SaMS - Language Movement & Bengali Nationalism

Language Movement and Bengali Nationalism
Dr. Saleh Shahriar

North South University
Dhaka, Bangladesh
Email: [email protected]
For its existence, Bengali had to compete and struggle with Sanskrit,
Persian, Arabic, English, Urdu, and so on. The date of the beginning of
this struggle was not the late 1940s but goes back to as early as the
13th century.
• During the Gupta, Pala and Sena dynasties, Sanskrit was the language of
royal courts and literary activities. Sanskrit enjoyed a respectable position
amongst the elite, while Bengali was regarded as the language of the
ordinary people. With the inception of Muslim rule in Bengal in 1206,
Bengali received state patronization and replaced Sanskrit in all respects
very soon. Sultan Nasiruddin Mohammed Shah, Alauddin Husain Shah,
Ilias Shah, etc. were the pioneering figures who helped in the promotion
of Bengali language in every sphere of life and at the state level.
 The special treatment of Urdu and negligence to Bengali aroused
discontent, especially among the Bengali intelligentsia, political leaders
and students. Moreover, economic and regional disparities became
widened during the days of United Pakistan. Say, for instance, the
educational disparities between the two wings.
 Please have a look at the selected indicators shown in two Tables in
the next two slides.
• Aligarh University in UP was at the center of this debate in the beginning.
In July 1947, the former VC of the university Dr. Ziauddin advocated in
favour of Urdu as the state language of Pakistan. Instantly Dr. Muhammad
Shahidullah, Professor of Bengali at Dhaka University, in a July 19 article in
the Daily Azad: "The Language Problem of Pakistan" wrote that Bengali
should become the medium of instruction as well as official language in
East Pakistan. The demand took a formal shape with the formation of
the Gana Azadi League in Dhaka during the same month.
• Immediately after the birth of Pakistan in August 1947, the controversy over
language issue topped the list of priorities in the country as Bengali was
spoken by 56.3 percent, while about 7.3 percent people spoke Urdu. The
government maintained that being the language of none of the five
provinces of Pakistan, Urdu would present equal advantage and
disadvantage to all those who would be competing for central services.
 On February 25, 1948, Dhirandra Nath Dutta, a member of the Pakistan
Constituent Assembly from Congress background, strongly spoke in favour
of Bengali language. He argued:
"Out of sixty-nine million people in Pakistan, forty four million people speak
Bengali … the state language should be the language which is used by the majority
of the people of the state, and for that, I consider Bengali language is a lingua
franca of our state”.
 Opposing his argument, Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan maintained
that: "Pakistan has been created because of the demand of a hundred million
Muslims in the subcontinent and the language of the hundred million
Muslims is Urdu … Pakistan is a Muslim state and it must have as its lingua
franca, the language of the Muslim nation."
• Tamaddun Majlish, the group which took initiative to demand that Bengali
should be the state language of Pakistan along with Urdu, led by physicist
Abul Kashem emerged as one the powerful groups on behalf of the Bengali
language. Their demand gradually gained popularity among the Dhaka
University students. Students under the banner of the Tamaddun
Majlish insisted the provincial Prime Minister Khwaja Nazimuddin adopt a
resolution through the Assembly and send it to the central government
recommending Bengali as one of the state languages of Pakistan. Fearing
troubles from the students, just before Jinnah's arrival in East Pakistan,
Nazimuddin signed an agreement with the students in line with their
demands on language issue.
• The first organized opposition to Urdu, however, came from the Tamuddin
Majlis, a cultural organization formed by professors and students at Dhaka
University in September 1947.
• One contributor in the booklet, Professor Kazi Mothar Hussain, argued that
the attempt to impose Urdu as the national language stands for the possibility
of replacing old masters with new ones from the same religion.
Nonetheless, being tempted by the statement of Dhirandra Nath Dutta, the
then Governor General of Pakistan, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, on March 11, 1948
declared in unequivocal terms at Suhrawardy Uddan that "only Urdu would be
the state language of Pakistan."
• After the death of Liaquat Ali Khan in 1951, Khwaja Nazimuddin became the
Prime Minister of Pakistan and opted in favor of Urdu, which was his first
language. On January 26, 1952, he declared in Paltan Maidan that Urdu "shall
be the only state language of Pakistan." The Dhaka students reacted because
of his retreat from his earlier promise in 1948.
• As a result of the long colonial heritage, the Bengali intelligentsia,
political leaders and students were concerned about the economic
welfare and well being of the eastern region. They perceived that the
non-recognition of the Bengali language was nothing but a new
design of colonial exploitation.
• They also perceived that with Urdu and English as state languages,
the mass people in East Pakistan would be in a disadvantageous
situation especially in getting jobs and economic activities.
• With the establishment of Dhaka University in 1921, a trend of the
new development was marked among the Bengali middle-class
people. They became aware of the language issue particularly in
terms of their social and class interest.
• They were suspicious about the political activities of the Urdu
speaking zamindars and nobility who regarded Bengali as the
"language of the lower caste Hindus" and claimed Urdu as the
"language of the nobility." Among these groups of people who
favored Urdu, Khwaja Nazimuddin and Akram Khan were prominent
in Eastern Bengal.
• They came from conservative upper-class background. In 1952, the
declaration of Urdu as state language by Khwaja Nazimuddin, the
Prime Minister of Pakistan, sparked mass discontent in East Pakistan.
• The main driving force of the 1952 movement was the students, working in
close cooperation with political party members. The students took the
crucial step of breaking section 144 on February 21, and in so doing they
courted arrest and some of them died.
• The language movement drew widespread sympathy and support from the
rural areas, in part because the large majority of Bengali students came
from these areas ( Rounaq Jahan, Pakistan: Failure in National Integration,
page 44)
• Poet Mahbubul Alam Chowdury and his poem on the language martyers
Implications & Achievements :
 Although the central government in 1956 incorporated Bangla as one of
the state languages of Pakistan the decision came too late and couldn't
address the fear and mistrust that had already been planted in the minds
of the Bengali people.
 With UNESCO adopting a resolution on November 17, 1999 proclaiming
February 21 as "International Mother Language Day" the Language
Movement of Bangladesh has come to be honored and recognized by the
international community.
Conclusions :
 Twenty One Point Programme objectives incorporated in the
election manifesto of the united front, an alliance of the
opposition political parties, to contest elections of the East Bengal
Legislative Assembly in 1954 against the then party in power,
Muslim league.
 Growth of Bengali linguistic nationalism
 Regional identity politics
 Emergence of Bangladesh as a nation-state
References :
Badruddin Omar, The Emergence of Bangladesh-The Rise of Bengali
Nationalism ,1958-1971 ( Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2006).
Rounaq Jahan, Pakistan: Failure in National Integration (Dhaka: University Press
Limited , 2018).
Abul Mansur Ahmed, Fifty Years of Politics as I saw It.
M.Emdadul Haq, “A Short History of Bangla”, an article published in the Daily Star, 21
February 2006; https://archive.thedailystar.net/2006/02/21/d60221020422.htm

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Language Movement and Bengali Nationalism

Dr. Saleh Shahriar

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