The Kolkata Municipal Corporation has renamed Suhrawardy Avenue in Park Circus as “Gopal Mukherjee Road”, a move chief minister Suvendu Adhikari has lauded though his comments suggested he might have mixed up two different Suhrawardys.

“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,” Suvendu posted on X.

He seemed to be alluding to Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy (1892-1963), a Muslim League leader, Premier of undivided Bengal (and later Pakistan Prime Minister) who is widely accused of facilitating the Great Calcutta Killings of 1946, which earned him the moniker “Butcher of Bengal”.

However, a political scientist and a popular history of Calcutta’s streets suggested the road had been named after Huseyn’s uncle, Lt Col Hassan Suhrawardy (1884-1946), the first Muslim vice-chancellor of Calcutta University and a distinguished surgeon.

“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 restoration of historical justice will be achieved by honouring a true guardian and savior,” Suvendu added.

Mukherjee (1913-2005), a meat seller better known as Gopal Pantha, had organised armed resistance to protect Hindus — and, apparently, also Muslims — during the pre-Partition communal strife in Calcutta. He lived in central Calcutta and had no connection with the renamed road, sources said.

A History of Calcutta’s Streets by P. Thankappan Nair, the city’s “barefoot historian” who passed away in 2024, ties the road to Hassan Suhrawardy. Coincidentally, Hassan was the predecessor as CU vice-chancellor of BJP hero Syama Prasad Mookerjee whom the Prime Minister honoured on Saturday, Paschimbanga Divas, the day Suhrawardy Avenue was renamed.

“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… on which stands the house of Sir Hassan Suhrawardy, Vice-Chancellor of the Calcutta University as Suhrawardy Avenue,” Nair’s book says.

The road is actually 600m long. It runs from the Park Circus seven-point interaction to the Don Bosco island.

“Lt Col Sir Hassan Suhrawardy…. was the most distinguished Muslim medico from the point of academic attainments, official position and varied experience in public life. He was a prominent member of the Bengal Legislative Council and its first elected Muslim Deputy President. He was also the first Indian Consulting Surgeon to the Medical College Hospitals…,” the book says.

Right-wing filmmaker Vivek Agnihotri was accused of a similar mix-up while promoting his controversial The Bengal Files, where Mukherjee plays a prominent role.

Agnihotri had demanded that Suhrawardy Avenue be renamed as Gopal Mukherjee Avenue, arguing that having a street named after “Suhrawardy” in India was like having a “Hitler Street” in Germany.

The saffron ecosystem projects the 1946 Calcutta killings as a conspiracy by Bengal’s then Muslim leadership, whom it accuses of giving political cover to rioters.

But a Calcutta-based historian, who requested anonymity, said the 1946 violence happened largely because of a dubious role played by the British, and that it was now being used to polarise voters.

“The campaign is a way of telling Hindus they must unite to prevent a rerun of the bloodbath. The Right-wing ecosystem conveniently forgets that the killings had followed years of divide and rule by the British,” he said.

The killings had begun on August 16, 1946 — known as Direct Action Day — following a call for a general strike and mass protests by the Muslim League, led by Muhammad Ali Jinnah.

Maidul Islam, a Calcutta-based political scientist, said the civic body had gone after the wrong Suhrawardy.

“They have chosen a wrong target. Populist and majoritarian governments work in this way, bypassing bureaucratic paraphernalia,” he said.

“A little bit of research would have prevented this. Calcutta University has records of Hassan Suhrawardy. He was a highly educated Muslim known for his contributions to society, the kind that (Bengal BJP chief) Samik Bhattacharya pays tributes to.”

Process poser

A June 20 circular from the civic body’s administrator and commissioner said: “Suhrawardy Avenue in KMC area will be named and henceforth be known as Gopal Mukherjee Road.”

A state government official said the KMC has a road renaming committee that moots renaming proposals or clears (or rejects) those it receives and sends them (if cleared) to the mayor-in-council for approval.

If the mayor-in-council approves it, the proposal is published in a newspaper giving citizens, scholars, historians and the family of the person whose name the road carries to raise objections.

If there is no objection, the proposal is placed on the floor of the House — the monthly session of KMC councillors. Once approved by the House, an official notification is published announcing the changed name of the road.

It was not immediately clear whether this process had been followed while renaming Suhrawardy Avenue, since councillors no longer hold office and no monthly session has been convened since April 30.

This newspaper received conflicting opinions on Sunday evening about whether the road renaming committee had ceased to exist after the Trinamool-run KMC board was dissolved.

The committee included many external experts, recommended and approved by the board.

Calls to Smita Pandey, administrator and commissioner of the KMC, went unanswered.

Calcutta, though, is no stranger to road renaming. Many such exercises were aimed at replacing British-era names with those of Indian heroes and luminaries.

That is how Harrison Road became Mahatma Gandhi Road, Cornwallis Street became Bidhan Sarani and Lansdowne Road became Sarat Bose Road.

The Left government renamed Harrington Street — where the US consulate stands — as Ho Chi Minh Sarani to rile the Americans. The Trinamool government was known for renaming roads and Metro stations after actors and other eminent persons.

Another historian, also seeking anonymity, said renaming roads was a way to “retell history, sometimes with scant regard for factual accuracy”.

“Successive governments have done this. Look at what is happening across India now. Roads, even cities with Muslim names, are being rechristened,” he said.

Kin ‘happy’

Niharika Mukherjee, 46, granddaughter of Gopal, hailed the KMC move.

“There was no road named after my grandfather. I, on behalf of my family, want to thank the chief minister for remembering my grandfather and the role he played in saving people during riots,” Niharika said.

Told that Suhrawardy Avenue may not have been named after Huseyn Suhrawardy, she said the decision to rename the road was the government’s.

She complained: “No previous government acknowledged the role of my grandfather. They tried to suppress history and truth. I’m not saying that I’m happy because Suhrawardy’s name has been removed.”

She added: “During the riots, my grandfather had instructed his supporters not to harm any innocent Muslim who was not rioting. He had only asked his supporters to stand up in self-defence and in defence of Hindus against Muslims who were harming Hindus.”

A grandson of Mukherjee had alleged that Agnihotri’s film distorted his grandfather’s legacy by portraying him as a “butcher” without context. Mukherjee protected both vulnerable Hindus and Muslims, he had said.

CPM state secretary Md Salim condemned the name change and the support for it by Suvendu and “the higher education minister (Jagannath Chatterjee)”, saying the move “stands on distorted history and falsehood”. The party demanded a rollback of the decision.

Trinamool MLA Kunal Ghosh said: “I’m not saying a single word regarding Gopal Babu. However, the issue of removing the previous name requires a fact-check....”

He said the road had “never been named after the controversial Suhrawardy” but after his uncle, whom he described as “an educationist, physician, the vice-chancellor of Calcutta University, the chief medical officer of Eastern Railway and a military doctor”.