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Published : 23 Jun 2026, 03:01 PM
Kolkata's Suhrawardy Avenue has been renamed Gopal Mukherjee Road, triggering a political and historical row just six weeks after a change of government in West Bengal.
The 500m stretch running from Park Circus Seven Points to Don Bosco Circle was renamed by the Kolkata Municipal Corporation, according to Anandabazar Patrika.
West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari welcomed the decision, calling it an “important correction of a historical injustice”.
In an X post, he said the road had for decades borne the name of someone who misused state power for political gain - a reference to Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy, the last prime minister of undivided Bengal and later prime minister of Pakistan.
Hindu nationalist groups have long called Suhrawardy the "Butcher of Calcutta" over his failure to stop the deadly 1946 riots.
The road's new namesake, Gopal Chandra Mukherjee, widely known as Gopal Pantha, was a butcher by trade who organised a hardline Hindu group during those same riots.
He faced allegations of killing Muslims during that period. Adhikari claimed Gopal saved thousands of innocent lives during the unrest.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has been working to rehabilitate his image.
But historians have complicated matters further, saying the avenue may never have been named after Huseyn Suhrawardy at all.
Calcutta University history professor Amit Dey said the road was named after Hassan Suhrawardy, a scholar and polyglot who served as vice-chancellor of Calcutta University from August 1930 to August 1934 -- the institution's first Muslim vice-chancellor.
Hassan was also the second Muslim from the subcontinent elected Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in England and a member of the Bengal Legislative Council.
Huseyn Suhrawardy was Hassan's nephew, not the man the road was named after, Trinamool Congress legislator Kunal Ghosh said in an X post, sharing photographs of both men.
He called on the chief minister to verify the record before proceeding. "If the uncle is being punished for the nephew's actions, that is most unfortunate," he wrote.
Anandabazar cited Kolkata historian Gautam Basumallick, who said the corporation issued a gazette notification naming the road in 1933.
A book by former corporation official Ajitkumar Basu, based on archival research, however, suggests the road was originally named after Maulana Ubaidullah Al Ubaidi Suhrawardy, another scholar who may have been an ancestor of both Hassan and Huseyn.
Hassan's former residence stood on the very street that now bears a new name.
The building currently houses the library and information centre of the Bangladesh Deputy High Commission in Kolkata.
Prof Soma Bandyopadhyay, a former Calcutta University registrar who has served as vice-chancellor at three institutions, said she found no university record proposing the road be named after any of its vice-chancellors.
"Many people have been vice-chancellor of Calcutta University. Do they all have a road named after them?" she asked.
The question of exactly whose name the avenue bore and whose legacy has now been erased remains unresolved.
