Celebrating International Mother Language Day and Linguistic Rights in Bangladesh

A few days before one of Bangladesh’s biggest public holidays Nur Islam Neha was busy building. The 12-year-old from Rajshahi district had decided to make a small clay copy of the Shaheed Minar monument in the capital of Dhaka in celebration of International Mother Language Day on February 21. The three-pronged structure serves as a memorial to four students killed by police on February 21, 1952 in Dhaka during protests over the then government’s language policy.