Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina put utmost importance to greater practice and use of mother tongue Bangla as it is one of the world's richest languages earned through the sacrifice of blood."We had to give blood to protect the dignity of our language.
We've earned international recognition of this language which is a matter of big pride. We must not forget the practice and use of Bangla," she said while inaugurating a four-day long Amar Ekushey program taken by International Mother Language Institute (IMLI) at the institute yesterday. The Prime Minister said the Bengalee nation will have to maintain its tradition and everything it has in its culture. "We have to practice this and we have to learn this," she said.
Mentioning that Ekushey means not to bow down to anyone for the Bangalee nation, she said on February 21, the people of this country established the dignity of the language. "Following the path of Ekushey, we attained our independence," she said. Sheikh Hasina also mentioned that to destroy a nation, conspirators always strike its culture, language and literature.
"The Pakistani rulers did the same. As an outcome of the conspiracy, we won the Liberation War and put ourselves in a dignified position in the world arena as Bangalee nation, and we got our State," she said. Greeting the Bangla-speaking people across the world and other small linguistic groups on the occasion of the International Mother Language Day, the Prime Minister said the international recognition of February 21 is a matter of great pride for the people of Bangladesh who set an example of supreme sacrifice to protect the dignity of their mother language.
She paid rich tributes to the martyrs of the Language Movement and recalled the memories of the movement veterans as well as Father of the Nation BangabandhuThe prime minister recalled that Bangabandhu initiated the Language Movement when he was a student of the Law Department of Dhaka University.
She said the Father of the Nation had constituted Bhasha Sangram Parishad comprising Tamaddun Majlish, Student League and other student bodies. The prime minister said in 1956, the Awami League formed government and Hussein Shahid Suhrawardhy became prime minister. "In that year Pakistan's first constitution was framed where Bangla got the dignity of a state language alongside Urdu," she said.
"Bangla would not have got the dignity of a state language had the Awami League not formed the government," she said.The premier said the then Awami government declared 21 February as a holiday and took a project for construction of Shaheed Minar, allocated money and started its work."But the scheme was not implemented at that time due to the declaration of martial law by General Ayub Khan," she said.
She said Bangabandhu took the Bangla language to the international arena by giving speech in Bangla for the first time at the United Nations. "Following his footprint I've also been giving speech in Bangla at the UN General Assembly regularly," she said.
State Minister for Technical and Madrasah Education DivisionKazi Keramat Ali, IMLI Director General Prof Dr Jinnat Imtiaz Ali, Head and Representative of Unesco in Dhaka office Beatrice Kaldun and Secondary and Higher Education Division Secretary Sohrab Hossain also spoke on the occasion.At the beginning of the discussion, a one-minute silence was observed as a mark of profound respect to the memories of the martyrs of the Language Movement.
-AA Correspondent
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