Curzon Hall | |
---|---|
কার্জন হল | |
General information | |
Status | In use |
Location | Shahbagh Thana, Dhaka |
Country | Bangladesh |
Coordinates | 23°43′39″N90°24′07″E / 23.727389°N 90.401902°E |
Groundbreaking | 19 February 1904 |
Owner | University of Dhaka |
Curzon Hall is a British Raj-era building and the home of the Faculty of Sciences at the University of Dhaka, located in Shahbagh. [1]
The building was originally intended to be a town hall and is named after Lord Curzon, the Viceroy of India who laid its foundation stone in 1904. [1] Upon the establishment of Dacca University in 1921, it became the base of the university's science faculty.
In 1904 it was decided to shift Dhaka College to Nimatoli. Therefore, it is planned to construct this building as a college library near the proposed site for relocation. As a library, the building was named after the Governor General of British India, Lord Curzon, by the princes of Bhawal Estate who paid 0.15 million rupees. On 19 February that year, Lord Curzon came to Dhaka and laid its foundation stone. The following year, as the partition of Bengal was finalized, a new province called East Bengal and Assam was formed with Dhaka as its capital. As a result, the importance of Curzon Hall increased at that time. [2] The construction of Curzon Hall was completed in 1908. [3] After the abolition of the Partition of Bengal in 1911, Dhaka College classes started in Curzon Hall. [2] After the establishment of the University of Dhaka in 1921, Curzon Hall was transferred to the university and it included in the science department of the university. [4] During the Bengali Language Movement, 1948–1956, Curzon Hall was the location of various significant events. After the Partition of India in 1947 that formed the country of Pakistan, Urdu was chosen to be the sole state language. In 1948, the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan chose Urdu and English as the only languages to be used to address the assembly, which was protested within the assembly on the grounds that the majority of the people spoke Bangla and not Urdu. [5] Students of the university objected instantly to the actions of the Constituent Assembly, [5] and it was in Curzon Hall that they declared their opposition to the state language policy. [1]
The Botanical Garden of the university is located on the premises of Curzon Hall, and is used by students and faculty for teaching botany and for scientific studies with plants. [6]
One of the best examples of Dhaka's architecture, it is a happy blend of European and Mughal elements, particularly noticeable in the projecting facade in the north which has both horse-shoe and cusped arches.[ citation needed ]
The Language Movement Day, officially called Language Martyrs' Day, is a national holiday of Bangladesh taking place on 21 February each year and commemorating the Bengali language movement and its martyrs. On this day, people visit Shaheed Minar to pay homage to the movement's martyrs and arrange seminars discussing and promoting Bengali as the state language of Bangladesh.
The Bengali language movement was a political movement in East Bengal in 1952, advocating the recognition of the Bengali language as a co-lingua franca of the then-Dominion of Pakistan to allow its use in government affairs, the continuation of its use as a medium of education, its use in media, currency and stamps, and to maintain its writing in the Bengali alphabet / Bengali script
Kushtia District is a district in the Khulna administrative division of western Bangladesh. Kushtia is the second largest municipality in Bangladesh and the eleventh largest city in the country. Kushtia has existed as a separate district since the partition of India. Prior to that, Kushtia was name of a subdivision of Nadia district. Kushtia is the birthplace of many historical figures including Mir Mosharraf Hossain (1847–1912), Bagha Jatin (1879–1915) and Lalon (1774–1890). Nobel laureate poet Rabindranath Tagore lived his early life at Shelaidaha, a village in the district.
Syed Ismail Hossain Siraji was a Bengali royal as well as an author and poet from Sirajganj in present-day Bangladesh. He is considered to be one of the key authors of period of the Bengali Muslim reawakening; encouraging education and glorifying the Islamic heritage. He also contributed greatly to introducing the Khilafat Movement in Bengal, and provided medical supplies to the Ottoman Empire during the Balkan Wars. Anal-Prabaha, his first poetry book, was banned by the government and he was subsequently imprisoned as the first South Asian poet to allegedly call for independence against the British Raj. The government issued Section 144 against him 82 times in his lifetime.
Dhaka (Dacca) is a modern megacity with origins dating from 500 BC to 200 BC. The history of Dhaka region begins with the existence of urbanised settlements that were ruled by Gupta Empire, Gauda Kingdom, Pala Empire and Chandra dynasty before passing to the control of the Sena dynasty in the 10th century CE. After the reign of Sena dynasty, the region was ruled by the Hindu Deva dynasty of Bikrampur.
Shahbagh is a major neighbourhood and a police precinct or thana in Dhaka, the capital and largest city of Bangladesh. It is also a major public transport hub. It is a junction between two contrasting sections of the city—Old Dhaka and New Dhaka—which lie, respectively, to its south and north. Developed in the 17th century during Mughal rule in Bengal, when Old Dhaka was the provincial capital and a centre of the flourishing muslin industry, it came to neglect and decay in early 19th century. In the mid-19th century, the Shahbagh area was developed as New Dhaka became a provincial centre of the British Raj, ending a century of decline brought on by the passing of Mughal rule.
Nawab Sir Khwaja Salimullah Bahadur was the fourth Nawab of Dhaka and one of the leading Muslim politicians during the British rule in India.
Raozan Upazila is an upazila of Chattogram District, in Chattogram Division, Bangladesh. It was established in August,1947.
Hakim Habibur Rahman was an Unani physician, litterateur, journalist, politician and chronicler in early 20th-century Dhaka.
The University of Dhaka was established in 1921 as the first university in East Bengal. Following demands from Nawab Sir Khwaja Salimullah Bahadur and others, Viceroy Lord Hardinge proposed on 2 February 1912, that a new university should be established in this partition of Bengal.
The Asiatic Society of Bangladesh is a non political and non profit research organisation registered under both Society Act of 1864 and NGO Affairs Bureau, Government of Bangladesh. The Asiatic Society of Bangladesh was established as the Asiatic Society of East Pakistan in Dhaka in 1952 by a number of Muslim leaders, and renamed in 1972. Ahmed Hasan Dani, a noted Muslim historian and archaeologist of Pakistan played an important role in founding this society. He was assisted by Muhammad Shahidullah, a Bengali linguist. The society is housed in Nimtali, walking distance from the Curzon Hall of Dhaka University, locality of Old Dhaka.
Government Bangla College is a public college located in the northwestern part of the Bangladesh capital Dhaka. The college was established in 1962 by Principal Abul Kashem to promote Bangla as a medium of instruction in higher education and to establish the language in all spheres of national life. It is affiliated with the University of Dhaka.
Mill Barrack is a former military barracks situated at Gendaria, Dhaka, Bangladesh, currently occupied by the Range Reserve Force of the Metropolitan Police. After the Indian Rebellion of 1857 it held the forces that had been located at Lalbagh Fort. It held one of two police training schools that were set up in Bengal in 1903, and is now used for training traffic police.
The University of Dhaka, also known as Dhaka University or DU, is a public research university located in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Established in 1921, it is the oldest active university in the country.
The divisions of Bangladesh are further divided into districts or zilas. The headquarters of a district is called the district seat. There are 64 districts in Bangladesh. The districts are further subdivided into 495 subdistricts or upazilas.
The national symbols of Bangladesh consist of symbols to represent Bangladeshi traditions and ideals that reflect the different aspects of the cultural life and history. Bangladesh has several official national symbols including a historic document, a flag, an emblem, an anthem, memorial towers as well as several national heroes. There are also several other symbols including the national animal, bird, flower, instrument and tree.
Sikhism in Bangladesh has an extensive heritage and history, although Sikhs had always been a minority community in Bengal. Their founder, Guru Nanak visited a number of places in Bengal in the early sixteenth century where he introduced Sikhism to locals and founded numerous establishments. In its early history, the Sikh gurus despatched their followers to propagate Sikh teachings in Bengal and issued hukamnamas to that region. Guru Tegh Bahadur lived in Bengal for two years, and his successor Guru Gobind Singh also visited the region. Sikhism in Bengal continued to exist during the colonial period as Sikhs found employment in the region, but it declined after the partition in 1947. Among the eighteen historical gurdwaras in Bangladesh, only five are extant. The Gurdwara Nanak Shahi of Dhaka is the principal and largest gurdwara in the country. The Sikh population in the country almost entirely consists of businessmen and government officials from the neighbouring Republic of India.
The Kohinoor was a Bengali language newspaper, first published in July 1898. Initially focusing on miscellaneous topics such as Islamic culture, its third relaunch was a pivot of Hindu-Muslim harmony. The paper targeted both Hindu and Muslim clientele.
The Tārīkh-i-Dāwūdī is a 16th-century Persian language document recording the administration of various Pashtun dynasties in South Asia. It was written by a historian named Abdullah. It starts with the Sultan Bahlul Khan Lodi of the Lodi dynasty of Delhi and ends with Sultan Daud Khan Karrani of the Karrani dynasty of Bengal. Information relating to the Afghan Sur dynasty can also be found in the book. Other than these Afghan dynasties, the book also contains poetry as well as a history of the Jaunpur Sultanate. The book is named after, dedicated to and was written at the court of Daud Khan Karrani. It has been translated into English and Urdu in 1969 by Shaikh Abdur Rashid and Iqtidar Husain Siddiqi of the Department of History of the Aligarh Muslim University.
Abū Naṣr Muḥammad Waḥīd, or simply Abu Nasr Waheed, was a Bengali Islamic scholar, educationist, author and politician. He is best known for his reformations to Islamic education in Bengal, and development of Arabic language education among Bengali Muslims. Wahid also served as the Education Minister of British Assam and a member of the Assam Legislative Assembly.