A steady, sure blossoming of Bengali nationalism
A new work on 1952, says Syed Badrul Ahsan, reinforces our sense of history
There have been all the analyses of the events and incidents that led to the Language Movement of 1952. You could therefore ask if there is any particular need at this point for a new interpretation or presentation of the case for the Bengali language. Of course, there is, if the work you have in hand is AMA Muhith's. There is a particular charm in reading this book, and it is that the writer goes to extraordinary lengths to examine the political situation obtaining in Pakistan before and after the tragic deaths of Bengali young men on the streets of Dhaka on 21 February 1952. In conditions where much of haze yet dominates our understanding of the nature of the movement that reached a climax in 1952, Muhith does an exemplary job of researching the micro as well as macro aspects of the old struggle. Take the matter of Dhirendranath Dutta's early advocacy of Bangla in the Pakistan constituent assembly in the early part of 1948. His robust defence of the language is by now part of history. But what may not be known among very large sections of Bengalis is the serious nature of the debate in the consembly that followed Dutta's arguments for Bengali as Pakistan's state language. It was none other than Liaquat Ali Khan, the country's prime minister and therefore leader of the house, who first unwittingly pointed to the trauma that lay ahead for the country. He spotted in Dutta's ideas the seeds of a conspiracy against Pakistan, indeed against what he called its ideology. Remember that such conspiracy theories were to take bigger dimensions over the years, until the Bengalis of East Pakistan would decide to do away with the state crafted in 1947 in favour of their own, indigenous Bangladesh. Muhith records the arrogance of Mohammad Ali Jinnah, through the governor general's address at the convocation of Dhaka University in March 1948. It becomes rather clear that Jinnah, whose stubborn clear-headedness till August 1947 had endeared him to large numbers of Muslims in the subcontinent, was suddenly to go out of touch with reality when the state language issue came up soon after the creation of Pakistan. In very clear terms, Jinnah himself sowed the seeds of Pakistan's eventual destruction through his demonstration of hauteur on the language issue in Dhaka. The bigger tragedy is that those who came after him --- and quite a few of them were Bengalis --- seemed rather content to uphold his legacy, whatever it was, and go on to argue that since Urdu was the language of Muslims (?), it was only proper that Bengalis accept it as a fait accompli. Men like Fazlur Rahman had little compunction in pitting themselves against their own people and go the way of Jinnah and Liaquat Ali Khan. Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy, in the early 1950s, spoke up in defence of Urdu but soon backtracked when a young Sheikh Mujibur Rahman travelled all the way to Karachi and made him change his mind. And then there were the comical aspects of the situation as well. Quite a few Pakistanis, taken in by thoughts of a needed compromise or golden mean to be arrived at, quickly went into making a case for Arabic as the language of the state. Fortunately, no one paid much attention to such quirky behaviour. Among the Bengalis, Dr. Mohammad Shahidullah, Professor Abul Kashem and Abul Mansur Ahmed realised early on that a foisting of Urdu on Bengali society was fraught with danger and so resistance needed to be concerted and purposeful. Muhith's research examines the role of the Tamaddun Majlis in the language movement in pretty graphic detail. One of the more significant sides to the telling of the language tale is the overall political situation prevailing between 1947 and 1956 that the writer brings into focus. The formation of the East Pakistan Muslim Students' League and the East Pakistan Students' Union, together with the changing patterns of politics, are necessary highlights of the work. The Khapra ward killings in Rajshahi jail in 1950, the inhuman torture meted out to Ila Mitra by the Pakistan government, et al, are part of the tale. And so are the details relating to developments as they occurred in the aftermath of the killings of 21 February 1952. The authorities, it is fair to suspect, with alacrity removed the bodies of many of those killed and disposed of them secretly. The corpses of only two of the victims, Abul Barkat and Rafiquddin Ahmed, could be brought to public knowledge. The recurring tale of the Shaheed Minar --- recurring because of the impediments and onslaughts involved in the building and sustenance of the monument --- comes in with all its details. The first Shaheed Minar came up overnight, as the author notes, on 23 February 1952 and was inaugurated by the father of the language martyr Shafiur Rahman. The minar was, however, demolished by the police and the army on 26 February. It was not until 21 February 1956 that the foundation for a new Shaheed Minar was laid, by East Bengal Chief Minister Abu Hussain Sarkar. Concrete planning relating to the construction of the memorial could not, however, be undertaken until the coming into office of the government led by the Awami League's Ataur Rahman Khan later in the year. And then, for a brief period, the Khan government lost its support in the provincial assembly and went out of office. It came back soon after. But before it could once again move on the Shaheed Minar issue, Pakistan went under what would be its first spell of martial law. Ironically, it was General Azam Khan who as East Pakistan's military governor in 1962 took the initiative of building a Shaheed Minar. By the time the memorial came up in February 1963, Azam Khan was out of power owing to differences with Ayub Khan. On 25 March 1971, the Shaheed Minar became one of the earliest targets of the genocidal Pakistan army, which swiftly demolished it and placed a few bricks on the spot, the sinister purpose being to erect a mosque there! The Shaheed Minar was rebuilt in hurried manner soon after liberation in December 1972. On 21 February 1972, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman led the nation in paying tributes to the martyrs of 1952 at the rebuilt memorial. State Language Movement stands enriched further through the appendices Muhith brings in. The constituent assembly debate on Bengali on 25 February 1948, Jinnah's convocation address on 24 March 1948, Dr. Shahidullah's presidential speech at a literary conference in Dhaka on 31 December 1948 and the constituent assembly debate on language on 10 April 1952 are all useful appendages to the story. And they certainly solidify the scholarly structure on which AMA Muhith's work stands.
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