Consider the following statements:
- 1.21st February is declared to be the International Mother Language Day by UNICEF.
- 2.The demand that Bangla has to be one of the national languages was raised in the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan.
Which of the above statements is/are correct?
Answer & explanation
Answer: (b) 2 only
Statement 2 is correct and statement 1 is wrong, because International Mother Language Day was proclaimed by UNESCO, not UNICEF. The demand for Bangla was raised in the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan in February 1948.
- ✗ 1. UNESCO's General Conference approved International Mother Language Day in 1999, on Bangladesh's initiative, and it has been observed since 2000. UNICEF, the UN children's agency, had no role in proclaiming it.
- ✓ 2. When the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan met at Karachi in February 1948, Dhirendranath Datta moved an amendment to include Bangla among the languages of the Assembly. The motion was rejected, but it began the Bengali language movement.
Remember · 21 February, International Mother Language Day, is a UNESCO day (1999), proposed by Bangladesh to honour the 1952 Bengali language movement, not a UNICEF day.
Sources
- UNESCO: International Mother Language Day ↗ “The idea to celebrate International Mother Language Day was the initiative of Bangladesh. It was approved at the 1999 UNESCO General Conference and has been observed throughout the world since 2000.”
- United Nations: International Mother Language Day ↗ “International Mother Language Day was proclaimed by the General Conference of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in November 1999.”
- Banglapedia (Asiatic Society of Bangladesh): Language Movement ↗ · reference work “Dhirendranath Datta, a member from the East Pakistan Congress Party, moved an amendment motion to include Bangla as one of the languages of the Constituent Assembly.”
- Encyclopaedia Britannica, Bangladesh: The Pakistani period, 1947-71 ↗ · reference work “By 1948, however, Bengalis had begun to resent the nonacceptance of Bengali as an official language”
Question and answer: UPSC's official GS Paper I (2021, Series A) — paper ↗ · answer key ↗. Explanation: Minimalist IAS, checked 1 Oct 2026 (how we verify). ·