The Pakistan Constituent Assembly session of February 25, 1948 is without question a landmark in historical references to the Bangla language movement. Dhirendranath Dutta's demand did something of a revealing sort in that it exposed the feelings of a good number of Pakistani politicians regarding East Bengal.

Liaquat Ali Khan, who owed his seat in the assembly to a quota from East Bengal, warned Dhirendranath thus: “He should realise that Pakistan has been created because of the demand of a hundred million Muslims in this subcontinent and the language of a hundred million Muslims is Urdu . . . The object of this amendment is to take away from the Mussulmans that unifying force that brings them together.”

It was Bhupendra Kumar Datta who rose in vigorous defence of Dhirendranath's proposal. As he noted: “Urdu is not the language of any of the provinces constituting the Dominion of Pakistan. It is the language of the upper few of Western Pakistan. . . It cannot be questioned that Bengali is the spoken language and known to the majority of the people of Pakistan. Besides, it is the richest language in the whole of the subcontinent in every sense of the word.”

Bhupendra's remarks brought an indignant response from the non-Bangalee Ghazanfar Ali Khan, “Let me assure my honourable friend that he is sadly mistaken when he says that there is a Bengal state. There is no such thing as a Bengal state. There is only one state and that is the state of Pakistan . . . There is only one state and there shall be one language, the state language and that is Urdu. . . I am sure the time is not far off when every member of the Pakistan state will be well conversant with the state language, which is Urdu.”

Khwaja Nazimuddin then made a clearly misleading statement in the House. Professing to speak on behalf of the people of East Bengal, he said: “I think there will be no contradiction if I say that as far as inter-communication between the provinces and the centre is concerned, they feel that Urdu is the only language that can be adopted.”

Muhammaed Hashim Gazder, a member from Sind, was a little more blunt in opposing Dhirendranath's motion. In his view, “Though this amendment looks very innocent on the face of it, through it runs the danger of breaking Pakistan . . . Sir, we do not want that our Pakistan should be broken up by an innocent looking amendment. I, therefore, appeal to this House to throw out this amendment.”