On February 21, the world celebrated International Mother Language Day. The UNESCO in 1999 marked the day in recognition of the demonstration where East Pakistani students sacrificed their lives for recognition of their native language, Bangla as one of two national languages. The demonstration of 21st February 1952 led to a nationalistic sentiment in Bengali-speaking Pakistanis and culminated in a freedom struggle that led to the birth of Bangladesh in 1971. East Pakistan ceased to exist and a new country was born out of a native-language movement.

While our children have cultural affinity with Hindi just because they have learnt it in school and they are influenced by Bollywood and news channels — the fact is that it isn’t necessarily their mother tongue. Representation pic/Thinkstock