Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests/Bengali language movement

Bengali language movement

 * This is the archived discussion of the TFAR nomination for the article below. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as Wikipedia talk:Today's featured article/requests). Please do not modify this page.

The result was: scheduled for Today's featured article/February 21, 2023 by Gog the Mild (talk) 20:18, 4 January 2023 (UTC)



The Bengali language movement was a political movement in former East Bengal advocating the recognition of the Bengali language as an official language of the then-Dominion of Pakistan. When the state of Pakistan was formed in 1947, its two regions, East Bengal and West Pakistan, were split over cultural, geographical, and linguistic lines. In 1948, the Government of Pakistan ordained Urdu as the sole national language, sparking extensive protests among the Bengali-speaking majority of East Bengal. Students of the University of Dhaka defied the law and organised a protest on 21 February 1952. Police killed demonstrators on that day, provoking widespread civil unrest. After years of conflict, the government granted official status to Bengali in 1956. The language movement catalysed the Bengali nationalist movement and became a forerunner to the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War. In 1999, UNESCO declared 21 February as International Mother Language Day, in tribute to the Bengali language movement.
 * Most recent similar article(s): Most recent language: Levantine Arabic (May 31, 2022)
 * Main editors:
 * Promoted: July 16, 2007 (TFA: 2008-02-21)
 * Reasons for nomination: 21 February is the UNESCO International Mother Language Day, observed in memory of the Bengali language movement. Language-related FAs are also not common.
 * Support as nominator. a455bcd9 (Antoine) (talk) 20:18, 18 December 2022 (UTC)


 * Support Mehedi Abedin 09:22, 19 December 2022 (UTC)


 * Comment I am not sure about the quality of the article. It probably has some issue with images (too many images, image sandwiching, lists popular culture section); however, also not sure about the quality of prose and references. Lots of changes happened in the article after its promotion to FA status in 2007. Do we know how many active editors keep the article in their watchlist? While I certainly support the nomination, not so sure about the article's status.--Dwaipayan (talk) 00:55, 20 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Hi That's a valid concern. I can only tell that 102 editors have it on their watchlist: but how many of them are still active? Among the main editors:, , and  haven't been active for years,  is deceased, and  and  still edit from time to time. So it seems you're the only main contributor still active. The article hasn't been reviewed since 2007/2008 (FA/TFA). So you're unsure about the article's quality, I trust you and I'll remove this nomination. a455bcd9 (Antoine) (talk) 08:21, 20 December 2022 (UTC)
 * If editors have concerns about this article, I encourage them to post their concerns on the article's talk page, and perhaps give notice that it might go through the WP:FAR process (step 1 is the notice). FWIW, I am concerned with the "In popular culture" section and would like the sources in "Further reading" to be incorporated as inline citations or removed. Z1720 (talk) 15:44, 21 December 2022 (UTC)