Dutta argued that though Bengali was one of the provincial languages of Pakistan, it happened to be the mother tongue of the Bengalis, the majority segment of Pakistan's population. Dutta went beyond the proposition that Bengali should be a language of the legislature and suggested that it ought to be the language of the state itself. And this is how he put it:

"Out of six crores and ninety lakhs of people inhabiting this state, four crores and forty lakhs of people speak the Bengali language. So, Sir, what should be the state language of the state? The state language of the State should be the language which is used by the majority of the people of the state, and for that, Sir, I consider that (the) Bengali language is a lingua franca of our state."

Dhirendranath Dutta's assertion of Bengali rights came within months of the partition of India and the creation of Pakistan. In those early stages of the new state, as also those that would come later, the governing classes of the country were essentially based in Pakistan's western part comprising Punjab, Sindh, Baluchistan and the Northwest Frontier Province. Even so, men of authority such as the prime minister, Nawabzada Liaquat Ali Khan, for want of parliamentary seats in western Pakistan, were deemed to be representing the Bengalis through being allocated seats from the East Bengal quota. Besides, Khwaja Nazimuddin, an influential non-Bengali Muslim Leaguer from East Bengal, occupied a position of privilege in Pakistan's political scheme of things.

On February 25, 1948, Dhirendranath Dutta's statement in the Constituent Assembly was revealing for a whole lot more than a demand for Bengali to be accepted as the language of the state. He went on:

"A poor cultivator who has got his son, Sir, as a student in the Dacca University and who wants to send money to him, goes to a village post office and he asks for a money order form, finds that the money order form is printed in (the) Urdu language. He cannot send the money order but shall have to rush to a distant town and have this money order form translated for him and then the money order, Sir, that is necessary for his boy can be sent."

Dutta's statement was supported by another lawmaker from East Bengal, Prem Hari Barma. He made it clear what objective Dutta had in mind:

"Sir, this amendment does not seek to oust English or Urdu altogether but it seeks only to have Bengali as one of the media spoken in the Assembly by the Members of the Assembly."

Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan rose once the Bengali member resumed his seat. His remarks turned out to be a clear hint of the language-related policy the government of Pakistan intended to follow in subsequent times. More ominously, they were an early sign of the subsequent "conspiracies" the political classes of western Pakistan would spot in all expressions of Bengali political aspirations. The following is part of what Pakistan's first prime minister said on the day:

"I wish the Hon'ble Member had not moved his amendment and tried to create misunderstanding between the different parts of Pakistan."

Liaquat Ali Khan then moved on to accuse Dutta, in so many words, of questioning the very basis of the state of Pakistan:

"He should realize that Pakistan has been created because of the demand of a hundred million Muslims in this subcontinent and the language of a hundred million Muslims is Urdu; and, therefore, it is wrong for him now to try and create the situation that as the majority of the people of Pakistan belongs to one part of Pakistan, therefore the language which is spoken there should become the state language of Pakistan. I never heard in the central assembly for years and years any voice raised by the people of Bengal that Bengali should be the state language. I want to know why is (sic) this voice being raised today."

The prime minister went on:

"Urdu can be the only language which can keep the people of East Bengal or Eastern Zone and the people of Western Zone joined together. It is necessary for a nation to have one language and that language can only be Urdu and no other language."

When Liaquat Ali Khan sat down, a clearly distressed Bhupendra Kumar Dutta, member from East Bengal, took the floor. This is how he began his remarks:

"Sir, we press this amendment in no frivolous spirit of opposition. I am surprised at the speech the Honourable Leader of the House has just made. I wish he had not made some of the remarks he chose to make."

And he added, in what now seems portentously:

"They will have unfortunate repercussions elsewhere even in certain sections in Pakistan. Therefore, it is all the more necessary that this amendment should be pressed."

Bhupendra Kumar Dutta then went through a spate of interruption from other members before continuing:

"But here we are adopting Urdu. Urdu is not the language of any of the provinces constituting the Dominion of Pakistan. It is the language of the upper few of western Pakistan. This opposition to the amendment proves an effort, a determined effort on the part of the upper few of western Pakistan at dominating the state of Pakistan."

Dutta was followed by Khwaja Nazimuddin and Sris Kumar Chattopadhyaya. And then came in Moulvi Tamizuddin Khan, to say he could not accept Dhirendranath Dutta's amendment.

The motion was rejected.

Postscript
Bengali was adopted as one of the state languages, the other being Urdu, of Pakistan eight years later. In April 1971, Dhirendranath Dutta, aged eighty five, was murdered along with his young son by the Pakistan army in Comilla.