A.T.M.Nurun Nabi :
History is the record of the past events, a thorough analysis of the rise and fall of a dynasty, the doctrine, the revolution, the agitation and the character of rulers. It does not make any prediction, but teaches men to take lessons from history. Awfully few take lessons.
Notwithstanding every nation needs to know its birth-genesis thereof-with attention to some red letter days, which other nations may not have. The language movement is one of the few memorable events that the people of Bangladesh (erstwhile East Pakistan) can really be proud of because they had to shed blood to protect own language in 1952. But very few of us know the genesis of the said movement.
Tangail’s Nawab Ali Chowdhury was the first to urge the then British Government to make Bengali the provincial language of Bengal. In 1911, in the Provincial Muslim Educational Conference held at Rangpur, he said, “The Muslims of Bengal need not learn Urdu and Persian languages. If a given people are made to learn the language of the other people, they are sure to forget their own identity,”(Bhasha Andolan edited by Mukul Chowdhury, Islamic Foundation of Bangladesh, June, 1993).
Nine years later, Nawab Ali Chowdhury again said, “Bengali is the mother language of the Bengali speaking Muslims. This language is our national language.” Afterward, he wrote a letter to the then British Government demanding equal status for Bengali as the State language of India, no matter whatsoever. When the Muslim League leaders were thinking for Urdu, Lingua Franca specialist Dr. Muhammad Shahidullah in the year 1920 wrote to the then British government to recognise Bengali as ‘the language of the people’. Maulana Mohammad Akram Khan and Profulla Chandra Ray also argued that Bengali should be the State language of India when the Nehru Report (1929-31) recommended for Hindi as the State language of India.
At the same time, just before the creation of Pakistan, Dr. Ziauddin Ahmad, Vice Chancellor of Aligarh University, India, created fresh controversy supporting Urdu as the State language of the new state. In a sharp reaction, Dr. Shahidullah wrote an article titled ‘Pakistane Bhasha Samoshya’ (Language Problem in Pakistan) in the defunct Dainik Azad on 29 July 1947, and denounced the ~vil move. However, after creation of Pakistan, Professor Abul Kashem of the Department of Physics, Dhaka University, sensing the conspiracy against the Bengali language, formed a socio-cultural organization named Tamaddun Majlish ™ on September 1, 1947. He received tremendous support from Kazi Motahar Hossain, Professor of Mathematics, DU, and Abul Mansur Ahmad, Editor of the defunct Dainik Ittehad.
TM published a booklet titled ‘The State language of Pakistan-Urdu or Bengali?’ Professor Kashem said that the organization had been formed to muster the creative and the hidden talent in the field of literature to work in line with the belief and feelings of the majority people of Pakistan and to help establish a society and the State based on the principles of Islam in order to find out jobs for the unemployed and to stand by the distressed.
TM made few suggestions in regards to Bengali. Those included use of Bengali as a language in all the educational institutions, the offices and the courts, and to grant both Urdu and Bengali the status of the ‘State languages of Pakistan.’ The TM leaders met the then Central Education Minister Fazlur Rahman, but returned disappointed. The angry leaders immediately decided to observe ‘Bhasha Dibash’ (Language Day) on the 11 March 1948. An all out hartal (shutdown) was observed in the capital while the students of all the educational institutions through out the country observed strike. This unique success laid the foundation stone of the future movement in realizing the people’s demands.
Justice Abdur Rahman said that the impact of the 11 March hartal was endes. “The Great Language Movement of 21 February would not have appeared in the history had there been no 11th March”. The left communist leader Mohammad Toha said, “The 11h March Movement was, perhaps, the first mass movement in the province of erstwhile East Pakistan.” Qumruddin Ahmad said, “Success of the March Movement compelled the then government to sign an agreement with the leaders to the effect that Bengali would be the State language of Pakistan.”
Tamaddun Majlish decided to publish a daily to spread the flame of the movement. Accordingly the first issue was published on November 14. On March 21 and 24 in 1948, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the Governor General of Pakistan, ventured to declare at the Race Course (Now Suhrawardy Uddyan) and the Curzan Hall of Dhaka University that ‘Urdu and only Urdu shall be the State language of Pakistan’. Such claim was simply unwise, imprudent, and it lacked farsightedness. This terrible comment shadowed Jinnah’s success as political leader to have an independent state for the Muslims of India.
On January 26, 1952, Prime Minister Khawaja Nazimuddin echoed the view of M.A Jinnah. It was, in fact, the total deviation from the agreement signed on March 15, 1948. Before it, Dhirendra Nath Dutta, Member of the Pakistan Constituent Assembly, tabled a proposal in favour of Bengali as one of the state languages in a session in Karachi on February 11, 1948.
Candidly speaking, the leaders of the then ruling Muslim League (ML) did not take lessons from history as they represented the bourgeoise and the landlord classes.
What began in 1948 ended in 1971 with the emergence of a sovereign state of Bangladesh on the map of former East Pakistan.
East Pakistan Muslim Students League (EPMSL) and the Tamaddun Majlish (TM) protested the Pakistan government’s unilateral decision of making Urdu the state language of Pakistan. The EPMSL and the TM demanded recognition of both Bengali and Urdu as state languages.
The EPMSL and the TM jointly organized an all-party meeting and formed ‘Rashtra Bhasha BangIa Sangram Parishad’. Meanwhile, Qumruddin Ahmad, Shamsul Haque and several other Muslim League leaders joined the Sangram Parishad (Ausamapta Atmajiboni by Sheilh Mujibur Rahman at page No.91-92).
In the meeting it was decided to observe March 11 as Bangla Bhasha Dibosh. On the day, hundreds of students began picketing at Eden Building, General Post Office and other key installations to garner people’s support. However, there was no picketing at Dhaka University and Dhaka Medical College and Hospital. The entire city of Dhaka was under the carpet of posters. Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was arrested and freed four days later.
It is interesting to note that Urdu was the language of three percent people only, whereas, Punjabi was spoken by 27 percent, while Bengali represented 56 percent.
A careful study of the history of Pakistan depicts that the political leaders, with the exception of H.S. Suhrawardy only, who ruled Pakistan till 1970 had never enjoyed
(Verse No. 30 of Surah Rum of the Holy Quran says that all the languages of the world are Signs of Allah. The text is: One of His signs is the creation of the heavens and earth and the differences of languages and colours. Verily in this there are portents for the learned. Again Allah says: We did not send any apostle but with the language of his people, so that he might explain (Our revelations) to them clearly (Ref: 14/4).)
