Tournament: Usc | Round: 3 | Opponent: Weber State Alvarado-Hendricks | Judge: Dunn
The words of famed Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore

My Bengal of Gold,
I love you.

Forever your skies,
Your air set my heart in tune
As if it were a flute.

In spring, O mother mine,
The fragrance from your mango groves
Makes me wild with joy,
Ah, what a thrill!
In autumn, O mother mine,
In the full blossomed paddy fields
I have seen spread all over sweet smiles.

If sadness, O mother mine,
Casts a gloom on your face,
My eyes are filled with tears!
Golden Bengal,
I love you.
August 1947
The official birth of two states Pakistan and India;1 gave a permanent home for Hindus and Muslims from the departure of the British. The Dominion of Pakistan comprised two geographically and culturally separate areas to the east and the west with India in between.2 The western zone was termed West Pakistan and the eastern zone, modern-day Bangladesh, was initially termed East Bengal and later, East Pakistan.

After the partition of India in 1947, Bengali-speaking people in East Bengal, made up 44 million of the newly formed Dominion of Pakistan's 69 million people.3 The Dominion of Pakistan's government, civil services, and military, however, were dominated by personnel from the western wing of the Dominion of Pakistan.4 

In 1947, a key resolution at a national education summit in Karachi was proposed. It advocated Urdu as the sole state language, and its exclusive use in the media and in schools.5 Opposition and protests would immediately begin. Students from Dhaka would rally against the policy to propose Bengali as one of two official languages of the Dominion of Pakistan and as a medium of education in East Bengal.6 

The Pakistan Public Service Commission would remove Bengali from the list of approved subjects, as well as from currency notes and stamps. 7 Public outrage spreads, and a large number of Bengali students meet to formally demand that Bengali be made an official language. To promote their cause, Bengali students organised processions and rallies in Dhaka. 

Leading Bengali scholars argued why only Urdu should not be the state language. The linguist Muhammad Shahidullah pointed out that Urdu was not the native language of any part of Pakistan, and said, "If we have to choose a second state language, we should consider Urdu."8 The writer Abul Mansur Ahmed said if Urdu became the state language, the educated society of East Bengal would become 'illiterate' and 'ineligible' for government positions.6 Assembly members from Bengal would propose legislation in the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan to allow members to speak in Bengali and authorise its use for official purposes.9 The Prime minister  and the Muslim League denounced the proposal as an attempt to divide the Pakistani people, but eventually the proposition was able to pass – saving the identity of an oppressed people.
1971 

Operation Searchlight was a proposed military operation carried out by the Pakistani Army to curb elements of the separatist Bengali nationalist movement in East Pakistan.23 Ordered by the government in West Pakistan, it would have resulted in mass violence 

The justifications for the Operation presumed that all Bengali troops, including regular East Bengal battalions, would revolt in reaction to its execution. They should therefore, be disarmed. Secondly, the 'non-co-operation' movement launched in Bengal should be deprived of its leadership by arresting all the prominent leaders while they were in conference with the President. 10The hand-written plan was read out to Generals. But the plan was ignored, seen to be too extreme. 

If the operation had gone through, it would have resulted in genocide and mass rape. Mass rapes during a nine month long conflict could amount to 200,000.11 Numerous women would be tortured, raped and killed during the war.12 The Pakistani Army would also keep numerous Bengali women as sex-slaves inside the Dhaka Cantonment. Most of the girls would be captured from Dhaka University and private homes.13

During the war, the Pakistan Army would carry out a systematic execution of the leading Bengali intellectuals. Professors from Dhaka University would be killed during the first few days of the war.14 However, the most extreme cases of targeted killing of intellectuals would take place during the last few days of the war. Professors, journalists, doctors, artists, engineers and writers would have been rounded up by Pakistan Army in Dhaka, blindfolded, taken to torture cells to be executed en masse.

The genocide would have targeted minorities including Bihari Muslims and Hindus. It would have aimed to destroy culture, to destroy populations. 

The operation is prevented. The genocide and the destruction of my language and culture is avoided. I can proudly say that the language of my mother’s country is Bangla. I can proudly say that I know my cultural artifacts, my history and the traditions of my family. I can proudly say that my past family members were not targeted and killed. I am proud to be Bengali. 

“…a nation should fight for its language. A language is synonymous with the nation. A nation can create a homeland, but not a language. Should a language perish, a nation will perish”
Amar Shonar

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Amar sonar Bangla

Amar sonar Bangla
Ami tomay bhalôbasi

Chirôdin tomar akash,
Tomar batas,
Amar prane bajay bãshi.

O ma
Phagune tor amer bône
Ghrane pagôl kôre,
Môri hay, hay re,
O ma,
Oghrane tor bhôra khete
Ami ki dekhechhi môdhur hasi

Works Cited
1 "Britain Proposes Indian Partition". Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada: The Leader-Post. BUP. 2 June 1947. http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=78xTAAAAIBAJandsjid=6DgNAAAAIBAJandpg=1738,3655anddq=india+partitionandhl=en

2 Grover, Preston (8 June 1947). "India Partition Will Present Many Problems". Sarasota, Florida, USA: Herald-Tribune, via Google News. Associated Press. http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=VbYqAAAAIBAJandsjid=mGQEAAAAIBAJandpg=1342,6305096anddq=india+partitionandhl=en

3 "Language Movement" (PHP). Banglapedia - The National Encyclopedia of Bangladesh. Asiatic Society of Bangladesh. http://www.banglapedia.org/httpdocs/HT/L_0063.HTM

4 Oldenburg, Philip (August 1985). ""A Place Insufficiently Imagined": Language, Belief, and the Pakistan Crisis of 1971". The Journal of Asian Studies (The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 44, No. 4) 44 (4): 711–733. doi:10.2307/2056443. ISSN 0021-9118. JSTOR 2056443.

5 Morning News. 7 December 1947.

6 Umar, B (1979). Purbo-Banglar Bhasha Andolon O Totkalin Rajniti. Agamee Prakashani, Dhaka. (Bengali)

7 Al Helal, B (2003). Bhasha Andoloner Itihas (History of the Language Movement). Agamee Prakashani, Dhaka. ISBN 984-401-523-5. (Bengali)

8 The Azad. 29 July 1947

9 Sarmila Bose “Anatomy of Violence: Analysis of Civil War in East Pakistan in 1971: Military Action: Operation Searchlight” Economic and Political Weekly Special Articles, 8 October 2005 http://pakistanthinktank313.wordpress.com/2010/11/04/anatomy-of-violence-analysis-of-civil-war-in-east-pakistan-in-1971-by-sarmila-bose/

10 Chandan, Azadur Rahman (February 2011) 2008. ?????????? ? ??????? ???? Warcrimes and Genocide 1971 (Revised 2nd ed.). Dhaka: Swaraj Prokashoni. pp. 17–18. ISBN 984-300-001757-6

11 D'Costa, Bina (2010). Nationbuilding, Gender and War Crimes in South Asia. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-56566-0. P120-121 

12 "BANGLADESH GENOCIDE 1971 – RAPE VICTIMS Interview". YouTube. 15 December 2009. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJyHBT1iCgAandfeature=player_embedded#!

13 East Pakistan: Even the Skies Weep, Time Magazine, 25 October 1971. http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,877316,00.html

14 126. Telegram 978 From the Consulate General in Dacca to the Department of State, March 29, 1971, 1130Z1 http://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1969-76ve07/d126

Tournament: Wake | Round: 2 | Opponent: West Virginia BO | Judge: Brian Huot
(The exact introduction is not prewritten)
We read excerpts from the Namesake

Lahiri 2003 (Jhumpa Bengali writer; Pulitzer Prize winner; member of the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities, appointed by U.S. President Barack Obama. “The Namesake”. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2003, eBook version p39-45)mc
p80
p130
p135
P212-213
P166
p24-35
p169