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A Tribute to International Mother Language Day (21st February)

Just go n ask them whether they are happy with that or not!!! I know many pathans and other non punjabi pakistanis those who are fed up with the Punjabi pakistanis and even said that F**k those punjabis, I do not want to hear about them. This is the reality.

No one has the right to take any sensitive decision such as this without consulting with the local population.

Language always play a bigger role if you have love with your own language and it has a glorified and rich history. Urdu is fairly a new language and alien to the local people of Bangladesh.

Just look at the same manner in Quebec of Canada... no one wants to speak any other language other then French. Even though English is widely used in Canada.

In Europe no one will talk with you in any other language if they can see that you have idea about their language.

Last of all Pakistan was totally a project of the Bengali people from A-Z. So, the Punjabi ruler should be aware of the sensitivity of the Bengali people.

This went from a discussion about language to a rant against Punjabis.
It does sadden me that you hate an entire group of people just by the actions of a few "leaders"
To prevent this from going off topic, lets bring it back to langue.

The Problem with declaring Benglai a national laguage is the same problem as allowing every ethnicity to have a province. Where does it end?
Okay Bengali is an official language, well now Punjabis want it too, then the Sindis, then Pathans, then Baloch, then all the other hundreds of ethnic minorities.
Urdu was the perfect language since it was not native to any one province, so it was not showing favoritism, and it was a common language spoken by millions of people from all ethnic backgrounds.

For some reason Bengalis took this too personally.
 
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This is written by Salman Azmi, Son of Golam Azam Jamayat E Islam chief in 1971!

Today, the 21st February, marks a significant point in the global calendar. Exactly sixty years ago some brave men laid down their lives for Bangladesh (then known as East Pakistan), so that Bangla could be established as a state language. It is a tragic tale with a happy ending as Bangla eventually achieved the status it deserved, albeit at the cost of valuable lives. Later, the international community recognised the significance of this day as UNESCO declared it ‘International Mother Language Day’ in honour of the Bangladeshi struggle.

When the British invaded the region, Pakistan, Bangladesh and India were part of a single nation. However, when the colonisers finally left almost two centuries later, two new nations emerged, India and Pakistan, on the basis of the ‘two-nations theory’ with the Muslim majority areas under Pakistan and the Hindu majority areas under India. Pakistan was divided into East and West, separated by India – two regions geographically apart with distinct languages and cultures, yet sharing Islam as the common religion of the majority.

An inevitable consequence of the emergence of a new nation state is the establishment of one language as the national or state language that would enjoy official status in education, politics, media, administration etc. People in the newly created nations, India and Pakistan, spoke hundreds of languages between them. It is always a tricky situation for policy makers to choose an official language due to the wider implications it may have by granting pre-eminence to one language, and with it its culture, over others. The policy makers of India came up with a pragmatic ‘three-language formula’ to cater for the multilingual context of the country. Hindi was made the national language, English retained its high position and was made a co-official language, and each state was allowed to choose a state language on the basis of the lingua franca of the region. As many as 15 languages (later raised to 18) were incorporated in the Indian constitution as ‘official’ languages.

In contrast, the policy makers of Pakistan decided on a more repressive approach, one that spelled a recipe for a disaster. Completely disregarding the demographic make up of the country, they attempted to impose Urdu as the only state language. It is obvious that the language of the ruling class often achieves the status of ‘official’, ‘national’ or ‘prestigious’ language. This also occurred in India where Hindi was the language of the people who ran the government. However, the Pakistani regime decided that there would be only one state language: Urdu. It is important to note that Urdu is a minority language even in present day Pakistan with little over 7% of the population speaking it as their mother tongue. In 1948, when the language issue began to unfold, there were 69 million people in East Pakistan, the majority of whom spoke Bangla as their mother tongue, and 44 million in West Pakistan, the majority of whom did not speak Urdu as their first language. Yet, the policy makers decided that Urdu would become the only state language.

The founder of Pakistan, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, declared in his famous speech at Dhaka Race Course on 21 March 1948 that “Urdu and Urdu alone shall be the state language of Pakistan.” It was a telling irony that his statement was made in English and that he came from a Gujarati speaking background. Jinnah’s announcement sparked huge outcry among the already agitated Bengali population of the East. Later that year, on 27 November, the then General Secretary of Dhaka University Students’ Union, Ghulam Azam, presented a memorandum to Pakistan’s Prime Minister Liakat Ali Khan at Gymnasium Ground, Dhaka University, demanding Bangla to be the state language of Pakistan. However, the petition received nothing but denouncement.

The struggle for the Bengali language continued for the next few years. On 27January 1952 things took a dramatic turn after Khwaja Nazimuddin, the then Prime Minister of Pakistan, reiterated with his predecessor’s statement that Urdu be the only state language. The leaders of the ‘Language Action Committee’ in East Pakistan decided to call a hartal (general strike) and organised demonstrations and processions on 21 February throughout East Pakistan. The government imposed a ban on demonstrations, a ban the people defied. Police fired upon the defiant activists, killing several with more killed on the following day. These activists would come to be known as the ‘martyrs’ of the language movement and a monument, the ‘Shaheed Minar’, would later be erected in their memory. Four years later, on 16 February 1956, the struggle for language rights eventually succeeded as the National Assembly of Pakistan amended the previous legislation and declared both Urdu and Bangla as state languages.

On 17 November 1999, UNESCO proclaimed 21 February as the International Mother Language Day to commemorate the sacrifices of those people who sought to establish one of their fundamental human rights – the right to use their mother tongue. However, the significance of this day is far greater in the present context. The world is now witnessing a catastrophic decline in languages. It is estimated that more than half of the approximate 7000 languages in the world will be dead by the turn of the present century. One language is dying every two weeks. A staggering 96% of the world population speaks only 4% of the world languages. Considered the other way round, 96% of the world languages are spoken by only 4% of people. When a language dies, its culture dies with it. If the present trend continues, the world will lose half of its culture in less than a hundred years, a catastrophic loss in a shockingly short space of time.

The history of the Bangla language movement teaches us an important lesson. The governments of the world have an intrinsic responsibility to ensure the linguistic right of their citizens. The Pakistani language policy was an extreme case, where a majority community was deprived of its linguistic right. However, many smaller languages are dying around the world due to the negligence of the policy makers in those countries. UNESCO’s declaration of ‘International Mother Language Day’ was made more than 12 years ago, yet, we still don’t have any ‘Universal Declaration of Linguistic Right’. Linguists feel that people have the right to preserve their mother tongue, but this human right is not yet ensured by any UN charter.

It is true that many languages will naturally die, but with some effort by governments around the world, a large number of the endangered languages can be saved. We often consider factors such as economy and environment as key issues to preserve, but ignore the fact that language and culture are integral parts of our existence which can’t be materially measured. Can we imagine the loss the world will endure when the last speaker of a language passes away, taking with them the culture of that language which the world can never reclaim?
 
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This went from a discussion about language to a rant against Punjabis.
It does sadden me that you hate an entire group of people just by the actions of a few "leaders"
To prevent this from going off topic, lets bring it back to langue.

The Problem with declaring Benglai a national laguage is the same problem as allowing every ethnicity to have a province. Where does it end?
Okay Bengali is an official language, well now Punjabis want it too, then the Sindis, then Pathans, then Baloch, then all the other hundreds of ethnic minorities.
Urdu was the perfect language since it was not native to any one province, so it was not showing favoritism, and it was a common language spoken by millions of people from all ethnic backgrounds.

For some reason Bengalis took this too personally.

Bengali people were approximately 60% of total Pakistani population. So their demand and identity could not ignored just by equating them with tiny minority. Obviously pakistan is divided into different provinces. What was necessary is to build more people to people connection. Making Urdu and Bengali as both official language would not destroy anything but would bring every one closer.

This is utter nonsense if anyone try to advocate to take decision without taking into account 60% of the total polation of a country even without consulting with them.
 
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woah woah hold up. Lets got get carried away.
not being an official language did not mean you lost your identity. Did Punjab, Sind, Balochistan, or Kyber lose their Identity?

Do you know who lost their Identity? The natives of America and Australia. They were forbidden to speak their language and forced to speak English.

No one ever told Bengalis to not speak their language.

Well, case of Sindh it is not true, there always had been tensions between Muhajirs and Sindhis. In 1972 there was a language riot in whole of Sindh after Sindh Assembly made Sindhi as official language of province along with Urdu. There are many cases of clash in Sindh since 1947. I even read about incident where Sindhis defaced Urdu signboards in Sindh University perhaps in Hyderabad in 50s or 60s.
 
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@kobiraaz this is interesting that Jammat has released this new video portraying Gulham Azam as a soldier at the language movement and Awamileague as an Indian dalal and shama on Bangladesh. Have a look at this video...

 
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Bengali people were approximately 60% of total Pakistani population. So their demand and identity could not ignored just by equating them with tiny minority. Obviously pakistan is divided into different provinces. What was necessary is to build more people to people connection. Making Urdu and Bengali as both official language would not destroy anything but would bring every one closer.

This is utter nonsense if anyone try to advocate to take decision without taking into account 60% of the total polation of a country even without consulting with them.

You are right, in a democracy people should be consulted. But not only 60% but ALL 100%
It seems like you believe the 40% conspired against you. When in fact Jinnah was the one who made Urdu the national langue. He did not consult anyone, so there was no conspiracy here.
And it seems to me like you believe Bengalis were only large ethnicity in Pakistan. I would hardly call the Punjabi population a tiny minority, or even the pathan population.

At the end of the day I honestly feel that Bengalis made a mountain out of a molehill and they felt like they deserved special treatment for being a slight majority. To this day Punjabis, who are now the largest group, have not demanded for Punjabi to be an official language.

Bengali is a wonderful language filled with great history and literature, but so is every other language and I don't see why it should have gotten special attention.
 
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Will he accept Bd's citizenship and play for our national team? He and Tameem will make dynamite opening partners. :azn:

after his bpl performance...... he will be included again in Pak national team...... atleast in t20.... soon.....
 
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@kobiraaz this is interesting that Jammat has released this new video portraying Gulham Azam as a soldier at the language movement and Awamileague as an Indian dalal and shama on Bangladesh. Have a look at this video...


Brother, Golam Azam was indeed a soldier of the language movement. The BAL and some of their budhijibi nutcases want to
hide this fact for reasons people know all too well.
 
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Brother, Golam Azam was indeed a soldier of the language movement. The BAL and some of their budhijibi nutcases want to
hide this fact for reasons people know all too well.

reason is they want 2 keep bengali nationalism

like kemalism in turkey
 
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reason is they want 2 keep bengali nationalism

like kemalism in turkey

But kemalism had almost ruined turkey before it was rescued by AKP. Kemalism failed and this awami bengali nationalism will also
fail.

---------- Post added at 01:07 AM ---------- Previous post was at 01:07 AM ----------

reason is they want 2 keep bengali nationalism

like kemalism in turkey

But kemalism had almost ruined turkey before it was rescued by AKP. Kemalism failed and this awami bengali nationalism will also
fail.
 
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]
Last of all Pakistan was totally a project of the Bengali people from A-Z. So, the Punjabi ruler should be aware of the sensitivity of the Bengali people.

So M. Jinnah, the main architect behind the creation of Pakistan was a Bengali? :what:
 
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