Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy

Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy Biography

Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy was a politician and lawyer from Bengal during British rule. After partition, he moved to Pakistan in 1949, and served as the fifth Prime Minister of Pakistan during the brief period, 12 September 1956 - 17 October 1957. He has been associated with Muslim League during his stay in India, and has been elected to Bengal Legislative Assembly since 1921. He also served as the Deputy Mayor of Calcutta under Chittaranjan Das. He is known for promoting the Muslim unity on a Muslim League's platform after Chittaranjan Das's death in 1925. After the formation of Bengal government, Suhrawardy assumed the only Muslim League-led government after the general elections held in 1945. He has also been blamed the role he played in massive riots that took place in Calcutta in 1946.

Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy was born on 8 September 1892 in Midnapore, Bengal, British India. His birth place is now a part of West Bengal. He is also addressed as H. S. Suhrawardy. One of the prominent Muslim leaders of Bengal in pre-independent era, he served as the third and final Prime Minister of Bengal in 1946, before Partition happened and rule of Chief Ministers came into being.

Suhrawardy did his education in Kolkata, then known as Calcutta. Then he moved to Oxford to be trained as a barrister. He practiced law at the Gray's Inn in Great Britain. He returned to India in 1921 and started his legislature career. He was quite active in politics, serving many elite positions including Deputy Mayor of Calcutta, Provincial Minister of Civil Supplies, Provincial Minister of Labor and Commerce and finally PM of Bengal. He is one of the founding fathers of Pakistan. On 14 August 1947, Suhrawardy lost the control of the Bengal Division of the Muslim League, and lost elections as well. After partition he remained in Kolkata till 1949 and then migrated to Pakistan.

Published: July 20, 2018

Updated: July 20, 2018