KMC renames city’s Suhrawardy Avenue as Gopal Mukherjee Road

Almost six weeks after coming to power in the State, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in West Bengal has announced its first rechristening exercise by renaming Kolkata’s Suhrawardy Avenue as Gopal Mukherjee Road.

According to a notification published on June 20 and signed by the administrator of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC), the “road known as Suhrawardy Avenue in KMC will be named and henceforth be known as Gopal Mukherjee Road”.

The road, located in the city’s Park Circus area, has often been criticised by right-wing groups because it is believed to be named after Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy (1892–1963), a prominent Bengali politician who served as the last Prime Minister of undivided Bengal and later as the Prime Minister of Pakistan.

The BJP and other Hindutva groups hold Suhrawardy responsible for the communal riots in Kolkata in 1946, also referred to as the Great Calcutta Killings.

Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari was quick to commend the decision taken by the Kolkata Municipal Corporation, saying that “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”.

However, scholars have pointed out that the road was not named after Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy but after his uncle, Hassan Shaheed Suhrawardy, a Bengali academic, scholar and art critic who had no connection to the communal riots.

Old editions of the Calcutta Municipal Gazette indicate that the road was named Suhrawardy Avenue in 1932–33, long before Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy emerged on the political scene.

The proposal to rename the road after Gopal Mukherjee, popularly known as Gopal Patha, has been backed by right-wing groups, which claim that he “saved” many Hindu families during the 1946 Great Calcutta Killings. Patha means goat, a name associated with him because his family ran a meat shop in central Kolkata.

The Chief Minister described Mukherjee as a 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 saviour. It is time West Bengal remembers, corrects and honours the real heroes,” Mr. Adhikari said.