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College letter campaign honors mother language heroes

Bangladesh Catholic school remembers deadly protest to protect Bangla language with letters to mums
College letter campaign honors mother language heroes

A man writes a letter to his mother in this representational photo. A Catholic-run college in Dhaka organized a letter-writing program to pay tribute to people killed in a protest on Feb. 21, 1952 to protect the Bangla language. (Photo by Stephan Uttom/ucanews.com)  

Published: February 23, 2018 08:27 AM GMT
Updated: February 23, 2018 08:34 AM GMT

A Catholic-run college in Dhaka has conducted a letter-writing campaign in tribute to victims killed in a protest staged more than 60 years ago to protect the Bangladeshi mother tongue — Bangla.

Several people were killed and many wounded when members of the Bangla Language Movement took to the streets of the capital on Feb. 21, 1952, in what was then East Pakistan — to protest against West Pakistan's attempt to replace the East's mother tongue with Urdu.

To mark the anniversary and UNESCO's International Mother Language Day Notre Dame College arranged a "Letter to Mother" program.

Some 3,300 people, including students, teacher and staff participated in the program in which they wrote letters to their mothers in Bangla.

"In this age of technology, people have forgotten how to write letters and what significance they had in human communication. So we took this initiative to help people realize the need to express their feelings in writing letters to their mothers," college principal Holy Cross Father Hemanta P. Rozario told ucanews.com.

"I was emotionally driven when I started writing my letter to my mother, who worked so hard and endured pain to help me move forward in my life," Saiful Islam, 15, a Muslim undergraduate student said. "I was happy to write the letter to express my gratitude to my mother for everything she has done for me."

Founded in 1954, the college is run by Holy Cross congregation and considered one of country's finest educational institutions.

The killings on Feb. 21, 1952 sparked nationwide protests and forced the government to recognize both Urdu and Bangla as the official languages.

Since 1953, Bangla speakers around the world have observed Feb. 21 as Language Martyrs Day, while UNESCO used the event as the basis for its International Mother Language Day introduced in 1999.

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