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Bangabandhu’s role in Language Movement remaining unpublished a state failure: Hasan
DHAKA, Feb 18, 2021 (BSS) – Information Minister Dr Hasan Mahmud today said the role of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in the 1952 Language Movement remaining unpublished was a national mistake and state failure.
“Not publishing Bangabandhu’s role in the Language Movement was our national mistake and a state failure, and those who tried to undermine the Bangabandhu’s role did unjust,” he told a seminar at Jatiya Press Club in the capital.
The seminar titled ‘Bangabandhu in Language Movement’ was arranged commemorating the birth centenary of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.
Speaking as the chief guest, Hasan, also Awami League joint general secretary, said Bangabandhu was arrested on March 11 in 1948 in Dhaka for organising a movement in protest of Mohammad Ali Jinnah’s declaration that “Urdu would be the only state language of Pakistan”.
After getting released on March 15 of this year, Bangabandhu presided over a meeting of Sangram Parishad of Dhaka University on March 16, demanding Bangla as a state language, he said.
The information minister said Bangabandhu was arrested again in December 1949 and remained in jail until 1952.
“But he (Bangabandhu) was not sitting idle in the jail. From there, he had given instructions to organise the Language Movement,” Hasan said.
He said even Bangabandhu went on a hunger strike in prison but these issues have never been made public before and keeping those unpublished was unfair.
Recalling the history of the Language Movement, the AL joint general secretary said Bangla was declared as a state language of Pakistan after 1952 but the decision was not implemented until the Awami League formed the central government of Pakistan in 1956.
After formation of Awami League government in Pakistan in 1956, he said the use of Bangla began officially as a state language under the leadership of Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy.
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The 21st February was observed at state level and the official construction of Shaheed Minar also started at that time, he added.
“The struggle for our self-governance and the struggle for freedom were waged following continuation of the Language Movement,” Hasan said, “Reading Bangabandhu’s unfinished autobiography and the newly-published secret documents, it was clear that Bangabandhu actually thought of Bangladesh’s independence just after formation of Pakistan and he started working towards that goal.”
Terming Bangabandhu “a poet of politics,” he said if Bangabandhu spoke of the Bangladesh’s independence before announcing six-point demand in 1966, its independence would not have come.
“Bangabandhu first prepared Bangalees mentally for independence by declaring the six-point demand. He then participated in the election, taking a mandate for 6 points,” the information minister said.
He said: “Bangabandhu knew that the Pakistanis would not hand over power after the elections in 1970. He also had a plan of what to do. According to his plan, he declared independence through his historic March 7 speech.”
On that way, Hasan said, the great leader presented an independent state to Bangalees organising them from the Language Movement to the independent struggle.
Chaired by Jatiya Press president Faria Yasmin, the seminar was addressed, among others, by Rabindra University vice-chancellor Biswajit Ghosh, Bangla Academy president Shamsuzzaman Khan and senior joint general secretary of the press club Mainul Alam.
Prof Dr Soumitra Sekhar of Dhaka University read out a keynote paper on Bangabandhu at the seminar.
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