Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy
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| Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy হোসেন শহীদ সোহ্রাওয়ার্দী حسین شہید سہروردی |
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| In office 12 September 1956 – 17 October 1957 |
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| President | Iskander Mirza |
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| Preceded by | Chaudhry Muhammad Ali |
| Succeeded by | Ibrahim Ismail Chundrigar |
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| Born | 8 September 1892 Midnapore, Bengal Presidency, British India |
| Died | 5 December 1963 (aged 71) Beirut, Lebanon |
| Political party | Awami League |
| Alma mater | St. Xavier's College, Calcutta University of Calcutta St Catherine's College, Oxford Gray's Inn |
| Religion | Islam |
Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy (Bengali: হোসেন শহীদ সোহ্রাওয়ার্দী, Urdu: حسین شہید سہروردی; September 8, 1892 - December 5, 1963, Beirut) was a Bengali Muslim politician who served as Prime Minister of Pakistan (1956 - 1957). He was one of the founding leaders of the East Pakistan Awami Muslim League, which later became the Awami League of modern Bangladesh.
Rising to the leadership of the All India Muslim League in the Bengal Presidency, Suhrawardy was a leading advocate of creating a separate Muslim state of Pakistan. A populist leader who advocated socialism, Suhrawardy left the ruling Muslim League in 1949 to form the East Pakistan Awami Muslim League with Maulana Bhashani. Suhrawardy's party became one of the leading opposition political parties in Pakistan. He was appointed to head a coalition government as prime minister in 1956 but his regime was dismissed in 1957 after barely a year in office. Suhrawardy was the mentor of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding leader of Bangladesh.
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Early life and family
Suhrawardy was born on 8 September 1892 to a Muslim family in the town of Midnapore, now in West Bengal. He was the younger son of Justice Sir Zahid Suhrawardy, a prominent judge of the Calcutta High Court and of Khujastha Akhtar Banu (c. 1874–1919) a noted name in Urdu literature and scholar of Persian. Kujastha was the daughter of Maulana Ubaidullah Al Ubaidi Suhrawardy and sister of, amongst others, Lt. Col. Dr. Hassan Suhrawardy, OBE and Sir Abdullah Al-Mamun Suhrawardy.
Suhrawardy had an elder brother Shahid Suhrawardy.
Education and marriage
Suhrawardy completed his undergraduate studies at St. Xavier's College, and completed a masters degree at the University of Calcutta. Afterwards, he moved to the United Kingdom to attend St Catherine's College, Oxford University from where he obtained a BCL degree. On leaving Oxford, he was called to the bar at Gray's Inn. He then started his practice at Calcutta High Court.
In 1920, Suhrawardy married Begum Niaz Fatima, daughter of Sir Abdur Rahim, the then home minister of the Bengal Province of British India and later President of India's Central Legislative Assembly. Suhrawardy had two children from this marriage; Ahmed Shahab Suhrawardy and Begum Akhtar Sulaiman (née Akhtar Jahan Suhrawardy). Ahmed Suhrawardy died from pneumonia whilst he was a student in London in 1940. Begum Akhtar Sulaiman was married to Shah Ahmed Sulaiman (son of Justice Sir Shah Sulaiman) and had one child, Shahida Jamil (who later became the first female Pakistani Federal Minister for Law). Shahida Jamil has two sons, Zahid Jamil (a lawyer in Pakistan) and Shahid Jamil (a solicitor in London).
His first wife, Begum Niaz Fatima, died in 1922. In 1940 Suhrawardy married Vera Alexandrovna Tiscenko Calder, who, after her conversion to Islam had changed her name to Begum Noor Jehan.[1] She was a Russian actress of Polish descent from the Moscow Art Theatre and protege of Olga Knipper.[2][3] The couple divorced in 1951 and had one child, Rashid Suhrawardy (aka Robert Ashby), who is an actor living in London. Vera later settled in America.
Leonard Mosley, in his book 'The last days of the British Raj' writes [on page 26]: "Mr. Suhrawardy was a party 'boss' of the type who believes that no politician need ever be out of office once his strong-arm squads have gained control of the polling booths; that no minister should ever suffer financially by being in public life; that no relative or political cohort should ever go unrewarded. He loved money, champagne, Polish blondes and dancing the tango in nightclubs, and he was reputed to have made a fortune during the war. He loved Calcutta, including its filthy, festering slums, and it was from the noisome alleyways of Howrah that he picked the goondas who accompanied him everywhere as a bodyguard."
Return to India
Suhrawardy returned to the subcontinent in 1921 as a practising barrister of the Calcutta High Court. He became involved in politics in Bengal. Initially, he joined the Swaraj Party, a group within the Indian National Congress, and became an ardent follower of Chittaranjan Das. He played a major role in signing the Bengal Pact in 1923.
Suhrawardy became the Deputy Mayor of the Calcutta Corporation at the age of 31 in 1924, and the Deputy Leader of the Swaraj Party in the Provincial Assembly. However, following the death of Chittaranjan Das in 1925, he began to disassociate himself with the Swaraj Party and eventually joined Muslim League. He served as Minister of Labour, and Minister of Civil Supplies under Khawaja Nazimuddin among other positions. In the Bengal Muslim League, Suhrawardy and Abul Hashim led a progressive line against the conservative stream led by Nazimuddin and Akram Khan.
In 1946, Suhrawardy established and headed a Muslim League government in Bengal. It was the only Muslim League government in India at that time.
Direct Action Day
Sir Frederick Burrows declared August 16, 1946 to be a public holiday following the Direct Action Day called by Jinnah to protest against the Cabinet Mission plan for the independence of India. Suhrawardy, acting on the advice of R.L. Walker, the then chief secretary of Bengal, requested Governor Burrows to declare a public holiday on that day.[4] Walker made this proposal with the hope that the risk of conflicts, especially those related to picketing, would be minimized if government offices, commercial houses and shops remained closed throughout Calcutta on the 16th.
The most consequential of his life's achievements was his role in the great Calcutta riots of 16 August, 1946 - The Muslim League's 'Direct Action' day. He was the Chief minister of the Bengal province - the only province which was ruled by Muslim League. It was therefore no surprise that it was Calcutta that witnessed the massacre of about 10,000 Hindus on the four days from 16th August to 20th August of 1946.
The intensity of Direct Action Day was at its worst in the capital Calcutta. Suhrawardy owned up his responsibility [In the presence of Gandhi & before the people of Calcutta during Gandhi's stay at Beliaghata in August 1947 just before independence] for both orchestrating and not taking steps to prevent the carnage and for trying to suppress the news of the same from the media. Suhrawardy, lead by the muslims' instinctual thirst for human blood, ordered the goons of Calcutta to murder any hindu who would dare open his shop/store or come out into the streets disregarding the Muslim league's call for 'Bandh'/'Direct Action'. This was carried out with perfection and soon the skies of Calcutta echoed with the death screams of thousands of Hindus. It was not until when finally the Hindus found that it was a carefully planned murdering campaign, and began retaliating, that Suhrawardy asked the army to 'control' the riot. The Bengal Police, composed mainly of Muslims and thus was conspicuous by it's utter inaction as Hindus were being butchered in broad day light. [ Leonard Mosley, the pro-Muslim British journalist, gives a vivid portrayal of Suhrawardy's character when he says "...In Calcutta he [Suhrawardy] could find the night-clubs he loved, the blondes he loved even more; and there was something about the smell, squalor, poverty and even the wickedness of the city which appealed to his temperament..."
Independence
In 1947, the balance of power in Bengal shifted from the Muslim League to the Indian National Congress, and Suhrawardy stepped down from the Chief Ministership. Unlike other Muslim League stalwarts of India, he did not leave his hometown immediately for the newly established Pakistan. Anticipating revenge of Hindus against Muslims in Calcutta after the transfer of power, Suhrawardy sought help from Gandhi. Gandhi was persuaded to stay and pacify tempers in Calcutta, but he agreed to do so on the condition that Suhrawardy share the same roof with him so that they could appeal to Muslims and Hindus alike to live in peace. "Adversity makes strange bed-fellows," Gandhi remarked in his prayer meeting.[5]
Political life in East Bengal
Upon the formation of Pakistan, Suhrawardy maintained his work in politics, continuing to focus on East Bengal as it became after the partition of India. On returned to Dhaka he joined Awami Muslim League that Maulana Bhashai formed. In the 1950s, Suhrawardy worked to consolidate political parties in East Pakistan to balance the politics of West Pakistan. He, along with other leading Bengali leaders A.K. Fazlul Huq and Maulana Abdul Hamid Khan Bhashani, formed a political alliance in the name of Jukta Front which won a landslide victory in 1954 general election of East Pakistan. Under Muhammad Ali Bogra, Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy would serve as Law Minister and later become the head of opposition parties.
Prime Minister of Pakistan
In 1956, he was made Prime Minister by President of Pakistan Iskander Mirza after the resignation of Chaudhry Muhammad Ali. Suhrawardy inherited a political schism that was forming in Pakistan between the Muslim League and newer parties, such as the Republican party. The schism was fed by the attempt to consolidate the four provinces of West Pakistan into one province, so as to balance the fact that East Pakistan existed as only one province. The plan was opposed in West Pakistan, and the cause was taken up by the Muslim League and religious parties. Suhrawardy supported the plan, but the vast opposition to it stalled its progress.
In order to divert attention from the controversy over the "One Unit" plan as it was called, Suhrawardy tried to ease economic differences between East and West Pakistan. However, despite his intentions, these initiatives only led to more political frictions, and was worsened when Suhrawardy tried to give more financial allocations to East Pakistan than West Pakistan from aids and grants. Such moves led to a threat of dismissal looming over Suhrawardy's head, and he resigned in 1957.
His contribution in formulating 1956 constitution of Pakistan was substantial as he played a vital role in incorporating provisions for civil liberties and universal adult franchise in line with his adherence to parliamentary form of liberal democracy.
In the foreign policy arena, he is considered to be one of the pioneers of Pakistan's pro-United States stand. He was also the first Pakistani Prime Minister to visit China and establish an official diplomatic friendship between Pakistan and China [6] (a friendship that Henry Kissinger would later use to make his now-famous secret trip to China in July 1971).
Atomic Policy and Civilian Nuclear Program
During 1950s, Pakistan was suffering from severe energy crises. It was Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy's Prime Ministerial term when Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) was established by a Parliamentary Act of 1956. He also appointed Dr. Nazir Ahmad, a noted physicist and scientist, to be its first Chairman. Under Dr. Nazir Ahmad's direction, Pakistan started its civilian nuclear program. Prime Minister Suhrawardy also allotted PAEC to sat up its new pilot-nuclear labs. He played an important role in establishing of Nuclear research institutes in West Pakistan. He also allowed PAEC to established the first nuclear power plant in Karachi. However, after his removal from office, the Nuclear Power Plant Project was undermined by a political turmoil in the country. The Pakistani Civilian Nuclear Program was also frozen by Ayub Khan's military regime for more than a decade.
Post-political life and death
Disqualified from politics under the military regime of Ayub Khan, Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy died in Lebanon in 1963. His death was officially due to complications from heart problems, though some have alleged he was poisoned or gassed in his bedroom. After a befitting funeral attended by a huge crowd, he was buried at Suhrawardy Udyan in Dhaka. Khayaban-e-Suhrawardy in Islamabad is named after him.
References
- ^ http://www.indiankanoon.org/doc/772490/
- ^ http://74.125.155.132/search?q=cache:LKsLeVk3ALQJ:www.paklinks.com/gs/pakistan-affairs/182277-pakistani-politicians-ones-you-dont-know-much-about
- ^ New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Stanislavski Revisited, Broadcast on WNYC AM NYC, July 18, 1976, LT-10 3099
- ^ Tsugitaka, Sato (2000). Muslim Societies: Historical and Comparative Aspects. Routledge. p. 112. ISBN 0415332540.
- ^ The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/w/wolpert-gandhi.html.
- ^ Bahree, Megha (2 July 2009). "China In Pakistan". Forbes. http://www.forbes.com/2009/07/02/ruba-china-pakistan-trade-sidebar.html.
- Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy: A Biography by Begum Shaista Ikramullah (Oxford University Press-1991)
- Freedom at Midnight by Dominique Lapierre and Larry Collins
- Gandhi's Passion by Stanley Wolpert (Oxford University Press)
External links
- The Complete Politician, an article published in Time on Suhrawardy on September 24, 1956.
- Suhrawardy in Banglapedia, the national encyclopedia of Bangladesh.
- Suhrawardy Becomes Prime Minister
- Chronicles Of Pakistan
- Glimpses on Suhrawardy, an article published on The Daily Star on 23 June 2009
- Suhrawardy meets Eisenhower, video footage from British Pathé
- Speech by Suhrawardy on Kashmir, video footage from British Pathé
- Commonwealth Ministers at No 10, video footage from British Pathé
See also
| Political offices | ||
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| New office | Chief Minister of East Bengal 1946–1947 |
Succeeded by Khawaja Nazimuddin |
| Preceded by Chaudhry Muhammad Ali |
Prime Minister of Pakistan 1956–1957 |
Succeeded by Ibrahim Ismail Chundrigar |
| Minister of Defence 1956–1957 |
Succeeded by Mian Mumtaz Daultana |
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