Posted: February 19th, 2022

History of 21st February

There arc 6,000 to 7,000 spoken languages on the planet and half of them arc at risk of extinction. The Interna tional Mom Language Day that’s celebrated yearly on Feb. 21, after it was declared by UNESCO in November 1999, reminds us of the need, mier alia, of defending these languages from extinction by selling meir significance. You will need to maintain these languages in observe; languages are merely not a random compilation of phrases however a method of communication, interplay and understanding amongst totally different peoples.
The language, thus, is one of the mediums that kind the socio-oil rural id of a nation. A Language is greater than only a method of sharing our views with the world; it has its personal historical past as welt. The language of a nation can typically contribute to the contents of its historical past Nice works of literature in addition to the legacy of a nation may bc misplaced if the language is misplaced. A language helps create unity amongst a gaggle ° folks; someone’s mom tongue is a crucial facet of her/his tradition and the id of who he/she is. Feb. 1,1952 marks an necessary occasion within the historical past main towards the emergence of Bangladesh, which declared independence on March 26,1971. The Bangla Language Motion, reaching its pinnacle on this very day in 1952, was a political mass rebellion in Bangladesh (erstwhile East Pakistan), which demanded mat Bangla – the mom tongue spoken by the bulk of the inhabitants – ought to bc acknowledged because the second official language in addition to the then current state Language that was spoken by solely a minority of the inhabitants. This could enable the Bangla language to bc taught in colleges and utilized in authorities affairs.
After the partition of India rn 1947 into Pakistan and India, Bangla-speaking folks in Bangladesh (erstwhile East Pakistan) made up 44 million of the newly fashioned Pakistans 69 million folks. Nevertheless, in 1947 at a nationwide schooling summit a minority language was declared by the then state equipment as the only real state language to bc utilized in all spheres of life, together with media and colleges. This Jed to a state of affairs the place virtually 70 p.c of the inhabitants that fashioned the bulk and spoke Bangi* have been virtually required to discard their mom tongue Bangla, which that they had used for hundreds of wirs. nd be taught afresh a very alien minority language. College students of Dhaka College and different schools of the town in Bangladesh (erstwhile East Pakistan) organized a normal strike on March 11,1948 to protest the exclusion of the Bangla language from official use, together with on cash, stamps and in official aggressive assessments / examinations.

Later taking the form of a preferred motion, the protest restated the demand that Bangla be declared an official language of the state. On feb. 1,1952 college students of the Dhaka College together with member-, ol the general public defied the unconstitutional ban on peaceable protests and arranged a protest that resulted in police opening hearth and killing a quantity of college students, together with Abdus Salam, Rafiq Uddin Ahmed, Abul Barkat and Abdul Jabbar. Resultantly, a large in style upheaval unfold throughout Bangladesh (erstwhile East Pakistan) as massive processions ignored the unconstitutional ban on peaceable protests and condemned the actions of the police.
At one stage greater than 30,000 folks assembled at Curzon Corridor of Dhaka College in Dhaka. Through the continued protests, police actions led to the dying of extra folks. This prompted Bangla talking authorities officers and civil servants from totally different organizations to boycott authorities places of work and be a part of the procession. The “All-Occasion Central Language Motion Committee”, supported by the bulk of the inhabitants, determined to commemorate Feb. 21 as Shahid Dibosh (Martyrs Day).
On the primary anniversary of the protests, folks throughout Bangladesh (erstwhile East Pakistan) wore black badges in solidarity with the useless and victims of violence Most places of work, financial institution ond academic establishments in Bangladesh (erstwhile East Pakistan) have been closed to watch the event. Pupil teams made agreements with academic establishments ond police officers to protect regulation and order. Nevertheless, the state equipment provoked tensions by declaring that those that needed Bangla to turn out to be on official language could be thought of an “enemy of the state.
Regardless of the restrictions to mark the anniversary of the protests, the Bangali inhabitants took to the streets. Demonstrations broke out on the evening of Feb 21,1954 with varied halls of Dhaka College elevating black flags in mourning. A number of college students and protesters have been arrested indiscriminately to foil the commemoration. On Could 7,1954. the constituent meeting was compelled to resolve to grant official standing to the Bangla language. Bangla was acknowledged j the second official language of the state on Feb. 29. 1956. Though the Question Assignment of official languages was settled by 1956, the Bangai! eople have been discriminated in opposition to in each sphere of Life. The Bangali group, regardless of being the overwhelming majority, continued to bc under-represented within the civil and army providers, and obtained a minority of state funding and different authorities help. The calls for of these folks have been ignored. One demand was that the province of East Pakistan be referred to as Bangladesh (Land of Bangalis), which later contributed into the declaration of Independence of Bangladesh on March 26, 1971 ond culminated in a protracted bloody “Liberation Warfare” that noticed the emergence of an Unbiased Peoples Republic of Bangladesh.
The battle to freely use the mom tongue of a majority inhabitants of a coun tn as soon as resulted in bloodshed for the folks of Bangladesh and contributed considerably to the motion and warfare of her Independence. Nevertheless, at the moment it ts a unique struggle for many individuals; it’s a struggle to maintain their mom tongue in use in order that an necessary half of their cultures just isn’t misplaced The author is a 12 months 1 scholar at Taylor School. (The article was written in commemoration of the Language Motion of Bangladesh /Worldwide Mom Language Day. ) The Language Motion : Its Political and Cultural Significance Scrajul Islam Choudhury
What had occurred on the 21st of February in 1952 just isn’t tough to explain. Some lives have been misplaced when police opened hearth on agitating college students. What the scholars have been agitating for can be well-known. They needed Bengali to be acknowledged as one of the 2 state languages of what was then an undivided Pakistan. However an outline like this may be patently superfluous, for it could not describe what had actually occurred, not to mention replicate the sentiments that the motion had embodied and roused. The motion of 21st February was not sentimental, nevertheless it represented very deep-rooted sentiments.
To start with, the motion didn’t lose its significance even after an official recognition of Bengali as one of the 2 state languages. It went forward, gained in depth and momentum because it went, y and, finally, made the emergence of an impartial Bangladesh inevitable. However even after we had achieved a state the place Bengali is the one and never one of the 2 state languages the motion has not ceased to be very important. Why? The reply is straightforward. Bengali has not but been accorded the place of honour and significance that it deserves. The speed of literacy has not risen above the poor 22 per cent.
Of ~th~o e who know the alphabet many don’t learn books. Some ddb get books, others don’t want them. The overwhelming majority of the inhabitants has been denied for ages the fitting to make use of Bengali. The illiterate particular person, oftener a girls than a person, doesn’t know every other language, however he doesn’t know Bengali both within the literate sense. Those that are well-to-do don’t want Bengali. Social and business intercourse tends to be more practical when executed in English in unstated opposition to Bengali. The cultural milieu of the subtle tends fairly often to be shorn of the use of Bengali virtually to the extent it’s refined.
Worldwide communication is, of course, executed in English. Bengali, thus, just isn’t correctly used both by the very wealthy or the very poor, the previous shies away voluntarily, the latter has no alternative. The center class makes use of it, however not in as intensive a fashion as might have been anticipated. We don’t print books in massive quantity. Nor are the titles vast  ranging. for books are costly to print and tough to promote. The issue is rooted within the very socio-political and financial actuality of Bangladesh. And it’s this actuality that invests the language motion of the 21st of February with an unlimited significance and that means.
How does one account for the rise of this motion ? Was it as a result of mistaken choice of any explicit particular person or group? Most clearly not. The motion was as spontaneous because it was inevitable. Regardless of its later ramifications and complexities the motion was a easy expression of the irreconcilable, certainly ever-increasing, contradiction between the rulers and the dominated. The ruling courses needed to impose Urdu on the Bengale s with a view to preserving them subjugated for generations to return ~I’he problem was removed from linguistic, it was grossly political and financial.
The imposition of Urdu was a component, albeit not an simply recognisable half, of the ruthless exploitation of the Begalccs by West Pakistani monopoly capital and civil-military paperwork. The language motion delivered to the fore what had hitherto, lain undetected contained in the intentionally roused sentiments of Pakistani nationalism. The oppressed folks of East Bengal had joined the Pakistan motion within the hope of reaching a greater customary of dwelling consequent upon the institution of an impartial state.
That the hope was unreal was cruelly uncovered by the fondly proclaimed arbitrary choice of the rulers to make Urdu the one state language of Pakistan. There was no escaping this truth. Language was, undoubtedly,. the declared problem. However the motion was not for reforming the language, not even for profitable recognition for Bengali as one of the state languages, though that was the manifest goal. It was aimed, actually, on the emancipation of an oppressed folks. The rulers have been obliged to recognise the damaging potentiality of the motion.
For what was constructivee for the oppressed Bengalees was damaging for the oppressors- – such was the polarity of the state of affairs. Going through the uncompromising actuality, the Pakistani rulers had supplied phrases of a compromise. They did accommodate Bengali as a state language when the Question Assignment of framing a structure got here to a head, 21st February was declared a public holiday- finally. A board was arrange for the event of Bengali language, However the motion was to not be hoodwinked by such techniques of lodging. Compromise was not possible.
The motion grew and grew, gained in depth and momentum, resulting in the institution of Bangladesh. M uch has been gained and but a lot stays to be achieved. As indicated above, common use of Bengali in Bangladesh stays a distant hope. It doesn’t require a lot of an Assessment to exhibit that the target of the language motion will be achieved solely in a society which is free from exploition and is, subsequently not poor. Poverty is the impact of exploitation, not its trigger. Subsequently, the motion of the 21st of February have to be referred to as a protest in opposition to the exploitation of man by man.
It raised a decided voice in opposition to injustice. For what might be extra unjust than the inflicting of a international tongue on a inhabitants of seventy million, constituting because it did the bulk of the inhabitants of Pakistan as a complete. Our love for the Bengali language is conventional, it’s based mostly on very deep sentiments. However it’s not possible to disclaim that it was not this love alone that had led us to hitch the language motion in swelling numbers. There was hatred as effectively. Hatred in opposition to injustice, in opposition to exploitation. The motion was basically anti-colonial and anti feudal in character.
It was geared toward overthrowing the none-too-hidden system of colonial exploitation sought to be perpetrated by the ruling courses. It was clearly anti-feudal in content material inasmuch because it tried to win for the folks their inalienable proper to make use of their very own language in state affairs. Love and hatred, they are saying, go collectively: and certainly they did on this very case, for the depth of hatred was solely the obverse of the depth of love and vice versa. The language motion went like magnet over the iron of the suppressed emotions of the folks. It offered the folks with an outlet to their pent-up feelings in opposition to political injustice and social exploitation.
It solid a unity which was b_ oth artistic and enduring. A bit of the police in Dhaka had gone on strike even earlier than 1952. They. had been fired upon. However that firing didn’t rouse the indignation that the firing of the. 21st of February did. The explanation was that the latter firing was not geared toward any explicit part of the peope, it was not designed to silence the skilled calls for of any particular group, its goal was all the Bengali-speaking folks of Pakistan, irrespective of political perception or ideological dedication. For it damage even those that had collaborated with the federal government.
So long as exploitation of the numerous by the few stays, 21st February is unlikely to lose its significance. How did the motion start? It started as a college students’ motion. – Its centre was the college of Dhaka which was the one college in East Bengal on the time. The potentiality of the motion was unknown to the rulers, it was not identified even to many of those that have been at its forefront. Maybe it-would die a pure death- the rulers, it’s simple to think about, had fondly hoped. However all estimates and expectations have been belied. As soon as firing had began the motion spread-wider than a fireplace, quicker than the bullets.
It refused to be confined to the college campus; percolating by the railway, steamer and bus stations it reached virtually each comer of the province. The general public joined in it. The working class struck work, it turned a motion in opposition to an insult hurled on the existence of a folks. The Pakistani pretence turned a lot too large for the masks. A brand new feeling of nationalism started to develop very quickly certainly. And finally it was this new linguistic and, subsequently, basically secular, democratic and artistic nationalism which prevailed over the makeshift nationalism of Pakistan.
Pakistanism pretended to be religious which spiritualism was, as far as East Bengal was involved, a canopy for materials exploitation of the classically crude kind. The brand new consciousness made folks acutely aware about their materials existence, tearing the veils of false hopes and comforts. Its creativeness was immeasurable. For it had touched and launched the youth of the nation. The youth of the nation had begun this motion. But it surely was not a youth motion. It was the youthfulness of a folks that it had stirred. The motion’s artistic energy displayed itself in lots of, virtually all features of life. New organisations – social. s- effectively as political – got here into being. A brand new leadership–uncompromising and courageous-grew as much as exchange the established one. Politics topkk on a brand new character, it now not remained a pastime of the privifegetl few.. In its modified character, politics turned a risk to the present s oc i a l system. Poets wrote busily; composers composed energetically. Flays, novels and quick tales have been written on the theme. And it could be not possible to depend the souvenirs_ which have been printed to rejoice the spirit of the day. However essentially the most valuable creation Or the motion didn’t lie in any of these in isolation.
It lay in one thing that united these numerous areas and manifestations and impressed them from behind. his was nothing extra, or much less, than a brand new consciousness. This consciousness is characterised, amongst different issues, Ity an irreconcilable patriotism. True patroitism doesn’t isolate; it unlles, it brings the person to the group, and identifies collective; effectively being because the unfailing supply of particular person welfare. And it i. y this patriotism that the language motion carries with itself, and nourishes because it goes. N c language motion was basically artistic.
It not solely produced new works of literature, music, portray and drama but in addition, and extra importantly, gave these creations a brand new content material, which was unmistakably secular and democratic in character. The motion was anti-imperialist and anti-feudal; and it was subsequently solely pure that the cultural works it produced ought to have a militancy and a sew;e of path that they had not identified earlier than. Bengal, allow us to recall, was divided in 1947 on the premise of the so-called two-nation idea. Communalism was endemic within the very basis of that partition. The democratic upsurge of February, 1962 stood firmly, atatiinst communalism.
Communalism didn’t die, such monsters die arduous, nevertheless it turned weaker than it was in 1947. What was extra important was new path of improvement was laid open. Folks got here tog`ther; forgetting their communal id. They fought for a standard trigger. Then there was the necessary Question Assignment of custom. Pakistani nationalism had anticipated to outlive and achieve in energy by Whippin g up feelings round a false sense of custom which sought to make the Bengalees of East Pakistan really feel as in the event that they belonged to the Center East and to not the land the place they, in addition to their ancestors, have been born and had their being. Ws, actually, amounted to a ruthless try to disinherit them of their custom. Not solely in literature, however in all features of life and creativity what was pure and actual was sought to get replaced by the unnatural and the unreal. The language motion got here as an open problem to this. As a substitute of encouraging deracination, it gave-the pondering part of the general public a brand new sense of belonging. The homecoming had begun. It had no parallel in our previous historical past. For the difficulty of custom had by no means earlier than been as clearly outlined because it was throughout that fateful month of February, 1952.
Bengalecs of East Pakistan started to take a brand new pleasure of their language which, they realized, constituted the very foundation of their cultural id. The artistic artists working in all genres checked out life with a realism which gave their creations a nearness to life. They acquired a brand new consciousness of the financial and political actuality of the nation. In consequence, what they produced was considerably totally different – each in content material and form-from what their predecessors had supplied. The humanities got here nearer to politics. The actual fact of financial exploitation of the poor by the wealthy additionally discovered its method into the artistic creativeness of the artists.
For it had turn out to be clear that the Bengalecs have been an exploited nation, and that their survival finally relied on their financial emancipation. A brand new style was created, and a brand new customary of cultural judgement was arrange. The motion had not solely launched the suppressed artistic energies of a nation, it had additionally produced a starvation for extra lifelike works of artwork. The language motion represented for the Bengali talking Pakistanis an entrance into a brand new space of creativity. The motion of 21st February has executed for us one other necessary work.
It has drawn, clearly and unmistakably, a line of demarcation between the forces of gentle and darkness, of progress and response. To talk of gentle first. The sunshine that issues most is the sunshine of financial emancipation of the lots. Evidently that the sunshine of information stays invaluable. But since starvation is the best extinguisher of ‘all different lights, no progress within the collective sense will be made with out assembly the fundamental financial wants. And it’s this light-the gentle of financial freedom-that the language motion had promised to the folks of Bangladesh.
The motion did one thing extra. It distinguished the forces succesful of giving life  giving gentle from these which persist in preserving the folks submerged within the darkness of poverty and deprivation. The motion was profitable in marking out progress from response. Progress, it confirmed, didn’t imply extra materials development; it additionally meant, and never much less importantly, the right distribution of wealth. Correct distribution is equitable distribution. It doesn’t want a lot creativeness to see that what ails our financial life is inequality.
Inequality has maimed the productive energy of labour which is our biggest nationwide asset. It has not allowed nationwide artistic powers to develop correctly. That we’re poor is due primarily to this inequality. The language motion recognized progress as elimination of the components liable for the existence of the social gulf. It additionally confirmed that progress and response can not obtain a relationship of peaceable co  existence, that the antagonism between the 2 is irreconcilable and wouldn’t stop to be operative until one of the 2 is totally liquidated.
Maybe it’s pointless to say on which facet the motion of 21st February stood, for its dedication to gentle in opposition to darkness and progress in opposition to response is complete. All these make 21st February important to us. The nation was not the identical after that day, for it had gained a brand new sensibility, baptised in hearth. True, the previous order didn’t change instantly, it usually doesn’t. But it surely was threatened to its very basis. And the hope new world was not very far continued to develop.

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