Opinion | Hassan Was No Better Than Huseyn: Why Suhrawardy Avenue's Name Should've Been Changed In 1947 Itself

While his nephew Huseyn’s activities and cause for notoriety are well known, the sustained British affection for Sir Hassan is curious indeed

Very few people know whom New Delhi’s iconic Khan Market is named after. Most don’t care, but even the few who do mostly think it is Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, better known as “Frontier Gandhi". Only, it isn’t. The Khan in question is Khan Abdul Jabbar Khan, a dedicated doctor and brother of the Gandhian Khan. But it does not really matter; most just hazily remember it is named after a kindly Pathan leader—a description that fits both heroic brothers.

The opposite is true for the surname Suhrawardy, which was recently removed as the name of a road leading off the prominent “7 point crossing’ at Park Circus in Kolkata. The renaming of Suhrawardy Avenue as Gopal Mukherjee Road on Sunday has led to a flood of ersatz punditry, pointing out that the Suhrawardy in question was not the “Butcher of Kolkata" who instigated the August 1946 killings of Hindus and later became Prime Minister of Pakistan, but his uncle.

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One Surname, Two Legacies: Who Were The Suhrawardys Of West Bengal?

Most residents of West Bengal today—whether they are aware of the anti-Hindu pogrom in 1946 or not—know of only one Suhrawardy in relation to Calcutta/Kolkata: Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy, the politician. Not his uncle, Sir Hassan Suhrawardy, the military doctor. Moreover, unlike the altruistic Khans of market fame whom many Delhiwalas remember fondly, the surname Suhrawardy does not elicit a positive reaction among average Kolkatans at........

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