Advocate Md. Raihan Ali: The Bengali nation has a lot of history and tradition in establishing the state language Bengali.  The whole world has witnessed the history of many sacrifices, sacrifices and glory of the people of this country for the protection of mother tongue Bengali. The mother tongue Bengali has been the historical language of the people of this country.  I snatched and rescued the language of mother`s mouth. The month of February is sad on one hand but has a glorious chapter on the other.  Because the only nation in the world gave its life for the Bengali language this month. Various songs, poems and stories have been written about the 21st of February.  Fazle Lohani wrote in his Ekushey poem, ‘There was a procession in the city that day.  The world did not turn upside down that day; it moved forward.Everyone heard - killed, killed.Two drops of water have flowed from my mother`s eyes on the way to Ramna. `The partition of British India on the basis of biracial theory in 1947 resulted in the emergence of two independent states, the Kingdom of Pakistan and the Kingdom of India.  Pakistan had two parts, East Bengal or East Pakistan and West Pakistan.  There are cultural, geographical and linguistic differences between the two parts of Pakistan, which are more than two thousand kilometers apart.In 1947, the Government of Pakistan declared East Pakistan and East Bengal as part of Islamization and Arabization, proposing that Urdu would be the only state language of the whole of Pakistan. In the context of this announcement, deep anxiety and resentment arose among the Bengali-speaking common people in East Bengal and caused a backlash.  In fact, the Bengali-speaking people of East Bengal could not accept this sudden and unreasonable decision and were not mentally prepared at all.As a result, the movement for the equal status of Bengali language in East Bengal or East Pakistan quickly gained momentum. In order to suppress this logical movement, the police issued section 144 and declared processions, rallies etc. illegal and prohibited in Dhaka city. Disobeying this order on 21 February 1952, a large number of students of DhakaUniversity and some progressive political activists started a protest procession. As the procession approached the DhakaMedicalCollege, police opened fire on protesters on the pretext of insulting Section 144. Some of our protesting son Sonar Damal was killed in the procession that day.We have all read the history of language in the textbook.  I have been reading books since my childhood, Salam, Rafiq, Jabbar, Shafiur and many others were martyred in the police firing in the procession on 21st February.

 Besides, 18 students and youths were injured. The highways became stained with the blood of the martyrs.  The shock of this tragic event caused great anger in the whole of East Bengal.  Protests erupted across the country in protest of the February 21 student killings.

The Shaheed Minar was built overnight by the students on the premises of the Medical College Hostel to preserve the memory of the martyrs of the language movement.In the face of the ongoing mass movement, the central government of Pakistan was finally forced to accept the demands of the protesters.  Bengali was adopted as one of the state languages ​​in the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan on 7 May 1954.  When the first constitution of Pakistan was enacted in 1956, Article 214 mentioned Bengali and Urdu as the state languages ​​of Pakistan. Later, when Bangladesh became independent in 1971, Bengali was introduced as the only state language. To ensure the use of Bengali at all levels, the Government of Bangladesh enacted the Bangla Language Introduction Act in 1986.  On 16 November 1999, UNESCO declared 21st February as the International Mother Language Day in honor of the Bengali language movement, human language and cultural rights.  How much respect we are giving to our mother tongue Bengali, which was rescued in exchange for fresh blood, what percentage of us are using Bengali, it remains a question considering the present time.Bengali Language Introduction Act, 1976 Act enacted in 1976 to fully implement the provisions of Article 3 of the Constitution of the People`s Republic of Bangladesh.  The law is Act No. 2 of 1986. Since the enactment of this law, all the laws of the Jatiya Sangsad are being framed in Bengali. According to this law, documents and correspondence from all government offices, courts, semi-government, autonomous bodies, questions and answers of law courts and other legal functions must be written in Bengali and if any person appeals or appeals in any language other than Bengali. If so, the application will be considered illegal and invalid.Despite the enactment of the `Bangla Language Introduction Act` on March 7, 1986 to ensure the use of Bengali language in all parts of the country, there is criticism in the public mind that the Supreme Court has not taken appropriate steps to implement the law.  Every year in February, discussions on the law are held in seminars and editorials are published in newspapers.  But no such result is observed later.Although the constitution of Bangladesh has guidelines for taking various necessary steps for the development of Bengali language, even after five decades of independence, Bengali language is not being used in all official functions of the state.  In most cases signboards, billboards, banners, nameplates, graffiti are written in English. The language of various government bills is not Bengali but English.  The miserable situation of Bengali language in different stages of mass media. In order to raise the standard of Bengali language, our Hon`ble Prime Minister has proposed to go to the United Nations and accept Bengali as the official language of the United Nations.  The use of Bengali language is decreasing and the use of English is increasing not only in government and non-government offices but also in almost all levels including law courts.In his inaugural address at the Bangla Academy`s one-week program on 15 February 1971, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman boldly declared:  Will.  We will not wait for the creation of terminology in this regard.  Because then it will never be possible to introduce Bangla.  In this case, maybe something went wrong, it doesn`t matter.  That`s the way to go. "According to Akbar Ali Khan, a former adviser to the caretaker government and former cabinet secretary, on the day Bangabandhu sat in office, he had to go to Bangabandhu with a document written in English.  Seeing the documents written in English, Bangabandhu expressed his excitement and asked whether he should see the documents written in English even in this independent country.  He then directed him to issue a notification to the effect that from now on all documents must be written in Bengali.Can`t we consider the language policies of the developed world countries like China, Japan, Germany, South America, Italy, Russia, France, Malaysia, Denmark, Belgium, Sweden, Vietnam, Finland to maintain the standard of this mother tongue everywhere?They are not leaving their national language and adopting English.  Neighboring country Nepal has a `language policy` which is taking advantage of the language of that country. To keep the standard of our mother tongue Bengali high, we have to officially introduce language policy.  Everybody should be enterprising in the office work of all the offices and courts of the country with necessary steps for the use of Bengali language everywhere.

Author: Md. Raihan Ali Advocate and Columnist, District Bar Association, Khulna. He can be reached at advrayhan520@gmail.com