Special days and festival- Part 1

1st February- International mother Language day

If any one asks me why I am discussing this type of event at first I would say, This “Bengali” language is our pride and the movement for language was a war winning day for Bengali nationalism. Yes, we are the only nation who sacrificed lives for language. 21st

February is called, “International mother Language day”. We called it “Ekushe February”, now we call it, “Omor Ekushe”. It is also known as Martyr’s day, Shohid dibosh. It reflects and is originated from the protests and sacrifice by the Bengali people to protect the Bengali language, their mother tongue During Pakistani regime, 1952. UNESCO proclaimed this day as International Mother Language day on 17 November, 1999. International Mother Language Day is observed yearly by UNESCO member states and at its headquarters to promote linguistic and cultural diversity and multilingualism.

Mohammed Ali Jinnah was the then Governor General of Pakistan. On 21 March 1948, he declared that Urdu would be the only official language for both West and East Pakistan. The people of East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), whose main language is Bengali, started to protest against this. On 21 February 1952, students of capital city of Dhaka called for a provincial strike. The government invoked a limited curfew to prevent this and the protests were tamed down so as to not break the curfew. The Pakistani police fired on the students despite these peaceful protests and a number of students,common people and other protestors were killed, including Salam, Barkat, Rafique, Zabbar. The movement spread to the whole of East Pakistan and the whole province came to a standstill. Afterwards, the Government of Pakistan relented and gave Bangla equal status as a national language.

Actually it made the first steps towards our liberation war on 1971. It made the concept of democracy more strong. It also helped to nourished the patriotism of Bangladesh.

It inspired the Bangalees to live as a different and independent nation from Pakistan. We will never forget their sacrifice and through out the whole time we will remember them. To commemorate their sacrifice, Shahid Minar, a beautiful sculpture was made at the place of sacrifice. UNESCO was trying to make the way to promote the mother tongue and to establish Mother Language Day. They observe the history and found that though Bangladesh was a independence country but still people of Bangladesh celebrate the day as before and there is no history that any nation could sacrifice their life for Mother tongue.  So, UNESCO decided to observe 21 February as International Mother Language Day. The UNESCO General Conference took a decision to that took effect on 17 November 1999 when it unanimously adopted a draft resolution submitted by Bangladesh and co-sponsored and supported by 28 other countries.UNESCO's declaration of 21st February as the International Mother Language Day  has brought fresh glory and prestige to Bangladesh.