But they didn't though did they. Their demand was not Bengali for East Pak but United Pakistan.
Yah however it is implemented in theory is fine as long as its there. Can implement as one language for each wing...if that is unacceptable...have both languages for both wings and let people decide which one they want to use. If Awami league wanted the latter is it wrong? They did not want Bengali to be the ONLY official language of Pakistan did they? Just equal status with Urdu....is it so wrong to ask this for a majority population?
ude, the Afghans/Pashtuns speak Urdu, Mohajirs (Indian Muslims from UP, Bihar, Gujarat) they all spoke Urdu, Urdu isn't a language bound by territory as it was also a flourishing language in Bengal too especially with educated Bengali Muslims (for example Ubaidullah Ubaidi, relative of Khwaja Nazimuddin).
Mohajirs were the ones instrumental in pushing to make Urdu THE official language because they are the only ones that can really claim it as mother tongue in Pakistan (originally) and they also had suffered much during partition and the most violent aspect of the need for Pakistan (as they perceived it) was fresh in their hearts and minds.
This is all fine and understandable but why deny the right to have Bengali as an equal official language too? Where is it written that a country can have only one official language? You are not forcing everyone in West Pakistan to suddenly learn and only use Bengali.....you are just asking that Bengalis langauge is also recognized in line with its large prevalent majority usage in a united country.
But Bengali to be specific is an East Indian language which wouldn't work irrespective of Bengalis being the largest.
Unilaterally enforcing Urdu on the entire Bengal is just as wrong as enforcing Bengali on West Pakistan. If saner minds had prevailed, both would be co-official languages. Is that so threatening to concept of Pakistan?
In Canada we have both English and French as official languages. No one is forcing People in english speaking communities to learn French and no one is forcing vice versa either. But those that are willing and able ...learn both for an added brotherhood and advantage.
Same situation is there in Finland with Finnish and Swedish. Only govt services must be required to provide in either language, otherwise citizens are free to choose either one (normally depends on which community you are born in) and learning the other one is normally done in School for added benefit (learning another language and being bilingual is quite a good thing for people in general intellectually).
Something similar could have definitely been done in pre-71 Pakistan....and along with less racist, elitist views of West Pakistan military/politicians...would have created next to no space for East Bengal separatists to form, solidify, expand and eventually succeed.
It is their problem they looked down on Bengali as a "Hindu" "inferior" language....and we all know how they expanded this view to look down on Bengalis as a whole....which lead to 1971 slowly but surely.
It was fair to put a non provincial language as the national language as many ethnic groups contributed to Urdu literature. An aristocratic language used in Mughal courts so subsequently Pakistan felt it needed to use something which everyone was speaking. Punjabis didn't demand their own language, pashtos didn't.
It is fine if they didn't demand it....but Bengalis did right? What is wrong in accepting the demand for a stronger, linguistically inclusive federation?
Or are you saying common Bengali did not want Bengali as a national language? Was not bengali language movement in 1952 early enough to gauge the popularity of this demand?