In this connection I will give you an illustration which will show the extent to which passions can be roused on the question of language. I shall refer you to what happened last year in Eastern Pakistan. After the partition of Bengal, the Founder of Pakistan issued a fiat that for the whole of Pakistan, Urdu should be the State language. Do you know what was the reaction in East Bengal to this fiat ? The Bengalee Muslims of East Pakistan got very much agitated over this imposition of Urdu on them, and asked. “Are you going to destroy our Bengalee language ? We whole heartedly supported you in your effort to create the Islamic State of Pakistan. Dare you now touch our language ?” Demonstrations started all over Eastern Pakistan and there were the usual counter measures such as tear-gas attacks, lathi charges etc. Pakistan authorities raised the scare that it was the Hindu fifth column that was responsible for that agitation. But at once the Muslim intelligentsia and their educational and cultural associations came forward and said that it was all bunkum. They said ” you are trying to throttle the language of Rabindranath Tagore. We are not going to tolerate it.” People were lathi-charged, imprisoned for rising in revolt on the question of language. At a gathering of students and professors in Dacca, the moment Mr. Jinnah advised people to take to Urdu in Arabic script as the language, of the newly created Islamic state, there were cries of ‘No, no’. As he proceeded, these cries rose louder and louder which could not be silenced. These things were not reported in the Press. After seven days’ futile efforts, Mr. Jinnah had to retrace his steps to Karachi. Thereafter a communique was issued to the effect that Bengalee would continue to be the State language of Eastern Pakistan. The Bengalee speaking Muslims of Pakistan made it a condition precedent to their acceptance of Urdu in Arabic script, that Mr. Jinnah would make Bengalee also a State language in Central Pakistan. They said that they would go to Karachi to see that in every place there, side by side with Urdu there was also Bengalee used before they accepted Urdu also’ for Eastern Pakistan. So when there was this counterblast by the Muslims of Eastern Pakistan, the authorities came to their senses. Next the authorities said that they would have Bengali in the Roman script. This was not tried. Recently they have proposed to make an experiment with Bengali in Arabic script in certain selected-places. But such efforts are bound to fail.
