Bengal chief minister Suvendu Adhikari declared on Tuesday that Kolkata would not have roads or localities named after Mughals, Pathans or oppressive British rulers, responding to Opposition allegations that the government was distorting history through the renaming of a major city road.
Speaking in the Assembly during a discussion on the governor's address, the chief minister announced the formation of a committee to review the names of roads and localities across the city.
Adhikari's remarks assume significance against the backdrop of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation's decision to rename Suhrawardy Avenue, a major thoroughfare in the Park Circus area, as Gopal Mukherjee Road.
The Assembly witnessed a debate over the historical reference behind the original name of the road. Leader of the Opposition Ritabrata Banerjee questioned the renaming and argued that Suhrawardy Avenue was not named after former Pakistani prime minister Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy, who has been linked to the Great Calcutta Killings of 1946, but after his grandfather, Maulana Ubaidullah Al Ubaidi Suhrawardy.
The road was named in 1932 by the erstwhile Calcutta Improvement Trust after Sir Hassan Suhrawardy, a noted physician and the first Muslim vice-chancellor of the University of Calcutta. He was Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy's uncle.
Adhikari, however, countered Banerjee's claim by citing historical references, including those of freedom fighter Bina Das, and said no Mughal or Pathan names would be retained in Kolkata's road nomenclature.
"The Suhrawardy name will not remain. There will be no Mughal, Pathan or oppressive British names in Kolkata," Adhikari said.
The panel tasked with reviewing names of public places will be headed by Swami Pradiptananda, widely known as Karthik Maharaj. Adhikari said people could submit suggestions to the committee. "Only the names of genuine patriots will be considered," he said.
"Except for Sister Nivedita, no foreign name will remain. If there are genuine patriots like APJ Abdul Kalam, give us the information and the state government will honour them. You cannot erase Bengali culture and pride," the chief minister added.
The Telegraph Online earlier reported that the controversy appears to have stemmed from what former Rajya Sabha MP Jawhar Sircar called "patchy, half-history". Sircar argued that critics had mistaken Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy for another member of the Suhrawardy family. Historian Kingshuk Chatterjee said Huseyn's prominence had overshadowed that of Hassan Suhrawardy, leading to confusion over whom the avenue was named after. Another theory suggests the road may have been named after educationist Ubaidullah Al Ubaidi Suhrawardy, Hassan's father, although this has not been extensively researched.
Although Adhikari has hailed the renaming as a step towards correcting a "historical wrong", it has triggered a political row, with Congress leaders Pawan Khera and Jairam Ramesh, as well as the CPI(M), accusing the BJP-led government of ignoring historical facts.
Khera alleged that BJP leaders had confused Sir Hassan Suhrawardy, the physician and former vice-chancellor of the University of Calcutta, with Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy, the last premier of undivided Bengal.
The CPI(M), in a statement, said the campaign in favour of the renaming was based on a "historically incorrect narrative" that the avenue had been named after Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy.
