Bengali language movement in the context of "Perso-Arabic script"

Ekushey Padak is the second highest civilian award in Bangladesh, introduced in memory of martyrs of the Bengali language movement of 1952. The award is given to recognize contributions in a number of fields, including culture, education, and economics. The Ministry of Cultural Affairs administers the award.

The award consists of an 18-carat gold medal weighing 3 tolas, a certificate of honour and a cash award. The medal was designed by the artist Nitun Kundu. The amount of the cash reward was originally ৳ 25,000, but it was increased to ৳ 100,000 in 2015, to ৳ 200,000 in 2017 and to ৳ 400,000 as of November 2019.

The Bengali script or Bangla alphabet is the standard writing system used to write the Bengali language, and has historically been used to write Sanskrit within Bengal. An estimated 300 million people use this syllabic alphabet, which makes it the 5th most commonly used writing system in the world. It is the sole national script of Bangladesh and one of the official scripts of India, specifically used in the Indian states of West Bengal, Tripura and the Barak Valley of Assam. The script is also used for the Meitei language in Manipur, defined by the Manipur Official Language Act.

From a classificatory point of view, the Bengali writing system is derived from the Brahmi script. It is written from left to right. It is an abugida, i.e., its vowel graphemes are mainly realised not as independent letters, but as diacritics modifying the inherent vowel in the base letter to which they are added. There are no distinct upper and lower case letter forms, which makes it a unicameral script. The script is characterised by many conjuncts, upstrokes, downstrokes, and other features that hang from a horizontal line running along the tops of the graphemes that links them together called matra (মাত্রা [ˈmat̪ɾaˑ] 'measure'). The punctuation is all borrowed from 19th-century English, with the exception of one.

Huseyn Suhrawardy (8 September 1892 – 5 December 1963) was a Pakistani politician and statesman who served as the fifth prime minister of Pakistan from 1956 to 1957 and before that as the prime minister of Bengal from 1946 to 1947. In both Pakistan and Bangladesh, he is regarded as a patron of separate homeland for South Asian Muslims, for which he is revered as one of the leading founding statesmen of Pakistan; and also as the pioneer of the Bengali civil rights movement in Bangladesh.

Born in 1892 at Midnapore, Bengal, Suhrawardy was a scion of one of Bengal's most prominent Muslim families, the Suhrawardys. He studied law at the University of Oxford, and joined the independence movement during the 1920s as a trade union leader in Calcutta, initially associated with the Swaraj Party. He joined the All-India Muslim League and became one of the leaders of its Bengal branch. Suhrawardy was elected to the Bengal Legislative Assembly in 1937 and led the Muslim League to decisively win the 1946 provincial general election in Bengal, serving as the last prime minister of Bengal until the partition of India. His premiership was notable for his proposal to create a separate and united Bengal — supported by the Muslim League but opposed by the Indian National Congress — and failing to prevent the Great Calcutta Killings. In 1947, the Bengal Assembly voted to partition the province. Suhrawardy briefly remained in India after partition to attend to his ailing father and manage his family's property. He eventually moved to Pakistan and divided his time between Karachi (Pakistan's federal capital) and Dhaka (capital of East Pakistan).

The Bihari minority in Bangladesh were allegedly subject to persecution during and after the Bangladesh War of Independence (a part of the Indo-Pakistani conflicts and the Cold War) (called the Civil War in Pakistan), allegedly experiencing widespread discrimination. They largely maintained a pro-Pakistani stance, supported the Pakistan Armed Forces and opposed the independence of Bangladesh and the Bengali language movement of the people of the then East Pakistan. Biharis faced reprisals from Bengali militias due to their involvement in killing and rape of civilians people and forces during 1971 Bangladeshi War of Independence, resulting in an estimated death toll ranging from 100 to 1,500. According to a white paper released by the Pakistani government, 64,000 Biharis and West Pakistanis were killed. Many Biharis were collaborators or accomplices in the Pakistan army's 1971 Bangladesh genocide which stoked reprisal killings and anti-Bihari sentiment.

Within the context of the conflict in Bangladesh, the term "Bihari" implies the migrants predominantly from the Indian state of Bihar and West Bengal, who headed for then East Pakistan, after the partition of India in 1947. Later on, all Urdu-speaking people, even the Punjabis, Pathans, Sindhi and Baloch from West Pakistan, who were posted to East Pakistan or settled in the Eastern Wing were labeled as Biharis by Bengalis.

The Shaheed Minar (Bengali: শহীদ মিনার romanised: 'Shohid Minar' lit. 'The Martyr Tower') is a national monument in Dhaka, Bangladesh, established to commemorate those killed during the Bengali language movement demonstrations of 1952 in then East Pakistan.

On 21 and 22 February 1952, students from Dhaka University and Dhaka Medical College and political activists were killed when the Pakistani police force opened fire on Bengali protesters who were demanding official status for their native language, Bengali. The massacre occurred near Dhaka Medical College and Ramna Park in Dhaka. A makeshift monument was erected on 23 February by students of Dhaka Medical College and other educational institutions, but soon demolished on 26February by the police force.

Burdwan House also known as Bardhaman House (Bengali: বর্ধমান বাড়ি) is a historic building in Dhaka, Bangladesh. It is currently used as the museum of Bangla Academy. Built in 1906 during the British colonial period, this building, deeply associated with Bangladesh's political, cultural, and language movement history, is a notable example of architecture combining Mughal and European styles. Many prominent figures, including Rabindranath Tagore, Kazi Nazrul Islam, and Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay, stayed here as guests.

The Ekushey Book Fair, officially called the Eternal Twenty-first Book Fair, is the largest book fair in Bangladesh. Organized annually in February by Bangla Academy in Dhaka, the month-long event is free to all. In 2024, the fair attracted six million visitors and generated a record ৳600 million (US$4.9 million) in book sales.

Named after the colloquial Bengali name for International Mother Language Day or 'Ekushey' (একুশে), the event commemorates those who died on 21 February 1952 during the Bengali language movement, which sought to establish Bengali as the state languages of former East Pakistan.

Mir Abdus Shukur Al Mahmud (known as Al Mahmud; 11 July 1936 – 15 February 2019) was a Bangladeshi poet, novelist, and short-story writer. He is considered one of the greatest Bengali poets to have emerged in the 20th century. His work in Bengali poetry is dominated by his frequent use of regional dialects.In the 1950s he was among those Bengali poets who were outspoken in their writing on such subjects as the events of the Bengali language movement, nationalism, political and economical repression, and the struggle against the West Pakistani government.