Suvendu Adhikari, defending the renaming of Kolkata’s Suhrawardy Avenue, said in the Bengal Assembly, “No road will be named after Mughals or Pathans.”However, the question is, which Suhrawardy was the road actually named after? Husain Shaheed Suhrawardy, the last Prime Minister of Bengal before partition and one of the most despised men of the 1940s? Or his maternal uncle Sir Hasan Suhrawardy, surgeon and Vice-Chancellor of Calcutta University? Or, as another view holds, Hasan’s father, Maulana Ubaidullah al-Obaidi Suhrawardy? Incidentally, the family’s history over the last 200 years is linked to Midnapore, which is also the home district of current Bengal CM Suvendu Adhikari.For many people in Bengal, Suhrawardy means Husain Shaheed Suhrawardy. His name is associated with the Bengal Famine, Direct Action Day and the Great Calcutta Massacre of August 16, 1946. Through any omission or commission, Suhrawardy’s role in one of the darkest chapters of Bengal’s history cannot be easily erased. It is natural that this will be his lasting memory in India, especially in West Bengal.
A family trapped inside history
However, the Suhrawardy family, even though it has gone down in infamy, was much more than the nickname “Butchers of Bengal”. Over the past two centuries, according to public records, the family has produced academics, judges, surgeons, university administrators, art critics, diplomats, parliamentarians, UN representatives, human rights lawyers and, later, public figures in Bangladesh, Pakistan, Jordan and Canada.Unlike many of the elite of Bengal in the bygone era, Suhrawardy was not a zamindar. Their influence came through their deep presence in the institutions of power. He embodied the rise of a Bengali Muslim elite shaped by modern education, law, and public office.The family traces its origins to the Suhrawardy and Suhrawardiya Sufi orders in the Persian world. The official family history of Princess Sarwath Al Hassan of Jordan states that Suhrawardy claimed descent from the Baghdad-based Sufi Sheikh Shahabuddin Suhrawardy, author of Awarif al-Ma’arif.
From Midnapore to modern Bengal
Modern records begin in nineteenth-century Bengal. The key figure was Ubaidullah al-Obaidi Suhrawardy, born in Chitwa, Midnapore in 1832. Well versed in Arabic, Persian and English, he taught Anglo-Arabic at the Hooghly College from 1865 and became the first superintendent of the Dhaka Madrasa in 1874. He was associated with the Mohammedan Literary Society, the Central National Mohammedan Association, the Bengal Social Science Association and the Aligarh Mohammedan Anglo-Oriental College.Sir Hasan was the son of Suhrawardy Ubaidullah, a surgeon and public figure who served as Vice-Chancellor of Calcutta University from 1930 to 1934. He was Hussain’s maternal uncle. Husain’s father, Justice Sir Zahid Suhrawardy, belonged to the Calcutta High Court, where he was a leading figure. Hussain’s mother was Khujista Akhtar Bano. Hasan Shaheed Suhrawardy, often called Shahid Suhrawardy, was the elder brother of Hussein and later an art critic, writer, professor, and diplomat. Shaista Suhrawardy was the daughter of Ikramullah Sir Hassan, making her Hussein’s cousin.
rise of hussain
Husain was born in this distinguished Midnapore family in 1892. He studied at Calcutta Aliya Madrasa and St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree, completed an MA in Arabic from the University of Calcutta, studied law at Oxford, obtained a BCL, and was later called to the bar at Gray’s Inn in London. After returning from England he practiced law in Calcutta and entered active politics around 1920.In the 1920s, Suhrawardy was the General Secretary of the Calcutta Khilafat Committee. He organized 36 trade unions among sailors, railway workers, jute and cotton mill workers, rickshaw pullers, cart drivers and others. He founded the Independent Muslim Party before the 1926 council elections, organized the Bengal Muslim Election Board before the 1929 elections and later founded the United Muslim Party in Kolkata before the 1937 elections.His rise was rapid. After the 1937 elections, he became the Minister of Labor and Commerce in the Praja-League coalition government of AK Fazlul Haq. As general secretary of the Bengal Provincial Muslim League from 1937 to 1943, he helped organize the party throughout the province. He later became Minister of Civil Supplies in the Khwaja Nazimuddin ministry during 1943–45. In 1946, after the Muslim League’s victory in the Muslim seats of Bengal, he became the premier of undivided Bengal. He later served as Law Minister of Pakistan in 1954–55 and Prime Minister in 1956–57.
wound of 1946
As Minister of Civil Supplies during the famine years, he was part of the food-administration machinery. The famine was not the work of any one provincial minister. But Suhrawardy cannot be removed from the administrative history of that failure.Then came Direct Action Day. The Great Calcutta Massacre took place on August 16, 1946, during Suhrawardy’s tenure as Chief Minister. In most Hindu Bengali memories, it became the central fact of his life that he was prominent when Calcutta descended into communal violence. His alleged complicity, and the failure of the state to look after him, became his lasting legacy.Yet there was a reversal in 1947. Suhrawardy supported the idea of ​​a united, sovereign Bengal. He envisioned a state consisting of Bengal, Assam and the surrounding districts of Bihar, and collaborated with Sarat Chandra Bose, Kiran Shankar Roy, Satya Ranjan Bakshi and Abul Hashim on a united independent Bengal with India and Pakistan as the third dominion.Critics saw this as a sinister plan to maintain Muslim League influence over undivided Bengal. But it was also a recognition of the economic reality that undivided Bengal would remain an economic superpower. The plan was incomplete because Suhrawardy was already a persona non grata in the popular Hindu imagination. For many Bengali Hindus, especially after 1946, partition had become a kind of security. Pakistan remained the central demand for the Muslim League. Interestingly, according to Banglapedia, the national encyclopedia of Bangladesh, after partition, Suhrawardy lived in Calcutta for some time and worked with Gandhi during the peace mission to the city.
Suhrawardy (right) with MK Gandhi.
Rejection and reconstruction
There were two phases to his career in Pakistan after 1947. His membership of the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan was terminated in 1949 on the grounds that he was not a permanent resident. He re-established himself through the opposition politics of East Bengal. The Awami League was founded in Dhaka in 1949 by a faction of Bengal Provincial Muslim League leaders associated with Suhrawardy and Abul Hashim.In 1954–55, Suhrawardy joined Mohammad Ali’s cabinet as Law Minister. It was a surprising turn for a politician who was once expelled from the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan. As Law Minister, he significantly contributed to the formulation of the 1956 Constitution of Pakistan by facilitating the Murree Agreement of 1955.In 1956, Suhrawardy became Prime Minister of Pakistan, and led a coalition government at the center for barely 13 months. His premiership tenure was short, but not unimportant. His government is credited with achieving equality between the two branches of government, holding a session of the National Assembly of Pakistan in Dhaka for the first time, and passing a bill introducing a joint electoral system. He was known for political pragmatism, which aided his meteoric rise in the political ecosystem of Pakistan. He managed to build good relations with both America and China.After Ayub Khan’s military takeover, Suhrawardy became one of the regime’s most prominent opponents. He was banned from politics and arrested on January 30, 1962 under security laws. He was held in Karachi Central Jail without trial and released in August the same year. After his release, he helped organize the National Democratic Front as an anti-Ayub platform.By the time Suhrawardy died in Beirut on December 5, 1963, Pakistan was firmly under military rule. His death helped clear the way for Sheikh Mujibur Rahman to become the sole leader of the Awami League. But other branches of the family continued active participation in various aspects of public life.
Suhrawardy timeline
Other Suhrawardy
Sir Hassan was associated with medicine, public service and university administration. However his reputation in the case of capture of freedom fighter Bina Das tarnishes his legacy, as Suvendu Adhikari indicated in the Assembly. Hasan Shaheed was associated with arts and diplomacy. He worked with the Moscow Art Theatre, edited the fine arts section of the League of Nations in Paris, visited Visva-Bharati on the invitation of Rabindranath Tagore, taught comparative art at the University of Calcutta and later served Pakistan as ambassador to Spain, Morocco, Tunisia and the Vatican, according to available records.Shaista Suhrawardy moved the Ikramullah family to another area. The daughter of Sir Hassan and cousin of Hussain, she became the first female member of the Parliament of Pakistan, ambassador to Morocco and a representative to the United Nations. The United Nations Human Rights Office has identified her as one of three non-Western women who influenced the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, particularly Article 16 on equal rights in marriage.
A family scattered across many countries
After 1947, the family dispersed across different countries. In Bangladesh, Shaista’s daughter Salma Shobhan became a lawyer, academic and human rights activist. One of Pakistan’s first female barristers, she later taught law at the University of Dhaka and co-founded the Ain O Salish Centre. His son Zafar Shobhan carried on the family’s public role in journalism by becoming a lawyer, columnist and founding editor of the Dhaka Tribune.The Jordanian line came through Princess Sarwath El Hassan, born Sarwath Ikramullah in Calcutta in July 1947. She married Prince Hassan bin Talal in Karachi in 1968 and became part of the Hashemite royal family of Jordan. Her work in Jordan focuses on education, women’s issues, social welfare and health. Their children include Princess Rahma, Princess Sumaya, Princess Badia and Prince Rashid.Hussein’s immediate family followed the same scattered geography. His first wife was Begum Niaz Fatima, daughter of Justice Sir Abdur Rahim, who died in 1922. His second wife was Begum Vera Suhrawardy, a Russian actress. One son, Shahab, died young from pneumonia. Another son, Rashid Suhraward, adopted the screen name Robert Ashby while starring in film. Jinnah. His daughter, Begum Akhtar Suleman, became a Pakistani social worker and political activist. His daughter Shahida Jameel later served as the Law Minister of Pakistan.In Canada, another of Shaista’s daughters, Naz Ikramullah Ashraf, became a British-Canadian artist and filmmaker.The name Suhrawardy lives on because it sits at the intersection of collection and anger. The truth is that one man’s sins may have overshadowed everything else. That is why Suvendu’s sharp words in the meeting echo the broader contours of public memory.
