(originally posted on MySpace blog 2010)
Today is
Language Martyr Day or International Mother Tongue Day. This is a day in
Bangladesh that commemorates the language movement, especially those who died
for it.
History
Partition of India involved separating Muslim majority areas from those that were Hindu majority due to communal tensions. Some people wanted it, some people did not. Unfortunately it still happened.
Two pieces of India were carved out to form West and East Pakistan, 1000 miles apart with India in between. Logistical stupidity?
History
Partition of India involved separating Muslim majority areas from those that were Hindu majority due to communal tensions. Some people wanted it, some people did not. Unfortunately it still happened.
Two pieces of India were carved out to form West and East Pakistan, 1000 miles apart with India in between. Logistical stupidity?
East Pakistan was made mainly out of East Bengal, leaving West Bengal in India. Culturally and geographically East Pakistan had absolutely nothing in common with West Pakistan; religion did not unite two completely different peoples. That is not a dig at religion, people who are different cannot be united by it and what happened between West and East Pakistan shows this.
The mainstream Pakistan government decided that the state language should be Urdu, despite the fact East Pakistanis (East Bengalis) clearly were the majority population wise. I.e. there were more speakers of Bengali than Urdu.
There were many protests against this decision. Students died. This is where Language Martyr Day comes from. One should have the right to be able to speak their mother tongue; one culture should not suppress another.
1947-1971 West and East Pakistan still did try to exist together, but for many reasons it did not work. Eventually war broke out and acts of genocide. The Bangladesh Genocide is the forgotten genocide, after the Holocaust it's one of the biggest: 3 million dead.
The West Pakistan Army decided that the problem was Bengali Culture, that by destroying it that would help create a unified West/East Pakistan. People were brainwashed into thinking Bengali culture was not Islamic. But Urdu containing a few words of Arabic is an Islamic language, even though it's derived from Persian and Hindi languages that had nothing to do with the Arabs.
Hindus that had not migrated were targeted at first. To the point that if they were unable to tell if a man was Muslim or Hindu they would check to see if they were circumcised. If you have a foreskin you're going to die, otherwise we might let you live.
Then the intelligentsia. People who were considered the intellectuals of East Bengal society were rounded up. Killed for their art. My Mother tells me stories of going into hiding, not only themselves but their books. They were not allowed to show any signs of being an educated family. Imagine being killed for being able to read a book?
After a bitter war and help from India, East Pakistan became independent as Bangladesh in 1971. A secular country united by a common culture rather than just religion. Secularism – the way forward is together. Unfortunately these events are being forgotten, and worse still the current Bangladesh government has done nothing to bring those who collaborated to justice. Worse still the crazy religious extremism that lead to the genocides has not completely died, which is a bit sad considering how many people died.
Anyways I am writing this rather sombre blog as me doing my part to make sure these events are not forgotten. This is what Language Martyr Day is about. Please Re-Tweet, please forward, awareness is in our hands.
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