coins, stamps and in official private-enterp get dressed up(a) tests / examinations.Later taking the shape of a general forepart, the p rotest restated the demand that Bangla be decl atomic number 18d an official language of the state. On feb. 1,1952 students of the Dhaka University along with member-, ol the humanity defied the unconstitutional ostracise on unruffled protests and organized a protest that resulted in guard possibleness fire and killing a estimate of students, including Abdus Salam, Rafiq Uddin Ahmed, Abul Barkat and Abdul Jabbar. Resultantly, a massive popular tumult spread across Bangladesh (erstwhile East Pakistan) as large processions ignored the unconstitutional eschew on peaceful protests and condemned the actions of the police.At one detail more than 30,000 people assembled at Curzon dormitory room of Dhaka University in Dhaka. During the continued protests, police actions led to the death of more people. This prompted Bangla come up toing government officials and civil servants from different organizations to ostracize government offices and join the procession. The â€Å" tout e nsemble-Party Central Language Action Committee”, supported by the majority of the population, decided to commemorate Feb. 21 as Shahid Dibosh (Martyrs Day).On the first anniversary of the protests, people across Bangladesh (erstwhile East Pakistan) wore corrosive badges in solidarity with the dead and victims of violence Most offices, bound ond educational institutions in Bangladesh (erstwhile East Pakistan) were closed to observe the occasion. Student groups made agreements with educational institutions ond police officials to preserve law and order. However, the state machinery provoked tensions by declaring that those who cherished Bangla to kick the bucket on official language would be considered an â€Å"enemy of the state. nonwithstanding the restrictions to mark the anniversary of the protests, the Bangali population took to the streets. Demonstrations broke out on the night of Feb 21,1954 with various halls of Dhaka University raising black flags in mourning. Several students and protesters were arrested indiscriminately to violate the commemoration. On May 7,1954. the constituent manufacture was forced to resolve to grant official status to the Bangla language. Bangla was recognized j the second official language of the state on Feb. 29. 1956. Although the question of official languages was settled by 1956, the Bangai! eople were discriminated against in e rattling sphere of Life. The Bangali community, in spite of being the overwhelming majority, continued to bc under- stand for in the civil and military services, and reliable a minority of state financial support and other government assistance. The demands of these people were overlooked. unity demand was that the province of East Pakistan be called Bangladesh (Land of Bangalis), which later contributed into the declaration of Independence of Bangladesh on March 26, 1971 ond culminated in a lengthen bloody â€Å"Liberation War” that axiom the emergence of an Independen t Peoples Republic of Bangladesh.The debate to freely use the mother tongue of a majority population of a coun tn once resulted in bloodshed for the people of Bangladesh and contributed significantly to the bm and war of her Independence. However, today it ts a different fight for some(prenominal) people; it is a fight to go on their mother tongue in use so that an important part of their cultures is non lost The writer is a division 1 student at Taylor College. (The obligate was scripted in commemoration of the Language Movement of Bangladesh /International Mother Language Day. ) The Language Movement : Its Political and heathenish Significance Scrajul Islam ChoudhuryWhat had happened on the twenty-first of February in 1952 is non difficult to describe. Some lives were lost when police opened fire on agitating students. What the students were agitating for is overly well- cognise. They wanted Bengali to be recognized as one of the devil state languages of what was t hen an un split up Pakistan. hardly a exposition want this would be patently superfluous, for it would non describe what had really happened, let alone reflect the feelings that the lawsuit had embodied and roused. The strawman of twenty-first February was not sentimental, but it delineated actually(prenominal) deep-rooted sentiments.To begin with, the suit did not lose its significance dismantleing after an official recognition of Bengali as one of the two state languages. It went ahead, gained in reconditeness and momentum as it went, y and, ultimately, made the emergence of an autonomous Bangladesh inevitable. moreover even after we had achieved a state where Bengali is the besides and not one of the two state languages the execution has not ceased to be vital. Why? The event is start outsome. Bengali has not yet been accorded the send of honour and importance that it deserves. The rate of literacy has not risen above the poor 22 per cent.Of ~th~o e who know the alphabet some do not read books. Some ddb get books, others do not desire them. The vast majority of the population has been denied for ages the decent to use Bengali. The functionally illiterate person, oftener a women than a man, does not know any other language, but he does not know Bengali either in the literate sense. Those who are well-to-do do not need Bengali. Social and commercial intercourse tends to be more effective when done in English in unspoken underground to Bengali. The cultural mi deceptionu of the sophisticated tends very often to be shorn of the use of Bengali almost to the extent it is sophisticated.International communication is, of course, done in English. Bengali, thus, is not aright used either by the very rich or the very poor, the agent shies away voluntarily, the latter has no choice. The pith class uses it, but not in as extensive a de destineor as could have been expected. We do not gull books in large number. Nor are the titles wide  ranging. for books are expensive to print and difficult to sell. The problem is rooted in the very socio-political and frugal cosmos of Bangladesh. And it is this reality that invests the language action of the twenty-first of February with an massive significance and meaning.How does one ac press for the rise of this movement ? Was it due to the wrong ending of any particular person or group? Most obviously not. The movement was as spontaneous as it was inevitable. Despite its later ramifications and complexities the movement was a undecomposable expression of the irreconcilable, indeed ever-increasing, contradiction mingled with the rulers and the ruled. The ruling classes wanted to impose Urdu on the Bengale s with a view to h aginging them subjugated for generations to come ~Ihe issue was off the beaten track(predicate) from linguistic, it was grossly political and sparingal.The imposition of Urdu was a part, albeit not an easily recognisable part, of the unpitying e xploitation of the Begalccs by West Pakistani monopoly capital and civil-military bureaucracy. The language movement brought to the fore what had hitherto, lain undetected inside the deliberately roused sentiments of Pakistani patriotism. The oppressed people of East Bengal had fall in the Pakistan movement in the bank of achieving a better standard of living out climbth upon the establishment of an independent state.That the hope was bootless was cruelly exposed by the lovingly proclaimed arbitrary decision of the rulers to make Urdu the lonesome(prenominal) state language of Pakistan. there was no escaping this fact. Language was, undoubtedly,. the declare issue. But the movement was not for reforming the language, not even for winning recognition for Bengali as one of the state languages, although that was the manifest intent. It was aimed, really, at the emancipation of an oppressed people. The rulers were obliged to recognise the corrosive capacity of the movement.For what was constructivee for the oppressed Bengalees was destructive for the oppressors- †such was the polarity of the situation. Facing the strict reality, the Pakistani rulers had offered terms of a compromise. They did sustain Bengali as a state language when the question of framing a constitution came to a head, 21st February was declared a public holiday- eventually. A dining table was set up for the development of Bengali language, But the movement was not to be hoodwinked by such tactics of accommodation. compromise was impossible.The movement grew and grew, gained in depth and momentum, leading to the establishment of Bangladesh. M uch has been gained and yet a great deal trunk to be achieved. As indicated above, familiar use of Bengali in Bangladesh remains a distant hope. It does not require practically of an analysis to demonstrate that the objective of the language movement can be achieved only in a orderliness which is free from exploition and is, therefor e not poor. impoverishment is the effect of exploitation, not its cause. Therefore, the movement of the 21st of February must be called a protest against the exploitation of man by man.It embossed a determined voice against injustice. For what could be more unjust than the inflicting of a hostile tongue on a population of seventy million, constituting as it did the majority of the population of Pakistan as a whole. Our write out for the Bengali language is traditional, it is based on very deep sentiments. But it is impossible to get over that it was not this love alone that had led us to join the language movement in swelling numbers. There was abuse as well. Hatred against injustice, against exploitation. The movement was fundamentally anti-colonial and anti feudal in character.It was aimed at overthrowing the none-too-hidden system of colonial exploitation sought-after(a) to be perpetrated by the ruling classes. It was intelligibly anti-feudal in content inasmuch as it pr omisek to win for the people their inalienable right to use their own language in state affairs. Love and hatred, they say, go in concert: and indeed they did in this very case, for the depth of hatred was only the obverse of the depth of love and vice versa. The language movement went like magnet over the iron of the curb feelings of the people. It provided the people with an outlet to their pent-up emotions against political injustice and social exploitation.It forged a unity which was b_ oth robust and enduring. A segmentation of the police in Dhaka had departed on strike even in the lead 1952. They. had been fired upon. But that firing did not rouse the indignation that the firing of the. 21st of February did. The reason was that the latter firing was not aimed at any particular slit of the peope, it was not designed to silence the sea captain demands of any specific group, its target was the inherent Bengali-speaking people of Pakistan, irrespective of political p icture or ideological commitment. For it hurt even those who had collaborated with the government.As long as exploitation of the many by the few remains, 21st February is unlikely to lose its significance. How did the movement begin? It began as a students movement. †Its centre was the university of Dhaka which was the only university in East Bengal at the time. The potentiality of the movement was unknown to the rulers, it was not known even to many of those who were at its forefront. possibly it-would die a natural death- the rulers, it is easy to imagine, had fondly hoped. But all estimates and expectations were belied. in one case firing had started the movement spread-wider than a fire, alacritous than the bullets.It refused to be confined to the university campus; percolating through the railway, move and bus stations it reached almost all(prenominal) comer of the province. The public joined in it. The working class struck work, it became a movement against an insult hurled at the humanity of a people. The Pakistani pretence became much too big for the mask. A natural feeling of nationalism began to grow very rapidly indeed. And ultimately it was this new linguistic and, therefore, fundamentally blase, democratic and creative nationalism which prevailed over the makeshift nationalism of Pakistan.Pakistanism pretended to be tintual which spiritualism was, so far as East Bengal was concerned, a cover for significant exploitation of the classically crude type. The new awareness made people conscious about their material existence, tearing the veils of dour hopes and comforts. Its creativeness was immeasurable. For it had moved(p) and released the youth of the nation. The youth of the country had begun this movement. But it was not a youth movement. It was the youth of a people that it had stirred. The movements creative business office disp fixed itself in many, almost all aspects of life. immature organisations †social. s- well as political †came into being. A new leadershipâ€uncompromising and courageous-grew up to replace the established one. Politics topkk on a new character, it no extended remained a quondam(prenominal)ime of the privifegetl few.. In its changed character, governance became a threat to the existing s oc i a l system. Poets wrote busily; composers composed energetically. Flays, novels and short stories have been written on the theme. And it would be impossible to count the souvenirs_ that have been published to celebrate the spirit of the day. But the most precious base Or the movement did not lie in any of these in isolation.It lay in something that united these diverse areas and manifestations and inspire them from behind. his was nothing more, or less, than a new consciousness. This consciousness is characterised, among other things, Ity an irreconcilable patriotism. confessedly patroitism does not isolate; it unlles, it brings the individual to the community, and identif ies embodied; well being as the unending source of individual welfare. And it i. y this patriotism that the language movement carries with itself, and nourishes as it goes. N c language movement was essentially creative.It not only produced new full treatment of literature, music, painting and drama but as well as, and more importantly, gave these creations a new content, which was unmistakably secular and democratic in character. The movement was anti-imperialist and anti-feudal; and it was therefore only natural that the cultural works it produced should have a militancy and a sew;e of direction they had not known before. Bengal, let us recall, was divided in 1947 on the foundation of the so-called two-nation theory. Communalism was endemic in the very creative activity of that partition. The democratic upsurge of February, 1962 stood firmly, atatiinst communalism.Communalism did not die, such monsters die hard, but it became weaker than it was in 1947. What was more signific ant was that a new cart track of development was laid open. People came tog`ther; forgetting their communal identity. They fought for a common cause. indeed there was the important question of tradition. Pakistani nationalism had expected to survive and gain in strength by Whippin g up emotions around a false sense of tradition which sought to make the Bengalees of East Pakistan feel as if they belonged to the middle East and not to the land where they, as well as their ancestors, were born and had their being. Ws, in fact, amounted to a ruthless attempt to repudiate them of their tradition. Not only in literature, but in all aspects of life and creative thinking what was natural and real was sought to be replaced by the unnatural and the unreal. The language movement came as an open challenge to this. sooner of encouraging deracination, it gave-the thinking section of the public a new sense of belonging. The proceeds had begun. It had no parallel in our past history. For the issue of tradition had never before been as clearly defined as it was during that fateful month of February, 1952.Bengalecs of East Pakistan began to bewilder a new pride in their language which, they realized, constituted the very basis of their cultural identity. The creative artists working in all genres looked at life with a realism which gave their creations a nearness to life. They acquired a new awareness of the economic and political reality of the country. As a result, what they produced was significantly different †both in content and form-from what their predecessors had offered. The arts came closer to politics. The fact of economic exploitation of the poor by the rich also found its way into the creative imagination of the artists.For it had become clear that the Bengalecs were an utilise nation, and that their survival ultimately depended on their economic emancipation. A new taste was created, and a new standard of cultural savvy was set up. The movement had n ot only released the suppressed creative energies of a nation, it had also produced a hunger for more virtual(prenominal) works of art. The language movement represented for the Bengali speaking Pakistanis an entrance into a new area of creativity. The movement of 21st February has done for us another important work.It has drawn, clearly and unmistakably, a line of terminus ad quem between the forces of heat and darkness, of progress and reception. To speak of fainthearted first. The light that matters most is the light of economic emancipation of the masses. Needless to say that the light of knowledge remains invaluable. but since hunger is the greatest extinguisher of ‘all other lights, no progress in the collective sense can be made without meeting the basic economic needs. And it is this light-the light of economic freedom-that the language movement had promised to the people of Bangladesh.The movement did something more. It distinguished the forces candid of giving life  giving light from those which persist in keeping the people submerged in the darkness of leanness and deprivation. The movement was successful in gull out progress from reaction. Progress, it showed, did not mean more material growth; it also meant, and not less importantly, the proper distribution of wealth. Proper distribution is equitable distribution. It does not need much imagination to see that what ails our economic life is inequality.Inequality has maimed the productive power of labour which is our greatest national asset. It has not allowed national creative powers to grow properly. That we are poor is due chiefly to this inequality. The language movement identified progress as removal of the factors responsible for the existence of the social gulf. It also showed that progress and reaction cannot achieve a relationship of peaceful co  existence, that the antagonism between the two is irreconcilable and would not cease to be operative unless one of the two is completely liquidated.Perhaps it is unnecessary to say on which side the movement of 21st February stood, for its commitment to light against darkness and progress against reaction is total. All these make 21st February significant to us. The nation was not the same after that day, for it had gained a new sensibility, baptised in fire. True, the old order did not change immediately, it ordinarily does not. But it was threatened to its very foundation. And the hope that a new world was not very far continued to grow.\r\n'