The circumstances in which the Academy was launched are an integral part
of the country's political history.
The partition of the subcontinent in 1947 led to the emergence of two states,
India and Pakistan. Bangladesh, then officially known as East Bengal, was
a province of Pakistan, separated, geographi¬cally, from the other provinces
by an alien territory of more than thousand miles. The gap between the two
wings of Pakistan was more than geographical-the people living in Bangladesh
constituting the majority of the entire people, had culturally little in
common with those living in the other.four provinces located in the west
wing, and spoke a different language, BangIa.
BangIa, as a language, dates back to more than thousand years. It has a
fine tradition of literature, old, rich and varied. Linguistically, it belongs
to the Indo-European group of languages. Contributions of men like the Vaisnava
poets and Alaol of earlier times and of Michael Madhusudan Dutt, Rabindranath
Tagore and Kazi Nazrul Islam in modern times would be considered important
and significant in any literature of the world. There are others too, and
some, like Lalon, belong to the folk-tradition. The ballads of Mymensingh,
a district in Bangladesh, are among other writings of the kind, a rare treasure.
The Pakistani rulers, in their bid to deny BangIa its usual status, decreed
that Urdu be the only state language. This amounted to denying the national
identity of the people living in Bangladesh, an attempt to perpetuate cultural
subjugation and turn Bangladesh into a colony, and ignoring the claim and
sentiments of the majority. Protests were immediate. When the government
refused to accept the demand, the students launched a movement, and the
people joined them. On 11 March 1948, following a country¬wide general
strike, the provincial government negotiated an agreement with the students,
in which assurance was given that Bangia would be accepted as one of the
state languages. But soon the agreement was forgotten and the subsequent
movement in February 1952 was even more violent. The police opened fire
on the students, and a number of them died. This happened on 21 February
1952. This is the Martyrs' Day. The language movement hardly has a parallel
in history-love of a nation for its language, culture and heritage; realisation
of the intricate relationship between these and national identity; and persistent
and unrelenting efforts for securing, for the nation, the place of honour
it deserves; all these made the movement unique. This language movement
was indeed the cultural autonomy ass~rtion of the Bangia speaking people.
The emergence of Bangladesh as an independent and sovereign country is the
outcome of the movement that started in 1952. The UNESCO decision on 17
November 1999 to declare '21 February the International Mother Language
Day recognising all the mother languages of the world symbolises an international
recognition to this language movement, and of which Bangia Academy stands
as an embodiment.
Bangia was eventually recognized as a state language even before Independence.
A united front of three political parties won the general elections in
East Bengal in 1954. It had a 21-point programme and one of the pledges
was establishment of an institution for the development of Bangia language
and literature, through research and publication. Thus the Bangia Academy
emerged as the embodiment of such a pledge.
The background to the creation of the Academy, thus narrated, may be summed
up as follows:
The Academy was formally launched on 3 December 1955 under the auspices
of the United Front Government that came to power after the 1954 general
elections. Mr. Abu Hossain Sarker, the Chief Minister of East Bengal
inaugurated the Academy. The provincial government had earlier formed
a Preparatory Committee on26 November 1955. After the formal inauguration,
Mr. Mohammed Barkatullah was appointed Special Officer as the chief
executive of the Academy. On his retirement on 1 December 1956, Dr.
Muhammed Enamul Haq was appointed its first Director.
The Bengali Academy Act 1957 was adopted by the Provincial Legislative
Assembly on 3 April 1957 ; and that ensured the Academy its autonomous
status which it has enjoyed since then. The Act came into force on 10
August 1957, and under its statutes the Preparatory Committee came to
be known as the Council. The first Council was formed on 26 March 1958,
and it started functioning on 10 August 1958. Under the provisions of
the Act, the Council had a total of 19 members-4 ex-officio members,
7 nominated by the government and 8 elected by its general members.
The order No. 4604 issued by the East Bengal Government laid down
the organizational framework of the Academy. It was headed by the Special
Officer along with 9 supporting employees.
BangIa, Academy started with 4 divisions which were expanded to six
by the Preparatory Committee in its 10th meeting on 18.05.57. These
were-Research, Translation, Compilation, Publications and Sales, Culture
and Library.
After Liberation, the BangIa Academy Order 1972 was promulgated and;
on 17 May 1972 the Central Board for Development of Bengali came to
be merged with the Academy. This led to the reorganization of the divisions
and when the order was repealed and new Bangia Academy Ordinance 1978
promulgated the number of divisions stood at 7. By 1983, the number
of its divisions increased to 10 with Finance and Planning, Establishment,
Folklore and Textbook added to the existing ones.
