The Pakistan Experiment and the Language Issue

The partition of 1947 created two new independent states, India and Pakistan. The eastern part of Bengal joined Pakistan. Pakistan was a highly ambitious experiment in twentieth-century state making. And yet, from the beginning the state was beset with enormous challenges. This excerpt from a recent survey history of Bangladesh explains how these challenges worked out in East Pakistan and why political struggles soon crystallized around the issue of the Bengali language. This historical background is indispensable to understand the intense emotions surrounding the national language in Bangladesh today.