On August 14, 1947, the Indian subcontinent was partitioned into Pakistan. East Bengal became part of Pakistan. There is no similarity in the history, tradition, language or culture of the two parts of Pakistan. The two territories of West Pakistan and East Pakistan (Bangladesh), divided by a distance of 1,000 miles, were united based on religion alone. The ruling class of this new state of Pakistan attacked the Bengali language as a tactic of exploitation by the Bengalis. What will be the state language of the new state of Pakistan? This question was raised even before the creation of Pakistan in 1947.

From the beginning of 1948, the educated Bengali society became vocal in its demand for the Bangla language. At that time, it was proposed that Bangla be adopted as the medium of education from lower class to higher secondary in the State Language Action Council meeting.

Food for Thought

"Can you summarize what you just read, and if so what did you learn?" Often times in history classrooms and during lessons, information is being fed to you, but digesting the information is another thing. The point of this lesson is to allow students to learn history through a non-traditional teaching style, while still making it engaging.

Some ideas after reading this could be:

• Having an open discussion with the class about the reading
• Opening up a space for questions about the reading
• Sharing different stories of either relating and/or learning about this topic

Since this is a much shorter reading, some of this may not be fully applicable, however it completely can be for the rest of the lesson.