Tauquir Ahmed’s Fagun Haway

This paper is a qualitative study to show the significance of a contemporary Bangladeshi film Fagun Haway in understanding the history of language movement in 1952. Using the lens of Linguistic Imperialism (2024), an extension of a theory (1992) of Robert Phillipson, it examines how language is used as a mechanism of oppression in dominating a nation and as a form of resistance in breaking the structure of domination. In his article Linguistic Imperialism (2024), Phillipson mentions eleven processes through which a nation is linguistically, in the long run, economically, politically and culturally dominated. These eleven processes are used to dominate the Bengali-speaking people by imposing Urdu on them. The implementation of these processes is very realistically portrayed in the film Fagun Haway. This study is significant because it shows how to analyze the process of linguistic imperialism in any given country where a second or a foreign language is learnt. Using a thematic analysis, this study explores the cinematic narrative of a historical language movement of 1952 that reflects the persistence of colonial power structures in postcolonial governance.