The Language Movement in Bangladesh: Translingualism and a Struggle for Rhetorical Sovereignty

Abstract

The Language Movement in Bangladesh charts the Bangla Language Movement from a rhetorical perspective. Following Partition in 1947, major conflicts over land, religion, power, and language characterized the newly independent nations of India and Pakistan. The debate over recognizing Bangla as a state language in East Pakistan was particularly consequential. Lasting nearly a decade, it upended Pakistan’s political and social order and set the stage for Bangladeshi independence in 1971. Shakil Rabbi investigates the rhetorical facets of this debate and its takeaways for critical conversations around translingualist perspectives and rhetorical sovereignty. Rabbi analyzes the role of traditional, modernist, and folk ideologies during this era of subcontinental history through a combination of digital humanities and translingualist methodologies. The Language Movement in Bangladesh adds to scholarship around language rights and language ideologies with an examination of a politically explosive debate in a non-Western and postcolonial context. A welcome contribution to conversations around translingualism and transnationalism in the field. Shakil Rabbi presents a refreshing range of archival materials and rich sociocultural perspectives to unpack the complex politics and ideologies of language and literacy in twentieth-century Bangladesh. Shakil Rabbi’s meticulously researched exploration of the Bengali Language Movement bridges translingual and rhetorical frameworks, archival and digital humanities methodologies, Islamic rhetorics, and multiliterate rhetorical practices. In addition to emphasizing how translingual theory can be a productive framework for historical scholarship, Rabbi suggests new ways of understanding how language itself, as topoi, can index multiple spatiotemporalities in the struggle for rhetorical sovereignty.