Abhishek Bosu
The whole country celebrated February 21 with due solemnity by singing the mourning song…Amar Bhayer rokte rangano Ekushey February…Every educational institution and cultural organisation adopted their respective functions to commemorate the historic struggle conducted by the valiant sons of the soil for establishing Bangla as the state language of the then west Pakistan. The history is bloody.
After the division of this subcontinent by the British colonial rulers, the two states namely West Pakistan and East Pakistan emerged. In case of religion the two states were same, but in case of language, they were totally different. West Pakistani marauders always wanted that the people of west Pakistan should speak in Urdu in lieu of Bangla. On the eve of creating Pakistan, in a conference in Aligorh Muslim University the Vice Chancellor Dr. Jiauddin proposed,” Urdu should be the state language of west Pakistan “. Later, the proposal was firmly opposed by the renowned writer Dr. Mohammad Shahidullah from west Pakistan. They desired to filch away our fundamental right of speaking our mother tongue,but our adament sons were not at all ready to accept the immoral decision imposed by the Pakistani occupation forces. In 1948,in a conference in Karjon Hall of Dhaka University, the then Pakistani president Mohammad Ali Jinnah declared,” Urdu and only urdu shall be the state language of Pakistan ” and this declaration raised a storm of protest not only in Karjon Hall but in entire west pakistan. People began to come out on the street in procession demanding Bangla as the state language of west Pakistan. Bangalis demand was completely legal and reasonable as in then Pakistan the total population was 6 crore 90 lakh among which 4 crore 90 lakh people spoke in Bangla. So, people of west Pakistan continued their struggle for Bangla language. Some prominent political figure at that time, including Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, were arrested.
Pakistan government banned all sorts of public meeting to contain Bangalis’ demand. They imposed section 144 which was disobeyed by some heroic youth of Dhaka University. They brought out a peaceful procession opposing the declaration of the so-called rulers on 21st February, 1952. The police then shot down the golden children of our country, namely Rafiq, Shafiq, Salam, Barkat, Jabbar and so on. Consequently, the mighty fire of opposition flared up in every house of the nation. At one stage the Pakistani forces, being frightened, declared Bangla as the state language of West Pakistan. In 1956 in Pakistan constitution Bangla got its due recognition.
Last but not the least, our language martyrs sacrificed their precious lives in 1952 for the rightful place of Bangla, and UNESCO on 17 November, 1999 recognised 21st February as the international mother language day. International community paid the due tribute to our language martys, now it’s our turn to pay homage to our martyrs by learning proper Bangla language, by writing it in correct spelling, and by loving the language from the core of our heart.