Dhaka, Feb. 21 -- The events and trends that is considered to have emerged out of Ekushe February constitute the mainstream of the Bangladeshi middle class political imagination. While the extremists amongst them insist that the liberation war of 1971 was not only triggered but rooted in those events. Actually though, the movement began right after 1947 and the conflict over language was always high in the cultural space.

The rest of course think that without the Ekushey, the national liberation movement would not have sparked or peaked the way it did. No matter what, the centrality of February as the trigger of the Bangladesh state making is taken for granted.

The class origins of cultural movements are less studied in our history. Ove...