Blood donation for language is rare in the history of the world. That pride belongs only to the people of Bangladesh. The Language Movement of 1952 was a mass movement organized to demand the national status of the Bengali language. In 1947, with the end of British rule in the subcontinent, two independent states, India and Pakistan, were born. Soon after, questions arose about what the state language of Pakistan would be. Central leaders of Pakistan and Urdu-speaking intellectuals stated that the state language of Pakistan would be Urdu.
On the other hand, a demand arose from then East Pakistan to make Bengali an official state language as well. However, the Pakistani government ignored this demand for the Bengali language. This angered the students and intellectuals of Dhaka, and they prepared a final demand regarding the language. The demand was that the medium of education and government activities in East Pakistan would be Bengali, and at the central government level, the state languages of Pakistan would be two: Bengali and Urdu.
Tamaddun Majlish was the first to organize a movement based on this demand regarding language. It was led by Professor Abul Kashem. Gradually, many non-communal and progressive organizations joined this movement, and it eventually transformed into a mass movement. Meanwhile, in various forums of the central government in West Pakistan, Education Minister Fazlur Rahman attempted to make Urdu the sole state language of Pakistan. This agitated the student community of East Pakistan. They organized a student meeting on the Dhaka University campus on December 6, 1947, demanding that Bangla be recognized as one of the state languages.
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Protests and processions continued even after the meeting. By the end of that month, the State Language Action Council was formed, chaired by Professor Nurul Haque Bhuiyan of Tamaddun Majlish. The following year, on February 23, at a session of the Pakistan Constituent Assembly held in Karachi, a proposal was made for Assembly members to speak in Urdu or English. Dhirendranath Dutta, a member of the Congress party from East Pakistan, proposed an amendment to include Bengali as one of the languages of the Assembly.
He said that out of 69 million people in Pakistan, 44 million are from East Pakistan, whose mother tongue is Bengali. However, this demand was rejected when central leaders, including Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan and the Chief Minister of East Bengal, Khwaja Nazimuddin, opposed it. When the news reached Dhaka, the student community, intellectuals, and politicians were outraged. The Azad newspaper also strongly criticized those who opposed the proposal brought by Dhirendranath Dutta. Later, a new State Language Council was formed to lead the movement to make Bengali the state language, chaired by Shamsul Alam.
March 11, 1948, is a memorable day in the history of the Language Movement. A general strike was observed in Dhaka city on that day to protest against the exclusion of Bengali from the list of languages of the Constituent Assembly, the exclusion of Bengali from Pakistani currency and postage stamps, and the exclusion of Bengali from the recruitment examination for the navy in favor of Urdu. The demands of the strikers were to declare Bengali as one of the state languages of Pakistan and the official language of East Pakistan.
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Shawkat Ali, Kazi Golam Mahbub, Shamsul Haque, Oli Ahad, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Abdul Wahed and others were arrested while taking out a procession on behalf of the rally with the slogan 'State Language Bangla Chai'. Student leaders like Abdul Matin, Abdul Malek Ukil also took part in the procession. A large meeting was held in the university premises. Mohammad Toaha was seriously injured by the police when he tried to snatch a rifle from a policeman and was admitted to the hospital. Later, a strike was observed from 12 to 15 March.
In the face of the movement, the government's attitude softened somewhat. Chief Minister Khwaja Nazimuddin signed an agreement with the student leaders. Although he agreed with many conditions in the agreement, he could not accept anything in the demand to make Bangla the state language.
On 19 March 1948, the Governor General of Pakistan, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, visited East Pakistan. He addressed two meetings in Dhaka and declared Urdu as the state language of Pakistan, ignoring the demand for Bengali language in both places. And the l movement spread over East Pakistan. Jinnah's speech was met with strong protests. On 11 March 1950, Rastabhasha Sangram Parishad was formed in Dhaka University; Its convener was Abdul Matin.
From the beginning of 1952, the language movement took an important turn. At this time, both Jinnah and Liaquat Ali Khan died. Khwaja Nazimuddin replaced Liaquat Ali Khan as the Prime Minister of Pakistan. As the political crisis deepened, the economic condition of East Pakistan also deteriorated. The people of East Pakistan began to lose confidence in the Muslim League.
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In 1949, a new political party, Awami Muslim League, was formed under the leadership of Maulana Abdul Hamid Khan Bhasani. The feeling of deprivation and exploitation in East Pakistan gradually increased and the people here began to believe that a new colonialism had been imposed on them in place of British imperialism. In view of this, the language movement got a new dimension in 1952.
Khwaja Nazimuddin came to Dhaka from Karachi 27 January,'52. "The people of the province will decide which language will be used in government work," he said at a public meeting at Paltan Maidan. But the state language of Pakistan will be Urdu only. Immediately there was a strong reaction and the students started protesting with the slogan 'We want state language Bangla'. A strike was observed in Dhaka University on 30 January.
On 31 January, at a meeting of representatives of different political-cultural parties presided over by Maulana Bhasani, president of the Awami Muslim League, the 'All-Party Central Language Action Council' was formed, whose convener was Kazi Golam Mahbub. At that time, the government proposed to write Bangla in Arabic script. Strong protests were also made against this. The State Language Action Council decided to organize hartal, public meeting and demonstration procession throughout East Pakistan on 21 February.
While these programs were being organized, the government imposed section 144 in Dhaka city and banned rallies and processions. On the evening of 20 February, a meeting of the Central Language Action Council was held under the chairmanship of Abul Hashim (1905-74). There was disagreement in the meeting on the question of whether section 144 should be disobeyed. However, the students remained firm in their resolve to break Section 144.
The next day, at 11 am, a meeting of the students was held at Amtala of Dhaka University, located in a part of Dhaka Medical College. When the meeting started, the Vice-Chancellor, including some teachers of the university, requested the students not to violate Section 144. However, the student leaders, especially Abdul Matin and GaziulHuq, remained firm on their stand. Thousands of students from schools and colleges of Dhaka city gathered at the university.
When the students came out on the streets in small groups of five to seven chanting the slogan 'State Language Bangla', the police lathi-charged them, the female students were not spared from the attack. When the students started throwing brickbats at the police, the police fired tear gas. Unable to control the agitating students, police opened fire on the procession leading to the provincial legislative council building.
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Rafiq Uddin Ahmed, Abdul Jabbar, Abul Barkat (MA student of political science) were killed in the firing. Many of the injured were admitted to the hospital and among them, Secretariat peon Abdus Salam died. An eight- or nine-year-old boy named Ahiullah was also killed that day. At this time preparations were going on for the session of the Provincial Legislative Council. Council member Maulana Tarkabagish and some others, including members of the opposition party, left the meeting room and stood beside the agitated students. In the session, the Chief Minister of East Pakistan, Nurul Amin, continued to oppose the demand for Bangla language.
The next day, February 22, was a day of mass protests and police repression. The crowd read the funeral prayers of the victims and brought out mourning processions. Police and military again charged the procession with batons, bullets and bayonets. Several people, including Shafiur Rahman, were martyred and many were arrested in an injured condition. A memorial was erected on February 23 at the site where the students were shot dead. In 1963, a concrete structure was built on the site of this temporary construction.
The Council passed a bill recognizing Bengali as one of the state languages of Pakistan. The language movement continued till 1956. The movement achieved its goal by approving Bangla as the state language of Pakistan along with Urdu in the National Assembly. At one stage of the debate in the Pakistan National Assembly (16 February 1956), both Bengali and Urdu were recognized as state languages of Pakistan according to an amendment proposal given by its member Adeluddin Ahmed (1913-1981) of Faridpur.
Since 1952, February 21 is celebrated to commemorate the sacrifice of Bengalis for the mother language. On November 17, 1999, UNESCO declared February 21 as International Mother Language Day. Through this decision, the international community placed the language movement of Bangladesh in a special position.
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