Language Movement Day, also called State Language Day or 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 Minars 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 former East Bengal advocating the recognition of the Bengali language as an official language of the then-Dominion of Pakistan in order 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 script.
The Shaheed Minar is a national monument in Dhaka, Bangladesh, established to commemorate those killed during the Bengali Language Movement demonstrations of 1952 in then East Pakistan.
Jasimuddin, popularly called Palli Kabi, was a Bengali Bangladeshi poet, lyricist, composer and writer widely celebrated for his modern ballad sagas in the pastoral mode. His Nakshi Kanthar Math and Sojan Badiar Ghat are considered among the best lyrical poems in the Bengali language. He is the key figure for the revivals of pastoral literature in Bengal during the 20th century. A versatile writer, Jasimuddin wrote poems, ballads, songs, dramas, novel, stories, memoirs, travelogues, etc.
Abul Kasem Fazlul Huq popularly known as Sher-e-Bangla, was a Bengali statesman and jurist who served as the first Prime Minister of Bengal and later as the Home Minister of Pakistan. A key figure in Pakistan Movement, widely remembered for presenting Pakistan Resolution, he played major political roles in British India and later in Pakistan and held various other political offices.
Bangla Academy is an autonomous institution funded by Bangladesh government to promote and foster the Bengali language, literature and culture, to develop and implement national language policy and to do original research in the Bengali language. Established in 1955, it is located in Burdwan House in Ramna, Dhaka, within the grounds of the University of Dhaka and Suhrawardy Udyan. Bangla Academy hosts the annual Ekushey Book Fair.
Munier Choudhury was a Bangladeshi educationist, playwright, literary critic and political dissident. He was a victim of the mass killing of Bengali intellectuals in 1971. He was awarded Independence Day Award in 1980, by the then President Ziaur Rahman's government, posthumously.
Shahidullah Kaiser was a Bangladeshi novelist and writer. He was awarded Bangla Academy Literary Award in 1969, Ekushey Padak in 1983 and Independence Day Award in 1998.
East Bengal was a geographically noncontiguous province of the Dominion of Pakistan covering Bangladesh. With its coastline on the Bay of Bengal, it bordered India and Burma. It was located very near to, but did not share a border with, Nepal, China, the Kingdom of Sikkim and the Kingdom of Bhutan. Its capital was Dacca.
The Curzon Hall is a British Raj-era building and home of the Faculty of Sciences at the University of Dhaka.
The United Front was a coalition of political parties in East Bengal which contested and won Pakistan's first provincial general election to the East Bengal Legislative Assembly. The coalition consisted of the Awami Muslim League, the Krishak Praja Party, the Ganatantri Dal and Nizam-e-Islam. The coalition was led by three major Bengali populist leaders- A K Fazlul Huq, Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy and Maulana Bhashani. The election resulted in a crushing defeat for the Muslim League. Veteran student leader of East Pakistan Khaleque Nawaz Khan defeated sitting Prime Minister of East Pakistan Mr. Nurul Amin in Nandail Constituency of Mymensingh district and created history in political arena. Nurul Amin's crushing defeat to a 27 years old young Turk of Jukto Front effectively eliminated the Muslim League from political landscape of the then East Pakistan. United Front parties securing a landslide victory and gaining 223 seats in the 309-member assembly. The Awami League emerged as the majority party, with 143 seats.
Shafiur Rahman is considered in Bangladesh to be a martyr of the language movement which took place in the former East Pakistan.
The Ekushey Book Fair or Amar Ekushe Grantha Melā, popularly known as Ekushey Boi Mela is the national book fair of Bangladesh. It is arranged each year by Bangla Academy and takes place for the whole month of February in Dhaka. This event is dedicated to the martyrs who died on 21 February 1952 in a demonstration calling for the establishment of Bengali as one of the state languages of former East Pakistan.
Abdul Matin was a language activist of the Bengali Language Movement that took place in the erstwhile East Pakistan to make Bengali one of the state language of Pakistan. He was one of the student leaders and organizers of the movement. His contribution to the movement has been hailed by the other activists and students as he was popularly known as Bhasha Matin.
Abu Naser Muhammad Gaziul Haque was a language activist and an activist leader during the Bengali Language Movement.
Mohammad Abul Kashem is generally considered as a pioneer and the architect of the historic Language Movement of Bangladesh. He was also a politician, author and an eminent educationist. He founded the Islamic-oriented Bengali cultural organisation Tamaddun Majlish.
Bengali nationalism is a form of nationalism that focuses on Bengalis as a singular nation. It is one of the four fundamental principles according to the original Constitution of Bangladesh. It was the main driving force behind the creation of the Independent nation state of Bangladesh through the 1971 liberation war. The people of Bengali ethnicity speak Bengali Language. Apart from Bangladesh, people of Bengali ethnicity live across the Indian states of West Bengal, Tripura, Assam and some parts of Jharkhand known as united Bengal during the British period. After the 19th century's Bengal Renaissance occurred in Bengal, it then was the four decades long Bengali Nationalist Movement that shook the region led by Saifur Siddique, which included the Bengali Language Movement, the Bangladesh Liberation War and the creation of Bangladesh in 1971.
The Bengali Language Movement was a political effort in East Pakistan that advocated the adoption of Bengali as an official language. The movement faced violent opposition by the government before finally succeeding. Numerous songs, poems, novels and plays were written to commemorate the movement, as well as films and memoirs.
Bengali, also known by its endonym Bangla, is an Indo-Aryan language primarily spoken by the Bengalis in South Asia, specifically in the eastern part of the Indian subcontinent, native to Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal. There are also a significant number of Bengali speakers in the Indian state of Tripura and Assam's Barak Valley. It is the official and most widely spoken language of Bangladesh and second most widely spoken of the 22 scheduled languages of India, behind Hindi. With approximately 228 million native speakers and another 37 million as second language speakers, Bengali is the fifth most-spoken native language and the seventh most spoken language by total number of speakers in the world.
The Bengali Language Movement is a campaign to preserve Bengali language and Bengalis culture in India. The movement was started in Manbhum in 1940, ahead of the Partition of India which allocated eastern Bengal to the new nation of Pakistan and led to the relocation of many Bengali communities. The Movement remains prominent in Assam, Jharkhand, Bihar, Chhattisgarh and Karnataka.
