5-day cultural fest starts at JU

The students of the Jahangirnagar University (JU) are organising a 5-day Mother Language Festival marking the upcoming International Mother Language Day scheduled on February 21.

The inaugural event of the festival, jointly organised by the Bangladesh Chhatra Union and Indigenous Students Association, was held on February 16 and it will continue till February 20.

The first phase of the festival started on Friday (February 16) at the University with the welcome speech of
Riddha Anindya Ganguly, general secretary of JU Chhatra Union, and David Bom, president of the Indigenous Student Association, delivered the welcome speeches at the inaugural session of the festival held at Salim Al Din Mukta Manch on the university campus. After that, Apparao, a representative of Telugu-speaking employees of JU, announced the inauguration of the festival.

At the event, students from different ethnic groups performed dances and rendered songs in their mother tongue.

Speakers at the inaugural session said Bangladesh is the home of natural and cultural diversity. At least 41 languages are spoken in this small Bangladesh of 56,000 square miles. Everyone expresses their thoughts in their mother tongue. Mother tongue is a valuable wealth with which the sovereignty of a country is connected. If this wealth is lost, people become slaves to other nations forgetting their individuality.

Mentioning that the mother tongue is of immense importance in every aspect of life, they said the mother tongue shapes the attitude, hopes and aspirations of an individual. At the same time, at the national level, it establishes the identity of a nation in the international arena. So, be it individual, society or nation, mother tongue carries immense importance everywhere.

Besides highlighting the glorious history of the Bengali language, the speakers also said that even though Bangla has become the dominant language in Bangladesh over time, there are about 30 lakh people of 45 nationalities in the country.

Each of the nations has its language, and those languages are now on the verge of extinction due to various reasons. The dominance of a handful of languages, spoken by millions of people, over thousand other languages around the world proves how helpless, endangered and heartbroken the oppressed languages of different races and ethnic groups are, they said.

On the second day of the festival (Saturday), a drama titled “Chan Mahuar Kissa”, directed by Yusuf Hasan Arko and produced by the Department of Drama and Dramatics will be staged at the Mukta Mancha. On the third day, the musical bands formed with JU students will perform. On the fourth day, a drama titled “Banapangshul”, written by eminent plyright and also former Drama and Dramatics Department Professor Salim Al Din and produced by theatre group Antaryatrawill be staged. On the last day of the festival, the “Bhasha Matin Boktritalmala”, a series of lectures dedicated to frontline language movement leader Abdul Matin, will be held. Finally, this year's mother language festival will end with the screening of a classic film.