Embedded Files
Under the harsh rule of the Pakistanis, the Bangladeshis (formerly known as East Pakistanis) were treated horribly with no freedom and were forced to speak Urdu. The Bangla Language Movement had one goal: to establish Bangla as the state language across all platforms, such as educational institutions, workplaces, currency, government affairs, etc.
On the 21st of February, 1952, Dhaka University organised a protest against the movement being made to establish Urdu as the state language of East Pakistan, and defied the Pakistani law. This movement became a famous day in history, as many people died to retain the right to keep Bangla as the main language of the state. Among the many students who were killed by the cruel Pakistanis, the known were: Salam, Jabbar, Barkat, Rafiq and Shafiur. These 5 students were officially declared as Language Martyrs. After years of civil unrest, chaos, and fighting to make Bangla the state language, finally in 1956, the Bangladeshis achieved their desired result when the Pakistanis granted official status for the Bangla language.
After the victory of the War of Independence in 1971, East Pakistan became a free country known as "Bangladesh". The 21st of February (Ekushey February) is now a national holiday and a day of mourning and celebration for all Bangladeshis, to remember the many people who had fought for Bangla. The famous site of "Shaheed Minar", also called the "Martyr Monument", is a national monument built in Dhaka, near Dhaka Medical College, to commemorate the sacrifices made in the Language Movement. The 21st of February had also been declared as "International Mother Language Day" by UNESCO in 1999, as a tribute to the Bangla Language Movement and to protect the ethnic and linguistic rights of all people around the world.
- Reehan Husain (VI-R)
For you the skies are blue
To me they aren’t, they’re “akashi”.
“What’s that?” you might ask me.
But I can’t say, I’m not allowed to.
Oh what trouble I’d be in if they knew.
You might ask again, “Who’s they?”
But I’m afraid I can’t say.
Growing impatient you ask, “Who are you?”
I contemplate,
I want to tell you
but I know I ought not to
I muster up the courage to say,
“I am but a student who can’t speak”
Scoffing, you begin, “But -”,
Spotting your exasperation,
quietly I say,
“I can but not how I’d like to-
in my mother tongue I wish to speak,
but I can’t for there’s a taboo.”
Moments later I find myself
lying in a pool of blood,
my own.
I let out a tiny laugh
accompanied by a grunt and moan.
I pinch myself
realising that the “you”
I was talking to
wasn't real.
Just a figment of my imagination,
trying to take away the pain I feel.
49 letters and 11 vowels
make up my golden Bangla
In which I learned to speak my first word,
“Ma”.
It is more than a language to me,
it provides me with an identity,
for I am a Bangali.
The words I’ve used all my life
are being torn away.
Without it,
without my mother tongue,
I feel empty.
My self worth is drowning,
I'm hopeless and weak.
In Bangla I MUST be able to speak.
I refuse to give up,
even if it’s the last thing I do.
My people will speak in Bangla again,
making my dreams come true.
Clutching the wound bleeding from my chest,
I know I won’t be there
to see the light of tomorrow.
However, my sacrifice will have been for something,
because it is with Bangla that
the future generations will grow.
- Sanika Abedin (VIII-S)
The patriots fought for freedom.
They wanted to speak in their own language.
They wanted to use their own words
to speak, to write, to sing, to live.
They fought for their language,
the language they dearly loved.
The first language they had all known,
the language that was their own,
BANGLA.
After the blood was shed,
and many lives were lost,
a new country was born.
A new country of our own.
It was created from the blood that was shed.
The beauty of our land,
known as "Bangladesh" today,
is that it lives
to become better everyday.
- Praggya Additiya Matin (V-H)
Language is Mother’s confabulation,
dearer than life.
Bangla is the language which alleviates our heart.
It is the language in which everyone’s thirst for joy is sweet.
Bangla is Mother’s word.
In order to attain it, many lives were lost.
Bangla was the reason so many were willing to have their blood shed.
On that day, the streets were flooded with splotches of red.
Bangla is the language which keeps our pneuma awake.
We will always protect it for our fallen brothers' sake.
“Rastrobhasha Bangla Chai!” echoed in our brothers' roars.
Today it is the language we all adore.
We will not stop even if we are shot
because “Matribhasha Bangla” will always be woven in our soul.
- Aayan Zuhayr Zakir (VII-R)
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