Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy

Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy (Bengali: হোসেন শহীদ সোহ্‌রাওয়ার্দী; Urdu: حسین شہید سہروردی; 8 September 1892 – 5 December 1963) was a Pakistani Bengali barrister and politician. In Bangladesh, Suhrawardy is remembered as a pioneer of Bengali civil rights movements, later turned into Bangladesh independence movement, and the mentor of Bangladesh's founding leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. He is also remembered for his performance as the Minister for Civil Supply during the Bengal famine of 1943. In India, he is seen as a controversial figure; directly responsible for the 1946 Calcutta Killings, for which he is often referred as the "Butcher of Bengal” in West Bengal.

He served as the Prime Minister of Pakistan from 1956 to 1957 and before that as the Prime Minister of Bengal from 1946 to 1947 in British India. In both Pakistan and Bangladesh, Suhrawardy is regarded as a patron of separate homeland for the Muslims, especially for Bengali Muslims, for which he is revered as one of the founding statesmen of Pakistan.

Suhrawardy was a scion of one of British Bengal's most prominent Muslim families, the Suhrawardy family. His father Sir Zahid Suhrawardy was a judge of the high court in Bengal. Suhrawardy studied law in Oxford. After returning to India, he joined the Indian independence movement during the 1920s as a trade union leader in Calcutta. He was initially associated with the Swaraj Party. He joined the All-India Muslim League and became one of the leaders of the Bengal Provincial Muslim League (BPML). Suhrawardy was elected to the Bengal Legislative Assembly in 1937. In 1946, Suhrawardy led the BPML to decisively win the provincial general election. He served as Bengal's last premier until the Partition of India. His premiership was notable for his proposal to create a Free State of Bengal and failing to prevent the Great Calcutta Killings. Muhammad Ali Jinnah, leader of the Muslim League, supported an independent Bengal; this was strongly opposed by the Congress Party. In 1947, the Bengal Assembly voted to partition the territory. Suhrawardy briefly remained in India after partition to attend to his ailing father and manage his family's property. He eventually moved to Pakistan and divided his time between Karachi (Pakistan's federal capital) and Dhaka (capital of East Pakistan).

In Dhaka, Suhrawardy emerged as the leader of the Bengali-dominated Awami League which became the principal opposition party to the Pakistan Muslim League. In 1956, the centre-left Awami League formed a coalition government with the military-backed Republican Party to unseat the Muslim League. Suhrawardy became Prime Minister in the coalition government. He forged stronger ties with the United States by leading Pakistan's diplomacy in SEATO and CENTO. He also became the first Pakistani premier to travel to Communist China. His pro-US foreign policy caused a split in the Awami League in East Pakistan, with Maulana Bhashani forming the break-away pro-Maoist National Awami Party. Suhrawardy's premiership lasted for a year. His central cabinet included figures like Sir Feroz Khan Noon as Foreign Minister and Abul Mansur Ahmad as Trade Minister. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was considered Suhrawardy's chief political protégé.

Suhrawardy was premier under Pakistan's first republican constitution which ended dominion status and the monarchy of Queen Elizabeth. During the 1958 military coup, Suhrawardy was arrested by the martial law government. He missed the wedding of his niece, Salma Sobhan (Pakistan's first woman barrister), because of his detention. In 1963, Suhrawardy died in Beirut due to a heart attack. After his death, the Awami League veered towards Bengali nationalism, the 6-point movement, East Pakistani secession and ultimately Bangladeshi independence in 1971. According to Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, "Bengalis had initially failed to appreciate a leader of Mr. Suhrawardy's stature. By the time they learned to value him, they had run out of time". Suhrawardy's only daughter Begum Akhtar Sulaiman was a social worker and activist in Pakistan; his son, Rashid Suhrawardy, from his second marriage to Vera Alexandrovna Tiscenko Calder; was a British Bangladeshi actor known for his role in the film Jinnah. His brother Hasan Shaheed Suhrawardy was a diplomat, writer and art-critic. Many places in South Asia bear his name, including an avenue in Islamabad; a large park near his mausoleum in Dhaka; and streets, dormitories and memorials across Bangladesh. The Suhrawardy family home in modern-day Kolkata has been leased as a Library and Information Centre of the Bangladesh High Commission in India by the city's Waqf board.