The efforts of the government to have Bangla established as an official language of the United Nations do not seem to be bringing any positive outcome owing to many factors, especially the financial one and country’s influence across the globe, foreign ministry officials have told The Independent. They pledged that despite all the odds the efforts are continuing and will continue.
They, however, hastened to add that ‘the goal is very far’ right at the moment.
In her address at the 64th meeting of United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in September 2009, Prime Minister Sheikh put forward a proposal to make Bangla as one of UN official languages, arguing that Bangla as a language holds a 'singular place as a symbol of people's faith in the power of languages to sustain cultures, and indeed the identity of nations.'
She reiterated her call during her addresses at the UNGA in 2010 and 2011  
In 2009, the Parliament endorsed Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s proposal.
West Bengal state assembly also passed a similar resolution.
Apart from the efforts by the government, there have been quite a few initiatives by individuals and groups, said the officials.
Currently, English, French, Arabic, Chinese, Russian and Spanish are the six official languages of the UN.
Roughly, 30 crore people, especially in Bangladesh and West Bengal, speak Bangla across the globe. Aside from Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal, Bangla is widely spoken in Indian states of Assam and Tripura.
“Inspired by the fact that 21st February was declared as the 'International Mother Language Day' in 1999 by UNESCO in commemoration of the historic Language Movement of 1952, Bangladesh rightfully wanted to see Bangla as one of the official languages. And, we are working on that,” a senior foreign ministry official said.
“Since the Prime Minister made the proposal and the Parliament endorsed it, we have been making our best possible efforts to make this happen,” he said.
“But, the process to get Bangla as a UN official language is long and difficult as political, institutional and financial hurdles were involved in the procedure,” said another official.
The foreign ministry officials are simply unable to even indicate any timeframe as to when Bangla can be declared as a UN official language.
“Look, the matter is political as well as emotional. It is an uphill task,” said another official, who has experience of dealing with the issue.
“Let alone all the issues, the financial cost it will incur is huge. We are talking about 7-8 million dollars. Even if, a big if, the UN agrees, will it be worth to spend so much money for that? Can we afford the money,” he said.
“We have apprised the political leadership of all these hurdles on the way,” he added.
“We like to promote Bangla in the world as we are passionate about our language. But we will have to show the logics behind our demand. To this end, we are working to persuade other members to support our cause and some countries have already supported our cause,” said another senior official.
 “It will be a miracle if Bangla is declared as a UN official language in any distant future,” he said.
The officials pointed out that despite being the second largest contributor to the UN budget Japanese is not an official language.
Indians gave up after trying for a long time to make Hindi as an official language, they said.
Despite the fact that Arabic is spoken in much more countries as compared with Bangla and the Arabic-speaking countries are wealthy, it got the status of a UN official language in 1973 after trying for long 20 years, said the officials.
First, the Arabic-speaking countries had to pay for the service, but at present they seem to receive the service free, they added.