Was Suhrawardy Avenue named after the ‘Butcher of Bengal’? Kolkata renames Suhrawardy Avenue after Gopal Mukherjee

The Kolkata Municipal Corporation has renamed the 100-foot-wide Suhrawardy Avenue as part of its movement to "rectify a historical wrong." It was changed to Gopal Mukherjee Road in memory of Gopal Pantha, a meat shop owner remembered for organising the community defence of the Hindus during the then communal riots of 1946.

Kolkata Chief Minister Subhendu Adhikari, in a post on the social media platform X, said, “For decades, a major artery of our City bore the name of someone who wilfully misused state power as a weapon, orchestrating the massacre of innocent citizens for sheer political gain."

He was referring to Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy, who is also known as the “Butcher of Bengal”. The controversial last Prime Minister of West Bengal was associated with the 1946 massacre during the Action Day call by the Muslim League in Bengal. They called for “either a divided India or a destroyed India”, which resulted in indiscriminate violence and killing of both Hindu and Muslim; numbers are disputed, but somewhere between 4000 and 10000, and wounded around 15000. It also killed any hope of a United India and set off a wave of violence across the country.

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"By renaming it after Shri Gopal Mukherjee, the fearless soul who stepped up as a protector-in-chief to defend and save thousands of innocent lives, finally, the restoration of historical justice will be achieved by honouring a true guardian and saviour. It's time, West Bengal remembers, corrects and honours the Real Heroes,” said Subhendu Adhikari

Was Suhrawardy Avenue named after the ‘Butcher of Bengal’?

However, the opposition leader from Congress and TMC, including historians, argue that the road was not named after Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy, but a well-regarded educationist, Dr Hassan Suhrawardy, a military doctor-officer of the British Army who became vice-chancellor of the Calcutta University and lived nearby. They say that the BJP conflates Dr Hassan with his nephew Huseyn Shaheed. A similar claim that the road is named after Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy was made by Swarajya Magazine in 2017. Fact-checking portal Alt News found in its research that the road was named Suhrawardy Avenue in 1932-33, according to the 17th Volume of Calcutta Municipal Gazette, and Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy became Prime Minister and Premier of undivided Bengal on April 23, 1946. “The new road constructed by the Calcutta Improvement Trust from Park Circus to the junction of Kasaipara Lane, on which stands the house of Sir Hassan Suhrawardy, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Calcutta, was named Suhra-".. the full version of the text can be accessed via the Gazette on Google Books. The claims made by the West Bengal CM and the Swarajya magazine lack any historical proof.