Culturally, Bangla is very close to the hearts of Bangladeshis. There is without a doubt many reasons for this: following partition (1947) of India and the departure of the educated Hindu classes in the administration, the Bengali intellectuals felt the need of Bangla as a means of identifying their culture and nationalism. The partition of British India led to the creation of India and Pakistan. Pakistan - a country made of two regions physically divided by the land mass (1600 kilometers) of India, yet theoretically united by religion (Islam). However, the differences between the predominantly Urdu speaking province (West Pakistan - modern day Pakistan) and that of the predominantly Bangla speaking province (East Pakistan - now the independent state of Bangladesh) were great. The uniting factor of Islam was to prove not enough to overcome the economic, political and social differences. The differences and inequalities of the West Pakistani administrative center stirred up a sense of Bangla nationalism, which the Muslim League - in its desire to create a Muslim homeland and so end Hindu dominance - had not calculated. The economic, political and social inequalities were exacerbated with time from the beginning, there were significant problems. Although the vast majority of Pakistan's populace lived in the eastern province, representation and funding was not appropriately rationed, and in general there seemed little interest on the part of the government to assess and meet the needs of that region. Culturally too, there were rifts. Apart from a common religion, Islam, those in the west and east had nothing in common. Their languages and cultural heritage were distinct - the majority in East Pakistan spoke Bangla (embraced by roughly 55% of Pakistanis at the time), and had strong cultural ties with the West Bengalis of India. West Pakistanis, on the other hand, spoke a number of regional dialects; the official language Urdu, a relatively new dialect formed from a fusion of Hindi and Parsi, was native to only 6% of Pakistanis.

In 1948, after the government of the new Pakistan was formed under Mohammad Ali Jinnah, Urdu was made the soul state language. Efforts were made to have it universally spoken, an order that was insensitive to the East Pakistanis who had tenaciously maintained their right to speak and write in Bangla in spite of hundreds of years of foreign invasion. The students of Dhaka University spontaneously opposed, and the Language Movement was born.

Students, politicians and the intelligentsia banded together in a move to implement Bangla as a second official language, alongside Urdu, and the state language of East Pakistan. Jinnah, and his successor Najimuddin were vehemently opposed to allowing this. As a result, the movement continued to gain momentum, until its climax in 1952.

Early in February 1952, student leaders decided that February 21st would be celebrated as State Language Day. Peaceful strikes and processions were scheduled across the state. Upon hearing of the plans, the government cited Section 144 prohibiting large public gatherings. The students violated the code, and a peaceful procession was launched on the morning of the 21st. As soon as the procession left the premises of the Dhaka University campus and spilled into main streets, the police opened fire, and consequently, unarmed students died and many were injured.

The already-disenchanted Bengalis were alarmed and angered by this action, and became increasingly agitated. Seeing this, the government made the gesture of instating Bangla as the state language of East Pakistan and a second state language with Urdu, in April of that year. The gesture came far too late, for the agitation for recognition was sweeping the vast state. It morphed into a movement for independence that was to carry the state through nineteen years of strife and civil war, before Bangladesh was born in 1971. Now 21st February is International Mother Language Day.