Bangladesh's independence came as the culmination of a long struggle, the movement for the designation of Bengali as a state language marked its beginning
The declaration of Bangladesh’s independence on March 26, 1971, came as the culmination of a long struggle, which had its embryonic beginning in the movement for the recognition of Bengali as one of Pakistan’s state languages. The first shot was fired by Pakistan’s central education Minister, Fazlur Rahman, when he said in late 1947 that Urdu would be Pakistan’s sole state language. The angry reaction that followed in East Bengal — subsequently renamed East Pakistan in 1955 — led to the introduction of a resolution in Pakistan’s Constituent Assembly on February 23, 1948, the first day of its session, to make Bengali a state language. Its rejection triggered a massive upsurge of anger in East Bengal, which became fervid during Mohammad Ali Jinnah’s visit to it from March 19 to 28, 1948, and reiteration that Urdu would be Pakistan’s sole state language.
The lull that ensued was broken following the publicisation of Pakistan’s Constitutional Basic Principles Committee’s interim report on September 28, 1950, stating that Urdu would be Pakistan’s only state language. The revived movement reached its peak after Khwaja Nazimuddin, who had become Prime Minister following liaquat Ali’s assassination on October 16, 1948, read out the bit in Jinnah’s Dhaka speech about Urdu being Pakistan’s sole official language and denounced those demanding Bengali as a state language as “provincialists” and, as such, enemies of the Pakistani state.
A series of meetings and demonstrations followed, culminating in a general strike throughout East Bengal on February 21, 1952. During the course of it, the police fired on Dhaka University’s students, who were at the forefront of the agitation, killing four of them — Rafiq, Barkat, Jabbar and Salam — who have become iconised as the martyrs of the language movement. life in many parts of East Bengal, including Dhaka, came to a standstill on the 22nd when two were killed in police firing and 45 injured in lathi charges and teargassing.
The movement intensified throughout East Bengal in the next few days with shops and offices closed, train and bus services paralysed over wide area as Dhaka simmered with discontent. The severe repression that the Government then unleashed caused the failure of the general strike called in Dhaka on March 5, 1952. The movement, however, had by then reached even remote corners of East Bengal and gradually assumed the character of a human tidal wave that could not be held back. Ultimately, Pakistan’s Constituent Assembly decided on April 19, 1954, that both Urdu and Bengal would be Pakistan’s state languages.
By then, the bulk of East Bengal’s population had become deeply alienated from Pakistan’s federal Government which, it felt, was bent on treating East Bengal as a colony. Here again, an important part was played by the publication of the Constitutional Basic Principles Committee’s interim report, which provided for a Constitution that, if promulgated, would have neutralised East Pakistan’s numerical superiority in the areas of administration and governance and put it completely under West Pakistan’s domination, besides creating a presidency whose incumbents, by virtue of the arbitrary powers vested in their office, could easily make themselves dictators.
The widespread protest agitation that followed forced Prime Minister liaquat Ali Khan to announce on November 21, 1950, that further discussion on the committee’s report was being postponed to give an opportunity to those wanting to make specific recommendations to amend the Constitution. Whatever pacifying effect it might have had on East Bengal was, however, offset by the continuing language movement and growing opposition to the Muslim league, which was identified with the central Government and efforts by its West Pakistani leadership to maintain its domination had led to splits and formation of other parties. Maulana Bhashani, Shamsul Huq, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and others set up the Awami Muslim league in June, 1949. AK Fazlul Huq revived his Krishak Praja Party as Krishak Shramik Party in August, 1953.
A United Front, that the two parties combined to form in December, 1953, swept the 1954 elections, winning 228 of the 237 seats reserved for Muslims in East Bengal. The victory was a landmark event in the history of the liberation movement. The most important elements in the statement read out by Maulana Bhashani after the formation of the United Front were demands for full autonomy for East Bengal with the central Government being responsible for defence, foreign affairs and currency regulation; the recognition of Bengali as a state language; and the declaration of February 21 as a national holiday to commemorate the martyrdom of the four Dhaka University students in police firing during the language movement.
Pakistan’s central Government dismissed the UF Government following two events. The first was a statement by Fazlul Huq, head of the UF Government, in Kolkata in the previous month, that we “are fellow workers in a common cause. If we have the common cause in view, it is idle to say that I am a Bengali, someone is a Bihari, someone is a Pakistani, and someone is something else.” Stating that India existed as a whole, he had added, “I shall dedicate my services to the cause of the motherland and work with those who will try to win for India — Hindustan and Pakistan — a place among the countries of the world.” The second event was rioting between Bengali and non-Bengali workers in Karnafuli, Chittagong, which led to several hundred deaths.
Dismissal was followed by the dispatch of defence secretary, Iskander Mirza, as Governor and 10,000 troops to maintain order. East Bengal was further alienated, and the struggle for autonomy, spearheaded by a rising middle class, intensified. Things did not improve even though Pakistan’s Constitution, promulgated in 1956, recognised Bengali as Pakistan’s state language along with Urdu. If anything, Ayub Khan’s military dictatorship (1958-68) made matters worse. Its authoritarian character could not be camouflaged by the spurious representative rule — “Basic Democracy” — introduced in March, 1962.
The process of political repression, economic exploitation and cultural imperialism became even worse. Monaem Khan, Governor of East Pakistan from 1962 to 1968, banned public meetings, censored the Press, controlled radio programmes, banned the import of books and films from West Bengal and the broadcast of Tagore songs from Dhaka radio. These measures and the perceived neglect of East Pakistan’s defence during the India-Pakistan war of 1965, only strengthened East Pakistan’s demand for autonomy, which found a dramatic expression in the famous six-point prorgramme announced by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman on February 12, 1966.
The rest is recent history — the Sheikh’s arrest in 1967, the Pakistani Government’s institution of the Agartala Conspiracy Case against him and 34 others in 1968, Ayub Khan’s ouster by a huge mass movement, Awami league’s victory in the elections to Pakistan’s National Assembly held on December 7, 1970, attempts by the military authorities and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto to prevent the Awami league from forming Government, and, finally the military crackdown, marked by mass murder, rape and pillage unleashed by Pakistan’s rogue Army scripting a new chapter in the history of human savagery. The carnage, which soon assumed the proportions of a genocide, marked the beginning of the desperate last attempt by West Pakistan to retain its control over what was then East Pakistan. It failed. With India’s comprehensive victory in its 1971 war with Pakistan providing the decisive push, Bangladesh finally threw off its colonial yoke on December 16, 1971. It, however, had to play a terrible price — three million people killed, over 400,000 women raped and 10 million people made refugees in India, by the Pakistani Army.
(The writer is Consultant Editor, The Pioneer, and an author)
