M.Mizanur Rahman :
The great Bengali language movement took place in 1952 in Bangladesh that had been stirred since the sense of nationalism created among the Bengali people all over the world. We are remembering that in each year on this day but we are to redeem whether we feel strongly of our past legacy on the present perspective or not. It’s really looked awful when we see that the Bengali people in Dhaka Metropolis and elsewhere throughout Bangladesh used to display their signboard /advertisement in foreign language instead of their Mother Language Bengali in correct form or incorrect, then it appears that they must have been oblivious of their bloody state language movement and its history and legacy of the past. However time has come to redeem their follies and correct their characteristics wherever they found it wrong.
The language speaks of life. Not only the human beings but also every animal, beast or bird, insect or plant speak of life in its own language and in its own mother’s tongue. Every living beings thus enlivens with its mother’s tongue towards struggling for its bare existence. Even the person who learns other’s language, before speaking or writing that foreign language, s/he translates it from his or her mother’s tongue. For every child the sweetest language is his or her mother’s language. It is natural. In Bangladesh the lingua franca of its people is Bengali among all other spoken languages. The poet of Bangladesh sings, “Mo-ther Gorob Mo-ther Asa Amori Bangla Bhasha”(our pride and hope unto death is our Bangla Language). Language is a means of communication. Human communities exchange reciprocal feelings through it. When we talk of a nation we have to know its language first. Because of the fact, the people of that nation identify themselves with their national language.
The people of Bangladesh were under the subjugation of foreign rules for a very long period since they could not establish the stately status of Bangla language towards that end though they had their wills and aspirations inherent among themselves. Moreover before the advent of the foreign Muslim invaders in Bangladesh Bangla language was absolutely neglected and left aside as vulgar and as the language of the untouchables as was prescribed by the then most powerful Hindu Brahmin pundits. At that time Bangla language was the language of the Bengali people who were treated as lower, mean, and abjected as well as outcastes in the conscience of those so-called Hindu Brahmin Pundits and their most related adherents. At times Hindu Brahmins had their scriptural language Sanskrit that was said to be very sacred in which there was no access to the common people.
The most eminent research scholar under the Calcutta University, Dr. Dinesh Chandra Sen said in one of his articles on “Bengali Language” that those pundits (Brahmins) hated and neglected Bangla Language as much as they hated and neglected Haris and Domes (Hindu lower labour class people). Bangla language was also in expectation for that auspicious time when it will be unfettered from the yoke of its ominous underhand like those diamonds that look for the jeweler who would smoothen them after they were plucked out of the coalmine and like those pearls that look for the diver who would collect them and set them free from oyster shells.
Gour(now Maldaha of West Bengal,India) was then the capital of Bengal occupied by the Muslim invaders. It carried no sense whether they came from Iran or Turan, after their conquest of Bengal they became Bengali. Bengal is as much the motherland of the Hindus today, it were the same for the Muslims of those days. They did not come to this country to rob its wealth or valuables in the guise of traders but they became really the people of this country. They became much more Bengali than what was expected by the Hindus at that time. Bengali language was in usage since early period when the Buddha- dynasty reigned Bengal. Bengali lyrics of that period are available. But it is no exaggeration that development of Bengali literature and culture took place during the Muslim rule in Bengal.
The history, according to Dr. Sen, “…All around the capital (Gour) Hindu subjects were everywhere, sounds of conch shells and temple bells could be heard everywhere, five wicks lamps lit for devotional purpose, aromatic incense and fumes of burnt sandal woods covered the whole area and divine songs or recitals of Ramayana and Mahabharat could be heard everywhere. The Muslim emperor who loved his subjects most, naturally wanted to know, “What are all about these?” He called the Brahmin Pundit to elucidate the fact. The Brahmin pundit having sandal mark on his forehead with a piece of stone swinging by the neck and a scarf depicting the different names of Hindu deities on his bald head appeared before his excellency and said, “One can get access to our scriptural knowledge after learning grammar for twelve years while the learner must be the Brahmin Hindu”. The emperor became angry and said, “I don’t understand grammar. Why should I learn grammars leaving aside my royal business while you are not willing to teach me? That can’t be. Translate Ramayana, Mahabharat and Bhagabat into local country language.”
How could the emperor govern the country until and unless he learnt the language of the people? So he learnt the language of his subjects. He became Bengali fully…He opined that the religious scripture must be written in people’s language.
On hearing this order the face of the Brahmin pundit became dry and ashen-pale. The language of god and goddess had to be rendered into the language of the lowly peoples and the Brahmin would have to be placed in the line of those Chandals (the scheduled castes)! What Kalluk-Bhatta and Raghu Nandan could not make possible writing memoirs in hundreds, the emperor could do that within a day by his royal order! So invincible is his royal order! Having seen no other alternatives and for the fear of saving his head from severing the Brahmin ought to carry out the royal order…
Since the reign of Samsuddin Iliyash Shah (1342-1355), the independent Sultan of Gour, his Excellency’s direct patronization the development of Bengali language took place under royal supervision for the welfare of the people. Thereafter the name of Sultan Hossain Shah (1493-1518) became a legend in the history of Bengali literature that under his patronization Bengali literature developed to a greater extent. Though Bengali language, literature and culture per excellence had been flourished during this period under the aegis of the great Muslim emperors of Gour but Bengali was never given the status of the state language. Both Mughal and Pathan rulers in India used their official state language Persian. Sometimes due to the advent of the Seljuk and the Turk as rulers, soldiers or traders their spoken languages like Arabic and Turkish had some impact on Bengali language also. And all these alien people had their direct or indirect influence over relevant subjects. Some words of their languages got easy access to Bengali language and enriched Bengali vocabulary. Later on the English people came here, as traders but became the rulers in course of time. They made their English language as the state language of India where they ruled over two centuries and got influence over all local or regional languages. Our Bengali is not exception of it. We have adopted a lot of English words and enriched our vocabulary. Similarly Portuguese, French and Armenians came to our plain as traders or soldiers, though they could not make much headway like the English, but some of their words got access in our Bengali language.
There are regions in India and Pakistan where major language is either Hindi or Urdu. Particularly Hindi language is an admixture with words of several foreign languages namely Bengali, Sanskrit, Arabic, Persian, Turkish and English likewise Urdu has its Persian and Arabic admixture in tone and accent. Dialects of these two languages seem to be analogous. Similarly admixture of different linguistic terms played their roles towards the development of language like Punjabi, Pastu etc. So the waves of words of different languages roll round the world and very interestingly become inter-related as well as internationally acknowledged.
The history of literature and culture of Bengal seem to be though age-old, yet the making of Bangla as the state language is the outcome of a continuous social and political movement in Bangladesh. The Bengali people had been waking up with political consciousness from the backdrop of British rule in India. That is why once Gopal Krishno Gokhlay told, “What Bengal thinks today, India thinks tomorrow”.
As a matter of fact Nabab Syed Nawab Ali Choudhury was the first Bengal Muslim personality, the Zamindar (Land lord) of Dhanbari estate of Momenshahi raised the issue of making Bangla as the state language of the then Bahgladesh beside Urdu for rest of India. While in the face of Wahbi Movement in 1921, the British government was pressed by the Indian leaders that includes poet Rabidranath Tagore to make Urdu as the state language of India; only Nabab Syed Nawab Ali Choudhury (1863-1929) made a written proposal against it to the British government demanding that whatever be the state language of India, Bangla must be the state language of Bengal. However, since this famous proposal might have been pressed down under the heavy weight of those revolutionary days.
In 1947, after the establishment of the state of Pakistan there was a hectic preparation to make Urdu as the state language of Pakistan. The top leaders of Pakistan, Q.A.M.A.Jinnah, M.Liaquat Ali Khan, and Nazimuddin were in the opinion to make Urdu as the sole state language of Pakistan that sowed the seeds of discontent in Bengali mind. The people of East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) opposed vehemently against such unilateral decision rather they also raised their demand that Bangla should be the foremost state language of Pakistan. On 14 September 1947, Tamaddun Majlish, a literary and cultural organization of the then East Pakistan led by Principal Abul Kashem of Dhaka University published a pamphlet, “Pakistaner Rastrobhasha Bangla na Urdu? (Whether the State Language of Pakistan is to be Bangla or Urdu)” in which preference was given to Bangla with facts and figures. Moulana Akrom Khan, the owner of the daily ‘AZAD’ was its chief patron.
This was the coincidence of Nabab Syed Nawab Ali Choudhury’s single voiced proposal in 1921. He was also a great educationist of his time. In a Muslim Education Conference at Rangpur in 1911, being the chief guest, he categorically expressed with irrefutable arguments in his august speech, “Urdu and Persian languages are not necessary for the Bengali Muslims. If any nation is forced to have other’s language as its mother language, then the nationality of that nation becomes absolutely obsolete.”
However the question of the state language of Pakistan is yet to be determined nationally. Still the official language of Pakistan remained English in all respect. The contrast was that none of the leaders, politicians or officials of Pakistan then used to speak or write Urdu or Bengali but English officially. In the Pakistan National Assembly sessions on 24, 25 February and 2nd March, 1948, the only Congress leader Mr.Dhirendranath Dutt raised the question of amendment of 1935 Act as saying, ” …I consider that Bengali Language is a lingua franca of our state…if English can have an honoured place in rule 29- that the proceedings of the Assembly should be conducted in Urdu or English, why Bengali, which is spoken by four crores forty lakhs people should not have an honoured place…and therefore Bengali should not be treated as a provincial language, it should be treated as the language of the state and therefore…I suggested that after the word “English” the word “Bengali” be inserted in rule 29.” The majority members of the Assembly opposed Mr.Dutt and his proposal was rejected. The Prime Minister of Pakistan Mr. Liaquat Ali Khan said in his speech, “…Pakistan has been created because of the demand of a hundred million Muslims in this sub-continent and the language of a hundred million Muslims is Urdu…It is necessary for a nation to have one language and that language can only be Urdu and no other language.” Thereafter in the same year on 21st March being head of the state Mr.M.A.Jinnah spoke regarding the State Language of Pakistan in a mammoth public meeting at the Race Course Field in Dhaka,
“…but let me make it very clear to you that the state language of Pakistan is going to be Urdu and no other language. Anyone who tries to mislead you is really the enemy of Pakistan.” Mr.Jinnah uttered the same comment about the state language of Pakistan at a special convocation in Dhaka University on 24 March 1948. The students opposed it vehemently by saying, “No…no…no…”
(The author of this article is a poet, essayist, and columnist.)
