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Role of Liaquat, Tamizuddin, Nazimuddin

SYED BADRUL AHSAN
It is indeed intriguing that Nawabzada Liaquat Ali Khan was given a seat in the Constituent Assembly from the quota reserved for East Bengal since no place could be found for him from any of the provinces constituting West Pakistan. Despite this favour done to him, obviously with little objection from Bangalis, the prime minister chose to dismiss Dhirendranath Dutta's proposal out of hand. And it was not just the prime minister who opposed Dutta's idea. Khwaja Nazimuddin, chief minister of East Bengal, as well as Maulvi Tamizuddin Khan, a Bengali, joined Liaquat Ali Khan in rejecting the motion. Nazimuddin, who hailed from the Dhaka Nawab family and whose mother tongue was Urdu, even went to the extent of suggesting that most people of East Bengal felt that Urdu should be the state language of Pakistan.
The statement predictably raised howls of protest, especially among the students of Dhaka University and other educational institutions in the province. A strike was called at Dhaka University on 26 February. Besides, students of colleges and schools brought out demonstrations to protest Nazimuddin's statement. The protests were not confined to educational institutions but spilled over into the media. Prominent among the newspapers which severely criticized the chief minister over his remarks was the Azad. It is noticeable that at a meeting on the campus of Dhaka University, a State Language Action Committee comprising most political parties was formed, the objective being the launch of a movement for Bangla to be adopted as the state language of Pakistan. Most significantly, it was resolved at the meeting that a general strike would be observed all across East Bengal on 11 March 1948 to protest the move by the Constituent Assembly to reject the demand for Bangla as one of its languages of business.
On 11 March, as students and others spilled out on the streets to observe the strike, police swung into action in various towns of the province. A number of student and youth leaders, among whom were Oli Ahad, Abdul Wadud Bhuiyan, Shamsul
Haq, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Shawkat Ali and K.G. Mahbub were placed under arrest. The next day, 12 March, Sher-e-Bangla A.K. Fazlul Huq condemned the police action on the students. The government's response was as puerile as it was unwise. In a press note on the happenings of 11 March, it alleged that those who had taken part in the strike comprised saboteurs and a group of students. It also stated that all Muslims and a majority of non-Muslims had rejected the strike call, though it did note mischievously that only a few Hindu shops had remained closed.
The East Bengal Legislative Assembly was expected to meet for the first time since the creation of Pakistan on 15 March 1948 in Dhaka. On the eve of the session, a large number of students organized a demonstration before Burdwan House (today's Bangla Academy), the official residence of the chief minister of the province, to protest the police action three days earlier. The Students' Action Committee decided to call a general strike on the day the assembly would meet. It was such a move on the part of the students which compelled the government to soften its stance on the language issue. Moreover, Pakistan's founder and Governor General Mohammad Ali Jinnah, popularly known as Quaid-e-Azam, was scheduled to visit the province beginning 19 March. The provincial government was, therefore, not willing to leave anything to chance lest the visit be disrupted.