I agree with you that, Urdu has limited use for us compare to French, English or German.
Having said that, the REALITY of Urdu in the 50's was different than now. The population was not against Urdu but they did not enjoy it being 'Forced" by people from west Pakistan. Today young Bangladeshis are willing to use Hindi and English on their own. Had India tried to "Impose" it on us, things could have been different.
You are right about West Bengal not being a nation. But Bengal was!!
When they British took over from Sirajuddaula, he was leader of "Bangla, Bihar, Orrisha". So it was an independent nation. In Federal India, a large part of Bangla speaking population became part of a state of India. Also I was lamenting the fact that, Bengali speaking people ( I am biased for Bengali speaking people) used to lead India. Now they are in the back seat economically and culturally. Hindi invasion already destroyed self-confidence of young people from both sides of the boarder ( Bangladesh and west Bengal). So they imitate Hindi culture while their forgathers were the torchbearers of "Indian culture".
Bottom line is despite all of our problems, we are better off because we (Bangladeshis) are part of an independent country. Today we export more garments than the whole of India. For a backward tiny nation (Compare to India and Pakistan who had infrastructures in place for centuries) it is a huge leap forward. We have to wait for a long time before we are anywhere near India in other areas but the progress we made because we were fortunate enough to inherit a "Free" nation.
If we can have our two major party leaders to agree upon some fundamental things for the sake of this nation, our progress will be quicker but I'll leave that for a separate discussion.
Even Bengali soccer players used to dominate Indian and Pakistani national teams during my father's time. Now it would be hard to see too many Bangla speaking people in Indian national team and Bangladeshi national team often have hard time defeating Pakistani national team who traditionally did not play much football.
I actually agree with most of what you said. I was looking at the whole thing from a 'Bangali" point of view. It is only natural our narratives will be a little different without being factually incorrect in most parts.
I enjoy reading your posts, please continue....
From: Sukhamaya Bain <subain1@yahoo.com>
To: mukto-mona <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Sun, Oct 23, 2011 8:02 am
Subject: Re: [mukto-mona] Bangladesh Wins Freedom (Bangladesh vs West Bengal)
To: mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Friday, October 21, 2011 1:47 AM
Subject: Re: [mukto-mona] Bangladesh Wins Freedom
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Sunday, October 23, 2011
Re: [mukto-mona] Bangladesh Wins Freedom (Bangladesh vs West Bengal)
Guess I need to clarify a basic point that, I was not trying to "Glorify" or "Vilify" Urdu here. Just making a point of adopting a 'Third language" as a state language for functional purpose.
-----Original Message-----
There was (and still is) a huge difference between Urdu and English. One can criticize the British for ruling almost the whole world, but there is no denying the fact that English has become the world language today. Just 25 years back, most good US universities required Ph.D. degree candidates in most science subjects to learn a science-rich foreign language, sucg as German, Japanese, Russian, and French. That is no longer the case today, because most high-quality foreign language journals now have English editions. Thus, for the Indians to use Engllish as a common language is a smart choice. Urdu was the language of the Muslim aristocrats and worth almost nothing for the mass population of Pakistan. It is not only because aristocracy and empires are in the declining mode in the whole world, it is also because Urdu is practically useless outside the Indian subcontinent.
Waiting for Urdu to be more acceptable probably would have been a smarter decision. But even the wide acceptability of Urdu would have served no real purpose for Pakistan. Of course, Bangla was the only language that could be legitimately claimed as the national langauage of Pakistan when that country was born; assuming that the colonial rulers' language (English) was not acceptable for that purpose, and assuming that there would be just one "national language."
"Our brothers and sisters from West Bengal already surrendered their culture, language etc. to the Indian union and from a nation it reduced itself to a "State" of India!!" There are quite a few fallacious points here. Let me note some realities.
1) Bangla language and culture are very much alive in West Bengal. In fact, the way I see it, a majority of college educated Bangladeshis are much poorer than similarly educated people of West Bengal, when it comes to writing and speaking abilities in the Bangla language. All the emphasis on Bangla language in Bangladesh should ultimately make Bangladesh the principal custodian of this language in the world; but I do not think Bangladeshis are anywhere near that today.
2) Being part of a bigger cultural sphere is not the same as surrendering one's own culture. If one talks about the Bollywood culture, that is very much there in Bangladesh also.
3) West Bengal was never a nation; there is no question of reducing itself from a nation to a state. One might argue that West Bengal could have been independent like Bangladesh. But did they have a good reason to be independent? Would Bangladesh be independent today if we did not have a good reason to separate from Pakistan? Thus, it would be plain foolish for Bangladeshis to brag like 'we are independent, you are not'.
4) BTW: Hindi was (and still is) the majority language in India, and thus the legitimate national language of that country. The Bangalees of West Bengal never had a reason to fight for their language the way we in East Bengal did. It would be also unwise for Bangladeshis to brag like 'we fought for Bangla, you did not'.
From: qar <qrahman@netscape.net>
....................For example Urdu is not a native language of Pakistan. But it was accepted as a common language of Pakistan (Like English is used to bind Indians today). If Pakistani leadership had a functioning brain they would have waited a little longer to get accepted. Our Brother and sisters from West Bengal already surrendered their culture, language etc to Indian union and from a nation it reduced itself to a "State" of India!!.........
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