It's International Mother Language Day today! Also the National Martyrs' Day, a public holiday in Bangladesh. It is observed in memory of those who got shot in the protest for their mother tongue Bengali on this day in 1952. However the history of Bengali people's struggle for their language dates back to the time of British rule and it didn't end until Bangladesh became its own country in 1971.
This myTake is a short fast-forward post so if you are interested in reading more details, you can search 'language movement' on Google and get detailed information about it on Wikipedia. It's been a long time since I read a book about it so I had to freshen up my memory from Wikipedia as well.
It started from the British Raj
It was the time when Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and Myanmar were one country; very diverse in ethnicities, languages, cultures and religions. In the mid-19th century, Muslim political leaders promoted Urdu as one common language for all Indian Muslims.
Muslims from the Bengal Region (Bangladesh and the West Bengal province in India together make up the Bengal region, as shown in the map above), however, opposed this idea. Bengali Muslim writers did this by writing more literature in Bengali in order to expand their language, reach out to more Bengali people and educate more people in Bengali, especially Begum Rokeya. She was a Bengali Muslim Feminist and writer, widely known as the pioneer of Women's education in the Indian Subcontinent.
After the partition of India
After 1947, India and Pakistan became two different nations. Pakistan consisted of two wings. The west wing was called West Pakistan (now Pakistan) and the east wing was called East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). West Pakistan was dominant and they started using Urdu as their official language. They refused any request of making Bengali an official language as well, despite Bengali speakers making up the majority of the population of Pakistan.
In March 1948, the governor-general of Pakistan Muhammad Ali Jinnah publicly announced in Dhaka that Urdu will be the ONLY state language of Pakistan, and he stated that the language issue has been created only to separate the Muslims in Pakistan and anyone opposing the Urdu-only policy is an enemy of Pakistan, which the Bengali people were obviously not happy about. It put Bengali people at a disadvantage, especially when it comes to employment in the public sector. In 1950, the idea of changing written Bengali to Arabic letters was suggested, which, again, nobody accepted for obvious reasons.
Bengali letters look like this...
...and Arabic letters look like this.
Controversy sparked again in January 1952. A political strike was announced to take place on 21 February. To prevent this the government imposed Section 144 in Dhaka, banning any sort of public gathering of more than four people in one place.
The Language Movement
Students of Dhaka University had an idea. In the morning they started gathering in the university premises in groups of four people at a time, and once they all gathered in one place, they together broke out in a protest, raising placards and banners saying 'we want Bengali as a stage language' and other slogans. Police shot several people on spot. There was one more protest on February 22 where some people got shot as well, including a 9-year-old boy.
The news of killing quickly spread, but the government hid the actual news and its details. They were quick to remove the bodies of the dead. The censorship worked because even now it is not clear how many people exactly died and how many were injured. The number of known Martyrs is very few. But we know that the protesters were in thousands that included not only students but people of all professions.
21 February is observed every year in memory of those who got shot on the protests of 21 February and 22 February, 1952.
After the protest
A monument called the Monument of Martyrs was build by some people starting from the night of 23 February and it was finished by dawn, only to be destroyed by the police on 26 February. It was located near the place where the protest took place, adjacent to the Dhaka Medical College dormitory.
Media in favor of the government stated that it's Hindu influences that made the students mad on 21 February. Ironically, all of the few Martyrs whom we know by name were Muslims.
Political unrest and strikes were still happening, and Bengali was finally made the second official language of Pakistan in 1956. In 1958, the construction of a monument started again to commemorate the dead, on the same previous spot, which was finished in 1963.
The language movement made Bengali people more aware of their ethnic and linguistic rights, and how they were being discriminated by West Pakistan. Bengali people quickly turned to Bengali Nationalism, which was frown upon by the government because they believed in the two-nation theory. This theory suggests that there are only two countries to be divided by the partition of India (based on religion), Hindustan (the land of Hindu) and Pakistan (the land of the pure). They disliked how Bengali people thought of themselves as a group of people based on their ethnicity and not religion. To them, it was all Hindu influences.
Fast-forward again, the relationship between East Pakistan and West Pakistan worsened with time. One thing led to another, and Operation Searchlight on 25 March 1971 started the Bangladesh Liberation War. Operation Searchlight was a genocide in the East Pakistan where the estimated number of civilians killed ranges from 300,000 to 3,000,000 people. The monument built for the language martyrs was destroyed once again during Operation Searchlight.
After Bangladesh gained independence
The Liberation War ended with East Pakistan being an independent nation, and its new name being Bangladesh, which directly translates to 'The country of Bengal'. After that, the monument was reconstructed. It still exists today and is called the Shaheed Minar (Martyrs' Monument).
21 February is observed as the National Martyrs' Day in Bangladesh. It is a public holiday which got recognized as the International Mother Language Day by UNESCO in 1999. The motive of this day is to protect everyone's mother tongue and their ethnic and linguistic rights, especially ethnic minorities and the people of a certain language who are not getting recognition.
Observing Martyrs' Day
Every year on this day, in very early morning, basically at dawn people take part in what we call a 'probhat feri'. A group of people together walk to the Shaheed Minar barefoot with flowers in their hands, and they put flowers on the monument as a tribute to the dead. Many parents take their children out to some kind of exhibition or museum to teach them about the history of this day.
Many schools also have a miniature Shaheed Minar in their school and the children go to school with flowers and sometimes they have more arrangements like competitions and cultural programme. In grade 2, I once won an art competition by drawing the probhat feri. I also used to draw a Shaheed Minar on the wall with crayons as a toddler and collected little flowers that grew on the sides of the street to observe Martyrs' Day by myself at home.
We also have a book fair for the entire month of February in the Dhaka University area. They sell all kinds of Bengali books of all genres and all age groups. They even have audio books and Braille books for the ones who are incapable of reading. Many more book fairs are arranged in and out of Bangladesh, such as in the western countries by Bangladeshi communities. It's a sacred place for bookworms like me, but I have no idea why my parents don't allow me to go to the book fair anymore. 😭 Previously I would go there and buy a huge pile of books for myself. 📚📚📚
Books and books and books... 😍
I follow a certain 'rule' with reading nowadays. When I can't buy it, I borrow it. If I can't borrow it, I download it. One more interesting thing about me is that, I have a thing for languages which is why I made an entire myTake on it previously in this month.
Tell me something interesting about your language, something mind-blowing, something unknown to most people. Thanks for reading! You're awesome. ❤
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