By Varsha Sinha
& Rupam Ghosh
Language is the most powerful tool for preserving and developing cultural heritage. It is food for our minds which can bind people in the most amazing way possible. Language is intrinsic to the expression of culture, and also a way of treasuring it, for years and years to come!
The Bengali Language movement was a popular ethno linguistic movement in Bangladesh, as a result of the linguistic consciousness of the Bengalis to protect the recognition of Bengali as a state language. On the day of Feburary21, 1952, five students and activists were killed in Dhaka. In 1956, Bengali was declared as the state language of Pakistan.
Since 2000 UNESCO has annually observed the International Mother’s Language Day to promote the preservation and protection of all languages. Therefore, making Bengali the only language in the world, also known as language movement, and people sacrificing their lives for the love of their mother tongue, their identity, and their culture. Bengali has a rich history and immense cultural impact in India and around the world as well. From Asia’s first Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore to one of the most powerful freedom fighters of India Netaji Subash Chandra Bose, Bengali has produced many personalities who are influential even today.
What can be more heart touching than seeing people, especially youths, coming together to celebrate this day as language day. Let us all relive the language and culture of Khasi, Garo, Jaintia, Bengali, Nepali and all other languages spoken in our state. Why not on this auspicious day we all pay heartiest homage to the ones who didn’t even finch before dying for this noble cause.
So, let us all come together and bring back the essence of the utmost joy in relishing our mother tongue. Because in this age of guns and bloodshed all around the world if we don’t let our language contribute its bit in bringing us together, then what will?
A special kind of beauty will emerge if we all come together and celebrate the different languages together in our language, of our language and for our language. The beauty of languages spreads across a thousand miles. So we definitely ought to come together and celebrate this day to cherish our beautiful languages with utmost reverence and awe.
The Shillong Bengalee Students’ Association (SBSA), would take this opportunity to wish all the people of the state on the occasion of International Mother’s Language Day. “Languages are the most powerful instruments of preserving and developing our tangible and intangible heritage. All moves to promote the dissemination of mother tongues will serve not only to encourage linguistic diversity and multilingual education but also to develop fuller awareness of linguistic and cultural traditions throughout the world and to inspire solidarity based on understanding, tolerance and dialogue,” UNESCO.
(The authors are members of the Shillong Bengalee Students’ Association, Guwahati)
