It was early spring in Dhaka, the then capital
of the province of East Bengal in Pakistan. Students from the University of
Dhaka started gathering for a protest on 21st February 1952. The
protest was a result of more than four years of petitions and requests to give
Bengali the status of the national language. A resolution passed in 1947 in
Karachi made Urdu the only national language. This meant approximately two
thirds (44 million Bengali speaking people out of 69 million Pakistanis) of the
population was rendered illiterate and ineligible for government jobs. The
Bengalis saw this as an attempt by West Pakistani political machinery to
dominate them and eradicate their rich cultural and linguistic history.
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The February protests obviously did not go down
well with the administration. Section 144 was imposed to prevent “unlawful”
assembly by protesters. Students were arrested and teargas was fired. In their
attempt to meet the legislators the students faced gun fire and many were
killed. The iron hold of the administration to stifle the movement was
understandable. In 1948, none other than the Qaid himself has declared that Urdu and Urdu alone represents the spirit
of a Muslim nation.
The language movement or Bhasha Andolan as it
was called in Bengali lasted for another four years and the issue was settled
with a constitutional amendment of 29th February 1956. Bengali was
accepted as the second national language of Pakistan. The issue may have been
settled constitutionally but it continued to be controversial. During the Martial
Law imposed by Ayub Khan, attempts were made to reverse the constitutional
amendment but it did not succeed.
Bengali was not the only reason for the
bitterness between the eastern and western halves of Pakistan. It had much to
do with the assumed racial supremacy of West Pakistanis over their eastern
brethren. The army was dominated by recruits from West Pakistan and state aid
hardly reached the flood and cyclone prone East Pakistan. Amidst all this the
final blow came with the overwhelming victory of Sheikh Mujibur Rehman’s Awami
League in the general elections of 1970. West Pakistan never allowed the
transfer of power to the legitimate contender, leading to a standoff between
Mujibur Rehman and West Pakistan. It led to the Bangladesh’s liberation in 1971
and a humiliating defeat of Pakistan. Ironically the instrument of surrender
was signed at the Ramana Race Course, the same place from where the Qaid has
once declared that Urdu alone represents the spirit of a Muslim nation.
The polarisation unleashed by Urdu proved to be
stronger than the Two Nation Theory on which Pakistan was created. The
liberation of Bangladesh was proof that the Two Nation Theory was not only
flawed but failed to act as the cohesive bond between the two halves of
Pakistan.
The dominance of Urdu in Pakistan happened at
the expense of local languages like Punjabi, Baluchi and Sindhi. A section of
undivided India, which had many different languages was forced to accept an
alien language. A language, which the elite imported from India, a country they
refused to call their own.
Urdu influenced literature in much of Northern
India and continues to do so. It has given us poets like Ghalib and Mir. It was
once the language of the Delhi elite and represented the high culture of
cities. Sadly, the language that once incited romance also incited hatred and
bloodshed.
