Who Was Kolkata’s Suhrawardy Avenue Named After? A Fact Check

The history of Kolkata's Suhrawardy Avenue has come under renewed focus after the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) approved its renaming as Gopal Mukherjee Road after Gophal Patha, a Bengal goat meat trader celebrated by Hindu right-wing groups for his role in the 1946 riots.

Praising KMC's move, West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari on June 21 remarked that, for decades, the road had been named after "someone who willfully misused state power as a weapon, orchestrating the massacre of innocent citizens for sheer political gain."

While Adhikari did not explicitly name anyone, many interpreted his remarks as referring to Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy, who is often associated with the 1946 Kolkata riots and referred to as the "Butcher of Bengal."

In the same address, the chief minister praised Gopal Mukherjee also known as Gopal Patha, calling him "the protector-in-chief who defended and saved thousands of innocent lives" for his role during the 1946 communal riots in Kolkata.

However, according to historical documents and researchers, it is unclear if Suhrawardy Avenue was actually named after Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy, who is widely blamed for the 1946 killings in Kolkata. 

What We Found: The History Behind the Name 'Suhrawardy Avenue'

BOOM first searched official records and found multiple West Bengal government documents referring to the road simply as 'Suhrawardy Avenue.' A map published by the Kolkata Municipal Corporation is one such example. Since the documents do not mention the full name, it remains unclear which Suhrawardy the road is named after.

To find more information about Kolkata's roads, we searched for History of Calcutta Streets and found historian P Thankappan Nair's book A History of Calcutta's Streets. The book mentions Suhrawardy Avenue in Volume 2, page 866 and refers to Sir Hassan Suhrawardy, the then vice-chancellor of Calcutta University, after whom the road was named. 

Nair wrote, "The Corporation at its meeting held on Wednesday, March 8, 1933 christened the 'new (100 ft.) road constructed by the C.I.T. from Park Circus to the junction of Kasaipara Lane (and lying to the north of the Park) on which stands the house of Sir Hassan Suhrawardy, Vice-Chancellor of the Calcutta University' as Suhrawardy Avenue (C. M. Gaz., March 11, 1933, p. 734). The new name was notified on April 20, 1933 (C. M. Gaz. April 29. 1933. p. 1030)." 

The change in the road's name is also recorded in Volume 17, Page 1030 of the Calcutta Municipal Gazette, as cited by the author.

P. Thankappan Nair is widely known as the 'Barefoot Historian of Kolkata' and his book was published under the auspices of the then Calcutta Municipal Corporation. At the same time, the book includes a disclaimer saying the Corporation is not responsible for the facts, views, or conclusions expressed by the author.

BOOM also visited the National Library of India in Kolkata and found 'Kolikatar Rajpath: Samaje O Sanskritite', a book on Calcutta's streets written by Ajit Kumar Basu. Basu served as a senior official at the Kolkata Municipal Corporation. He wrote the book after examining rare historical documents on Kolkata and researching the history of the city's road names.

According to Basu's book (p. 208), the then Councillor Shailendranath Mukhopadhyay proposed the name 'Suhrawardy Avenue' for the newly built road during a Kolkata Municipal Corporation meeting on March 8, 1933.

Basu quotes Mukhopadhyay as saying that the proposal was made "in compliance with the unanimous desire of the local public and in recognition of the vast scholarship and erudition, deep piety and saintly character of the illustrious Moulana Obaidullah Suhrawardy."

Moulana Obaidullah Suhrawardy is Sir Hassan Suhrawardy's father and an eminent Islamic scholar from Bengal. 

The author further writes that the Corporation approved the proposal on the same day, naming the road after Moulana Obaidullah Suhrawardy, father of Sir Hassan Suhrawardy.

Suhrawardy Road Named After Obaidullah Suhrawardy: Historians

An independent history researcher Dr Soumya Basu told BOOM that it is likely the road was named after Moulana Obaidullah and not his son, Hassan as the latter was still alive during the naming. He said, "When the road was renamed Suhrawardy Avenue, Sir Hassan Suhrawardy was still alive. Although there are conflicting accounts about whom the road honours, historical records suggest it was uncommon at the time to name a road after a living person."

Former government college professor Ratna Sengupta said that nowhere in the surviving Calcutta Municipal Gazette is it explicitly stated that the avenue was named after Sir Hassan Suhrawardy. She added that the presence of his family residence on the road, by itself, cannot be treated as conclusive evidence that the avenue was named after him.

According to Sengupta, "Municipal records show the road was named between 1932 and 1933, a period during which Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy had not yet reached the peak of his political prominence. His controversial tenure as Prime Minister of undivided Bengal occurred more than a decade later, in the mid-1940s."

Sengupta further told BOOM, "In the absence of direct documentary evidence identifying which of the three personalities the road was named after, one has to rely on the available circumstantial evidence. Based on that evidence, the most likely and logical conclusion is Ajit Kumar Basu's view that Suhrawardy Avenue was named after Moulana Obaidullah Suhrawardy."