Bengali Language Movement - Criticism

Criticism

Although the Language Movement is considered to have laid the foundations for ethnic nationalism in many of the Bengalis of East Bengal and later East Pakistan, it also heightened the cultural animosity between the authorities of the two wings of Pakistan. In the western wing of the Dominion of Pakistan, the movement was seen as a sectional uprising against Pakistani national interests. The rejection of the "Urdu-only" policy was seen as a contravention of the Perso-Arabic culture of Muslims and the founding ideology of Pakistan, the Two-Nation Theory. Some of the most powerful politicians from the western wing of Pakistan considered Urdu a product of Indian Islamic culture, while they saw Bengali as a part of "Hinduized" Bengali culture. Most,however,stood by the "Urdu only" policy as they believed that only a single language, one that was not indigenous to Pakistan, should serve as the national language. This kind of thinking also provoked considerable opposition in the western wing, wherein there existed several linguistic groups. As late as in 1967, military dictator Ayub Khan said, "East Bengal is ... still under considerable Hindu culture and influence."

The Awami Muslim League turned over to Bengali nationalism after the Movement, and shed the word "Muslim" from its name. The Language Movement inspired similar discontent in the western wing of Pakistan and provided momentum to ethnic nationalist parties. The political unrest in East Pakistan and rivalry between the central government and the United Front-led provincial government was one of the main factors culminating in the 1958 military coup by Ayub Khan.