The United Nations (UN) has declared 21st February as International International Mother Language Day to promote awareness of linguistic and cultural diversity and to promote multilingualism.
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) was first announced on 17 November 1999, which was formally recognized by the United Nations General Assembly with the adoption of the UN Resolution No. 56/262 Multilingualism in 2002.
The idea to observe International Mother Language Day was an initiative of Bangladesh as 21st February is the anniversary of the day when Bangladeshis fought for recognition of the Bangla language. There is a public holiday on 21st February in Bangladesh.
In 1948, the then Government of Pakistan declared Urdu to be the sole national language of Pakistan even though Bengali or Bangla was spoken by the majority of people combining East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). East Pakistan’s Bengali-speaking people protested. At that, time the majority of the population was Bengali speaking so they demanded Bangla be at least one of the national languages, in addition to Urdu.
The demand was raised first by Dhirendranath Datta, a member from East Pakistan on 23 February 1948, in the constituent Assembly of Pakistan. To demolish the protest, the government of Pakistan outlawed public meetings and rallies. The students of the University of Dhaka, with the support of the general public, arranged massive rallies and meetings. On 21 February 1952, police opened fire on rallies. Salam, Barkat, Rafiq, Jabbar and Shafiur died, with hundreds of others injured. This is a rare incident in history, where people sacrificed their lives for their mother tongue.
In Pakistan, the day is being observed with enthusiasm for the last few years as at two times the legislators from smaller provinces (Sindh, Balochistan and KP) have submitted two separate bills in the Parliament (National Assembly and Senate) to declare other languages of Pakistan as National Languages.
Even the Senate’s Standing Committee on Law and Justice passed “The Constitution (Amendment) Bill, 2016” on March 9, 2018, seeking the status of national languages for major provincial languages, including Punjabi, Sindhi, Pashto and Balochi.
But on both occasions, the proposed bills were rejected on the basis of majority as Punjabi-speaking people are in dominant in the Parliament.
Most of the information for this blog is taken from Wikipedia
