“The broader Suhrawardy family’s political choices similarly reflected an alignment with Pakistan rather than India,” Malviya claimed.
File Photo: IANS
Amid the row over the renaming of Suhrawardy Avenue in Kolkata, BJP leader Amit Malviya on Monday slammed the “Congress ecosystem”, saying “Bengal owes the Suhrawardy legacy no tribute.”
Suhrawardy Avenue, a road connecting two key crossings in Kolkata, was recently renamed Gopal Mukherjee Road.
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This prompted criticism from the Congress as the party claimed that the road was named after Hassan Suhrawardy, the former vice chancellor of Calcutta University and not his nephew Huseyn Suhrawardy, who is accused of facilitating the 1946 Calcutta riots.
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“These BJP leaders do not even know the difference between Hasan Suhrawardy and Huseyn Suhrawardy. Such is their ignorance,” Congress leader Pawan Khera wrote on X.
Jairam Ramesh, the general secretary of the Congress, also questioned the move, saying, “Hassan Suhrawardy, after whom the road was named, was vice chancellor of Calcutta University. Syama Prasad Mookerjee had succeeded him, while SPM’s father, Sir Ashutosh Mookerjee, had preceded him by some years. But Entire Political Science doesn’t teach you such stuff.”
Reacting to the Congress party’s criticism, Malviya said, “The Congress ecosystem is predictably outraged by the renaming of a road associated with the Suhrawardy name. But what exactly are they defending?”
“If the reference is to Lieutenant Colonel Hassan Suhrawardy (1884–1946), the record is hardly one that independent India is obliged to celebrate. A distinguished surgeon and former Vice-Chancellor of Calcutta University, he was also closely associated with the British establishment,” the BJP leader said.
He further claimed that if the Suhrawardy name is remembered in Bengal today, however, it is above all because of Huseyn Suhrawardy, Hassan’s nephew and one of the most controversial political figures of the pre-Partition era.
According to Malviya, as Premier of Bengal and a leading Muslim League politician, Huseyn presided over the province during the horrors of Direct Action Day on August 16, 1946.
“The Muslim League’s call for Direct Action unleashed unprecedented communal violence in Calcutta, leaving thousands dead, countless families devastated, and Bengal scarred for generations. The carnage became a grim precursor to Partition and earned Huseyn Suhrawardy the enduring epithet of the ‘Butcher of Bengal’.”
The BJP leader further stated that Partition, Huseyn Suhrawardy moved to Pakistan, rose to the highest levels of power, and went on to serve as the Prime Minister of Pakistan, a journey that reinforced where his loyalties lay.
“The broader Suhrawardy family’s political choices similarly reflected an alignment with Pakistan rather than India,” he claimed.
“That is the historical memory associated with the Suhrawardy name in Bengal. No amount of selective revisionism can erase it. Whether one chooses to focus on a British-knighted Muslim League politician or on the man widely held responsible for one of the darkest chapters in Bengal’s history before becoming Prime Minister of Pakistan, there is little reason for free India to continue honouring the family in its public spaces,” he added.
Defending the renaming of the Suhrawardy Avenue road, Malviya said that the move is not merely an administrative act but a correction of a historical anomaly.
“Free India should honour those who stood with the people of this land, not those associated with colonial privilege, the Muslim League, and the politics that culminated in Partition,” he added.
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