Learning other’s languages apart from own language is not modernity: Hasan

Information and Broadcasting Minister Hasan Mahmud on Monday said learning other’s languages apart from one’s own language is not modernity, reports news agency BSS.

“Of course, it is necessary to learn another language in the era of globalisation, but only after maturity in one’s own language,” he told a discussion and a cultural function organised by Dhaka Club at its auditorium marking the International Mother Language Day.

Citing the first Bangalee Nobel laureate outside of Europe, Rabindranath Tagore, and Sir Jagdish Chandra Bose, the scientist who discovered the life of trees, the minister said, “We are advancing economically. But we are enriched with language, and literature and culture from many days ago.”

Chairman of parliamentary standing committee on planning ministry Abul Kalam Azad addressed the discussion as special guest with Dhaka Club president Khandaker Mashiuzzaman Romel in the chair.

Hasan Mahmud, also joint general secretary of ruling Bangladesh Awami League, in the beginning of his speech, paid glowing tribute to Bangabandhu and all martyrs of his family, national four leaders and the all martyrs from Language Movement to the great Liberation War.

He said, “Our predecessors had realised that the emancipation of Bangalees was not inherent in the Pakistan state system just only after the creation of the state of Pakistan. That is why the then young leader Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman made a statement on 12 August in 1948, just two ahead of the first anniversary of Pakistan’s independence.

The statement was also circulated in the form of leaflets and published in Ittehad and other newspapers where he said that – 14 August is not a day of joy. He called upon to observe the day as to take an oath to get rid of torture and oppression.”

The minister said the young leader Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman realised that the Pakistani state did not want to recognise the language of its majority Bangaless and wanted to suppress the culture. There was no freedom of Bangalees though they were the majority in numbers and rich in science, arts and culture than the West Pakistanis, Hasan added.

From that understanding, he said, Bangabandhu and a few others immediately protested against Quaid Azam Jinnah’s unilateral declaration of Urdu as the national language. “Under the leadership of Bangabandhu, the movement began and established the right of our language on 21 February, 1952 with the blood-stained streets of Salam, Barkat, Rafiq, Jabbar and others,” he added.

Later, a cultural function was staged.