Jamaat protests Tuku’s remarks on Inquilab Zindabad

Staff Reporter :

Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami expressed deep concern, condemnation, and protest over remarks of Power, Energy, and Mineral Resources Minister Iqbal Hasan Mahmud Tuku regarding the slogan “Inquilab Zindabad.”

Confrming the matter Party’s Assistant Secretary General and Head of the Central Publicity and Media Department Advocate Ahsanul Mahboob Zubair issued a statement on Sunday.

Mahboob Zubair said that the remarks made by the minister at a discussion marking International Mother Language Day about the slogan “Inquilab Zindabad” were not only inappropriate but also amounted to a denial of historical, linguistic, and popular realities.

He expressed deep concern over the comments and strongly condemned and protested them, the statement said.

He further stated that although the word “Inquilab” has Arabic origins, it has been widely used for decades in the subcontinent’s independence movements, anti-autocracy struggles, and movements for establishing people’s rights.

Language, he said, is not confined within narrow boundaries; it evolves, develops, and assumes its own form through public usage.

Zubair also noted that the Bangla language itself has evolved into its present form by incorporating words from numerous languages, including indigenous, Sanskrit-derived, Arabic, Persian, Portuguese, and English sources.

Therefore, labeling a word as “anti-Bangla” based on its origin contradicts the fundamental principles of linguistics, he said.

He added that creating division in the name of language and attempting to polarize the nation is not expected from a responsible individual.