Source: The Daily Star.
By Syed Badrul Ahsan
Mohammad Ali Jinnah visited East Pakistan from March 19 to March 28, 1948. The visit was a disaster, seeing that instead of reassuring the Bangla-speaking people of his country on the language issue he ended up making them angrier than they were before.
For perhaps the very first time in his long political career, Jinnah came face to face with a situation where he was not exactly looked upon as a revered individual. He, like so many other Pakistani rulers after him, smelled a conspiracy in the demand for Bangla as a state language.
Worse, his meeting with a group of student leaders in Dhaka exposed his rather poor knowledge of Bangalee culture. He demanded to know from the students — and this was on the very day when he delivered his infamous Urdu advocacy speech at the Curzon Hall of Dhaka University — if Bangalees could boast of any great men of letters in their history.
The well-prepared and understandably irreverent students’ team reminded him of Tagore, Nazrul, Bankim, Mir Mosharraf and a host of others. It is said that Jinnah made no response. But he did warn the students against a deep-rooted conspiracy against Pakistan by communists and fifth columnists. The students clearly did not agree with him.
At the Race Course public rally on March 21, Jinnah first mentioned the imaginary conspiracy by communists and fifth columnists to undo Pakistan. He warned that no mercy would be shown to quislings, though he did not mention who the quislings were. It was a line of thinking that would be adopted by all Pakistani rulers and other West Pakistani politicians every time legitimate demands for social and political justice were made by Bangalees. Even at the public rally, voices of protest at Jinnah’s advocacy of Urdu were heard.
Categories: Asia, Bangladesh, Culture and Traditions, Culture Clash, Democracy, Free speach, Free Speech, Intolerance, Languages
From WiKi: International Mother Language Day is an observance held annually on 21 February worldwide to promote awareness of linguistic and cultural diversity and multilingualism. It was first announced by UNESCO on 17 November 1999. Its observance was also formally recognized by the United Nations General Assembly in its resolution establishing 2008 as the International Year of Languages.[1]
International Mother Language Day originated as the international recognition of Language Movement Day, which has been commemorated in Bangladesh since 1952, when a number of students including the students of the University of Dhaka and Dhaka Medical College were killed by the Pakistani police in Dhaka during the Bengali Language Movement protests.
Mr. Jinnah was a man of principles, dignity and justice. The demand was totally unjustified, principally unacceptable and a Pandora box. A nation of multi-ethnic origins and languages needed one single common language for state solidarity and integrity while other languages could be promoted and used at provincial levels. But certain columns in East-Pakistan were more interested in creating problems and mischievous acts. They kept these desires inside through tout freedom movements but once independence was won which was not possible under Jinnah leadership and whole subcontinent Muslims support, these malicious plans started to be hatched
Since I did not know anything about it. I was waiting. Only thing which I knew was that Qaid-e-Azam definitely was a very just man.Thank you I was waiting for such a post brother Ahmed.
To Mr Ahmed’s point, a unified language is needed to maintain government and solidarity. However, the events of 1952 was strike number 1. In 1947, according to some counts, there were 76 million people, out of which 42 mil in East Pakistan speaking Bangla. In West Pakistan, total of 34 million, with a collection of various languages being spoken. The events of 1952 proved to Bangalees, that their basic rights, heritage was ignored. Obviously, majority voice did not count. There is a very fine line between exerting force to maintain unison, and oppression.
Tagore was a Bengali poet who received a Nobel prize for literature in 1913. The language has its roots in Sanskrit, over three thousand years old, and has an extensive vocabulary that is larger than English. In the 19th century, the number of Bengali authors who tried to bring social changes in India, are in the hundreds. Here are some, just to name a few.
19th century
Ishwar Chandra Gupta (1812–1859)
Peary Chand Mitra (1814–1882)
Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar (1820–1891)
Lal Behari Dey (1824–1892)
Michael Madhusudan Dutt (1824–1873)
Rajnarayan Basu (1826–1892)
Dinabandhu Mitra (1830–1873)
Girish Chandra Sen (1835/1836-1910)
Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay (1838–1894)
Kaliprasanna Singha (1840–1870)
Girish Chandra Ghosh (1844–1912)
Mir Mosharraf Hossain (1847–1912)
Nabinchandra Sen (1847–1909)
Sivanath Sastri (1847–1919)
Troilokyanath Mukhopadhyay (1847–1919)
Romesh Chunder Dutt (1848 — 1909)
Jyotirindranath Tagore (1849–1925)
Hason Raja (1854–1922)
Kaykobad (1857–1951)
Jagdish Chandra Bose (1858–1937)
Sheikh Abdur Rahim (1859–1931)
Akkhoykumar Boral (1860–1919)
Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941)
Dwijendralal Ray (1863–1913)
Upendrakishore Ray (1863–1915)
Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902)
Ashutosh Mukherjee (1864–1924)
Kamini Roy (1864–1933)
Ramendra Sundar Tribedi (1864–1919)
Dinesh Chandra Sen (1866–1939)
Gaganendranath Tagore (1867–1938)
Pramatha Chowdhury (1868–1946)
Abdul Karim Sahitya Bisharad (1869–1953)
Abanindranath Tagore (1871–1951)
Ekramuddin Ahmad (1872–1940)
Provatkumar Mukhopadhyay (1873–1932)
Sharat Chandra Chattopadhyay (1876–1938)
Dakshinaranjan Mitra Majumder (1877–1957)
Jatindramohan Bagchi (1878–1948)
Ismail Hossain Shiraji (1880–1931)
Rajshekhar Bose (1880–1960)
Syed Emdad Ali (1880–1956)
Qazi Imdadul Haq (1882–1926)
Satyendranath Dutta (1882–1922)
Sheikh Fazlul Karim (1882–1936)
Hemendrakumar Roy (1883–1963)
Kumud Ranjan Mullick (1883–1970)
Gobindachandra Das (1885–1918)
Muhammad Shahidullah (1885–1969)
Rakhaldas Bandyopadhyay (1885–1930)
Jagadish Gupta (1886–1957)
Sukumar Ray (1887–1923)
Eyakub Ali Chowdhury (1888–1940)
Mohitolal Majumdar (1888–1952)
Kalidas Roy (1889–1975)
Mohammad Lutfur Rahman (1889–1936)
Suniti Kumar Chatterji (1890–1970)
S. Wajid Ali (1890–1951)
Sachin Sengupta (1891–1961)
Sahadat Hussain (1893–1953)
Bibhuti Bhushan Bandopadhyay (1894–1950)
Bibhutibhushan Mukhopadhyay (1894–1987)
Golam Mostofa (1897–1964)
Nirad C. Chaudhuri (1897–1999)
Qazi Motahar Hossain (1897–1981)
Abul Mansur Ahmed (1898–1979)
Mahbubul Alam (1898–1981)
Mohammad Barkatullah (1898–1974)
Tarashankar Bandopadhyaya (1898–1971)
Jibanananda Das (1899–1954)
Balai Chand Mukhopadhyay (1899–1979)
Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay (1899–1970)
Kazi Nazrul Islam (1899–1976)
In the history of the world to date, no other nation, no other people, had ever had to fight and protest to keep their mother tongue. Call them crazy, but Bengali students laid down their lives to save their mother tongue on February 21st, 1952. You can’t expunge that from history.
Quid-e-Azam struggled to unite people and create Pakistan without giving himself time to take care of his ailing health. He rightfully deserved to plane for what he thought was good for the new born country. Later if he had time he might have even done something if he felt that there was in fact need of to solve this language issue. He was never an oppressor. He was very kind and considerate.He was a God gifted true hero in every aspect.
Most of the people went in his favour from both sides. Otherwise East Pakistan would not have joined his mission.
It seems that from the beginning evil intentioners entered in both lands to sow the seed of differences and conspire. Quid-e-Azam and Liaqt Ali Khan saheb both became the victim of this conspiracy.
This is also a truth that for almost 23 years East and west Pakistan went quiet well. With East Pakistanis chanting the same National Anthem with patriotism. People at large held not enmity. Only a few individuals had issue.
To me two authority hungry individuals for their own benefit parted it.We had Bengalis in our land and we never new them but only as Pakistanis. Runa Laila, Shabnam, Rahman and Shahnaz Begum the lady that sang sohni dharti song.
Good old days. It has made me sad. We used to be kids at the time.We cherish their memories…. They were golden people.
Whatever happened now there is no need to say who was right or wrong.It will take us to nowhere.
Bengalis are happy. May the be happy forever.Amen
Believe me, even if Bangladesh has become a separate country, in my heart I take them as our lost brothers. That were parted with us out of conspiracy and misconduct, greed and selfishness of some few individuals.
Had Quid-e-Azam given some time Pakistan would have been far better place then today. The conspirators would have had to flee. Bot sadly his death was like a mothers death on the birth of an orphan child.Pakistan was left on the mercy of step relativeness. Like a lamb in the wolves.
Without the Radcliffe Line, there wouldn’t have been a Bangladesh ever. Without Jinnah, there wouldn’t have been a Radcliffe Line ever.
Try to prove it otherwise. You will fail.
No Jinnah, no Bangladesh ever. EVER!!
So what’s the fuss is about? Do they want a Bangladesh or not?