Ekushey:

A Celebration of the Mother Language                                      
                                                                                                      A Report

The day, February 21 (Ekushey in Bengali), has become synonymous with freedom. Soon after partition in 1947, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, while addressing a meeting at Dhaka University declared that Urdu would be the national language for Pakistan. It unleashed a fiery protest and hundreds were imprisoned, including the founding father of Bangladesh, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

    Again in 1952, when Prince Minister, Khaja Nazim Uddin officially declared that Urdu would be the national language of both East and West Pakistan, a furor erupted from the majority Bengali-speaking people of erstwhile East Pakistan. And a curfew was immediately clamped on the people. Yet, like a forest fire, protests and strikes flared through all of East Pakistan. The Dhaka University campus was a cauldron of indignation and anger. And on February 21, 1952, the students and public organized a procession, and took to the streets defying the curfew.