Every year, we take a step back to commemorate our gallant heroes who sacrificed their lives on the fateful day of February 21, 1952 in a bid to defend and uphold our mother tongue and secure it as state language.
Taking on the powerful state machinery of Pakistan, these young men defended the right of every Bengali citizen to speak their own language. In many respects, the language movement was more than a movement to defend the Bengali language; it was an endeavour to defend all that we hold dear in terms of national cultural identity. And now, for more than a decade, the whole world celebrates ‘Amor Ekushey’ with us in the name of International Mother Language Day. That alone should give us a lot of sense of pride to have the recognition of our identity.
In response to Khwaja Nazimuddin’s declaration on January 27, 1952 that only Urdu would be the state language of Pakistan, an all-out strike was organised in all schools and colleges in Dhaka on February 4.