Bengali Independence – and the Establishment of International Mother Language Day, 21 February

by Mohammad Abdullah Sadeque, World Bank

In 1999, the UN declared 21 February as International Mother Language Day, recognizing the importance of language as a part of culture and national identity. A group of Bengalis in Canada began the movement to establish this day, which also commemorates the movement for an independent Bangladesh.

The partition of India in 1947 led to a strange geographic situation. Pakistan was created with two separate sections. These were West Pakistan, with the larger geographic area, but only 44% of the population, and East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), with the smaller geographic area, but 56% of the population.

The linked issues of language and national identity quickly became a burning political issue between the two parts of Pakistan. The majority of the people of West Pakistan spoke one of four languages: Punjabi, Sindhi, Pashtu and Baluchi. Urdu was spoken by only about 4% of the population, but these were the people of power and position. A very different situation pertained to East Pakistan, where Bangla was spoken by all.

The federal government (then at Karachi) was largely composed of the Urdu-speaking elite. In March 1948, the government plan declared Urdu as the only state language. The students of Dhaka University led the people of East Pakistan in violent opposition to this move, which the government eventually abandoned.

The government tried again to declare Urdu the only state language in January 1952.  As four years earlier, the Dhaka University students led the resistance in East Pakistan to this move. But this time the resistance was stronger, and quickly became a political mass-movement.

By late February, the government was responding aggressively, with prohibitions against processions, public meetings, etc. Matters quickly came to a violent confrontation on 21 February 1952. The police fired on a student demonstration, killing five and injuring many more. Soon the dead became national heroes, or martyrs, as they shed their lives for a right cause.

This was the turning point. The people of East Pakistan began realizing that they must strive for autonomy if they were to survive as a nation. The February 1952 Movement was the start of the long road to independence, which culminated 19 years later in the War of Liberation, and Independence in 1971.    

The Bangladesh 21 February Movement was about the right of a people to their cultural independence and identity – as demonstrated by the right to speak their mother tongue. Beginning with the issue of language, it turned into a movement for national identity, and the eventual creation of a sovereign state. This nationalistic idea originating from our own language, inspired by willingness of people to sacrifice their lives to speak their language, and to have their culture and identity respected, a case unique in the whole course of human history.     

Today, the importance of language and cultural identity is commemorated in Bangladesh and worldwide on 21 February.