Today is International Mother Language Day. It is one of the most important days in Bengali history. Bengalis are a nation in the world who fought for the Bengali language and mother tongue and gave their lives for the Bengali language. So this day is celebrated with due dignity on 21st February every year. Because those who did the language movement on this day were shot dead in the procession.
Our country was originally part of the Indian subcontinent. Then it was divided in 1947. It was divided into two countries, one India and the other Pakistan. We were part of East Pakistan. Present day Pakistan was then West Pakistan. From the beginning, the two parts of Pakistan clashed over what would be the national language of Pakistan. Because then Bangla was around 56% of the people and Urdu was spoken at home by only 6%. But the then President announced that only Urdu and Urdu would be the state language of Pakistan. But at that time none of the Bengali students accepted that proposal. So at that time Bengalis formed various committees to protect the mother tongue and joined the movement.
Then on this day in 1952, many students of Dhaka University and Dhaka Medical University took out Prabhat Feri and demanded to make Bengali the national language. But the police stopped the march at the beginning. Although the march was peaceful. Rafiq Shafiq Barkat Jabbar and many unknown people were martyred in that procession today. Then the government of Pakistan was forced to recognize Bengali as one of the state languages in 1956. Then this day was recognized by UNESCO as International Mother Language Day. Since then it is celebrated as International Mother Language Day on 21st February every year.
This day is a public holiday. This day is observed by various institutions including various educational institutions with due dignity and flowers are given inside the Shaheed Minar on the occasion of this day. Shaheed Minar was built to preserve the memory of language martyrs which is located in Dhaka and is located in every educational institution. Wreaths are placed at the Shaheed Minar in memory of Bhasha Shaheed along with prayers and programs organized for them. Today we celebrated this day with our junior students and they are decorated with flowers. And we took out the Prabhat ferry in the morning and the girl was treated with dignity and it was great to see the enthusiasm among the students.