Prime Minister Khwajaj Nazimuddin visited East Bengal in January, 1952, and addressed a public meeting on the 26th of January where he declared that Urdu alone must be the State Language of Pakistan.
On the night of February 20, Zahedul Huq, Shelley, Gazi, Sultan, Mansur of Naogaon and I sat by the pond of Fazlul Haque Hall to discuss what can be done the next day.
A meeting of the [Muslim League] parliamentary party was going on in the assembly hall on February 21, 1952, and I heard the gunshot during that meeting.
Around 9:00am on February 21, 1952, members of the State Language Action Committee were informed that Dhaka University students were not in agreement with the decisions taken by it and they had decided to break the law if necessary.
Ekushey . . . Before and After the Shootings
Syed Badrul Ahsan
21st February, 2021 02:52:58
Dhirendranath Dutta rose in the Pakistan Constituent Assembly on 25 February 1948 in defence of Bangla. He was shouted down by Liaquat Ali Khan. On 21 March 1948, speaking in Dhaka, Pakistan’s founder Mohammad Ali Jinnah, in clear disregard of Bengali sentiments, asserted that Urdu alone would be the state language of Pakistan.
The road to disaster was beginning to be paved.
Observe Ratan Lal Chakrabarty’s work, Bhasha Andoloner Dolilpotro (Documents of the Language Movement), a revealing record of the happenings leading to Ekushey 1952 and beyond.
Prior to the tragic happenings of February 1952, elements unwilling to acknowledge the primacy of the Bengali language in Pakistan went all the way voicing their determination to keep what they called the Pakistan ideology intact. The consequences were sometimes hilarious. There was the Aga Khan, with his bizarre suggestion that as a way o