The fact that I am writing to you in English already falsifies what I wanted to tell you. My subject: how to explain to you that I ...
The fact that I
am writing to you
in English
already falsifies what I
wanted to tell you.
My subject:
how to explain to you that I
don’t belong to English
though I belong nowhere else,
if not here
in English.
On February 21, 1952, Pakistan’s police opened fire on students of University of Dhaka (in erstwhile East Pakistan) protesting against the imposition of Urdu. The Bengali language movement demanded the inclusion of Bengali as a national language of Pakistan, in addition to Urdu, which was the mother tongue of only 3-4% of the nation, while Bengali was spoken by more than 50% of the population.
On January 9, 1998, Canada-based Rafiqul Islam wrote to the United Nations, asking them to commemorate the 1952 killings in Dhaka and mark the day to preserve languages from around the world from extinction. This led to the declaration of 21st February as International Mother Language Day. A dark day in the history of language movements, but also one full of hope. A hope that led to the creation of a new nation, Bangladesh, in 1971.
While this incident took place almost 70 years ago, the fight for mother tongues to remain relevant persists, in the face of dominating language structures. Language is a crucial part of a community’s identity and social reality. Given India’s colonial history, the...
