AMOR Ekushey is being celebrated today in due solemnity and festivities to remember the Martyrs of the 1952 Language Movement. In fact, it is a day of awakening for the nation and a landmark occasion in the history of the Bengali people that laid the foundation of our future nation from that blood taint event. As we know the then Pakistani rulers had wanted to impose Urdu as the State language on the people of East Pakistan who constituted the majority of the nation. It sparked protest all over the land. The students of Dhaka University immediately took to the streets demanding the repeal the move. The Pakistani government deployed heavily armed police to stop the movement and at one point they opened fire on protesters at the place now the Shaheed Minar is located, killing four students to make them the first martyrs of our Language Movement. It inflamed the spirit of Bengali nationalism to ultimately lead to the creation of an independent Bangladesh through a bloody liberation war in 1971. We remember Salam, Barkat, Rafique and Jabbar on this occasion for their sacrifice and express our indebtedness for their contribution to establishing Bangla as our State language.
The event is celebrated now all over the world on February 21 since 2000 as the ‘International Mother Language Day’ at the initiative of the United Nations thus bringing the highest level of recognition to our Language Martyrs. President, the Prime Minister, Cabinet minister, leaders of the opposition, other political parties and socio-cultural bodies place floral wreaths at Central Shaheed Minar on this occasion. Bangla Academy open the month-long event with a book fair with people, mostly younger stocks, overcrowding book stalls. The Academy also announces new literary awards. In Bangladesh it is a festivity of colour and cultural jubilation. Vendors run shops, other festivities continue in the sideline.
But this year we note with dismay that the Ekushey festivity is missing its inner strength and beauty, as the leader of the main opposition and other senior party leaders will remain absent from the Shaheed Minar showing the broken unity of the nation. The presence of the Chief Minister of West Bengal Mamata Banerjee is however treated by the government as an additional attraction on this occasion. The country is celebrating the Ekushey this time in a highly tense political situation where people are dying in the streets from petrol bombs, police fire and such other extra-judicial killing in political fights between the government and the opposition who are demanding a fresh national election. Such hostility is overshadowing the spirit of the Ekushey and we urge the government to take steps to end the discord.
