Bold part: Jinnah's assertion to impose Urdu at the federal level was very wrong. Bengali people did not read, write or speak in Urdu. All of them were educated in English and Bengali when Pakistan was formed in 1947.
Jimmah himself did not speak Urdu. He was a Pakka Sahib always speaking in English. Anyway, with this introduction of Urdu at the Federal level all the Bengali-speaking educated people would have become fully uneducated by this new standard.
Almost all the civil govt jobs would have gone to non-Bengalis from India and almost all the military jobs to Pathan and Punjabis. It would have made Bengalis a 4th class citizen of Pakistan instead of 3rd class that we enjoyed in the name of the same religion.
I personally speak, read and write Urdu much better than some half-educated Punjabis and Pathans. I got Letter Marks in Urdu in my matriculation. But, I personally do not think Urdu should have been imposed on us by force.
It was a wrong decision taken by Jinnah and the Muslim League top-ups.
Exactly you have summed and wrapped what I was thinking in a decorative box with a ribbon.
In addition to this the elite rulling paks made no plan or program to mass rapid/effective system and facilty for bengalis to adopt urdu quickly.
Then we have possibly Bhutto remarks or conversations, wishing he could off load e.p.
To it seemed like a conspiracy to marginalise bengalis.
I agree @bluesky bhai. But a compromise and a partial reprieve or solution could have been reached. The fact that it was not, speaks to the rigidity of both sides which is unfortunate. Maybe we could have accepted English as a common language.
I can say that even today, if you go to Tamil Nadu or Kerala, most people don't speak Hindi. That does not mean that they have stopped agreeing to be part of the Indian Union, as fragile as it is. I see protests to this day in the south of India against Hindi as a cultural and linguistic tool that they are only partially accepting.
The difficulty of imposing common languages is quite tough in certain areas where cultural (especially educational and literary) traditions are strong. But Indians and RAW used it from 1947 as a continual tool to break up Pakistan and to alienate both wings. Bengali good and Urdu bad. It did not stay limited to job prospects only.
Every Hijabi was weird and every religious Muslim person was a terrorist to chetonabadis. And of course Pakistan is an enemy entity. Pakistanis are exploiters.
Chetona people in Bangladesh use the same tropes as the RSS and VHP in India do against Muslims. It is a long term plan and Chetona people in Bangladesh are implementers of this plan. This brainwashing continues to this day, Recently we have seen some fascist Hindu school headmaster ba$tards import Indian syllabus textbooks from India using Bangladeshi funds to teach local Muslim kids about Hindu deities. There was an uproar and it got flushed in the media. These Hindu fascists in Bangladesh are getting bolder and bolder by the day - thanks to Hasina.
They never know when to stop.
You for getting the fact that it very obvious that ruling elite of pak thought bengalis as lesser. Also spent decades economically exploiting e.p.
Places like tamil nadu and other places in the South are actually richer and have better standard of living in some places on the north.
You can't just cherry pick.
Systematic racism, conspiracy to marginalise, and previous year of economics exploitation.
It all adds up.
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