Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy

Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy (Bengali: হোসেন শহীদ সোহ্‌রাওয়ার্দী, Urdu: حسین شہید سہروردی; September 8, 1892 - December 5, 1963, Beirut) was a Pakistani-Bengali politician and statesman who served as 5th Prime Minister of Pakistan from 1956 till 1957, and a close associate of Mohammad Ali Jinnah and Liaquat Ali Khan, first Prime minister of Pakistan. After his dismissal, Suhrawardy later joined Maulana Abdul Hamid Khan Bhashani's East Pakistan Awami Muslim League, which later became the Awami League of modern Bangladesh (East-Pakistan).

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. With Jinnah, he had advocated and played a major role for the success of Pakistan Movement. Under auspices of Jinnah, Suhrawardy rose to prominence, and became a important ally of Jinnah. Suhrawardy was a populist leader who advocated socialism, Suhrawardy left the ruling Muslim League in 1949, shortly after the death of Jinnah, to join East Pakistan Awami Muslim League of Maulana Bhashani.

Maulana Bhashani's party became one of the leading opposition political parties in Pakistan and Suhrawardy gave all out support. He was appointed to head a coalition government as prime minister of Pakistan in 1956 but his regime was dismissed in 1957 after a year in office. General Ayub Khan had deposed the government of Suhrawardy.

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, the co-founder of Pakistan PEN Miscellenay with Professor Ahmed Ali.

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.

Return to British 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.

As the demand for a separate Muslim state of Pakistan became popular amongst Indian Muslims, the partition of India on communal lines was deemed inevitable by mid-1947. To prevent the inclusion of Hindu-majority districts of Punjab and Bengal in a Muslim Pakistan, the Indian National Congress and the Hindu Mahasabha sought the partition of these provinces on communal lines. Bengali nationalists such as Sarat Chandra Bose, Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy, Kiran Shankar Roy, Abul Hashim, Satya Ranjan Bakshi and Mohammad Ali Chaudhury sought to counter partition proposals with the demand for a united and independent state of Bengal. Suhrawardy and Bose sought the formation of a coalition government between Bengali Congress and the Bengal Provincial Muslim League. Proponents of the plan urged the masses to reject communal divisions and uphold the vision of a united Bengal. In a press conference held in Delhi on April 27, 1947 Suhrawardy presented his plan for a united and independent Bengal and Abul Hashim issued a similar statement in Calcutta on April 29. Such a unifying movement was started by Rabindranath Tagore and others in 1905 during British Bengal administrative division(Bongovongo rad) or United Bengal. But unfortunately Suhrawardy's plan gained no popularity, although among-st the people who wanted unity of east and west Bengal in 1905.

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.

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 with the intention 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 return 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 in 1956 and the delegation included Professor Ahmed Ali, Pakistan's First Envoy to China (1951–52) who had established the Pakistani embassy in Peking and formed Pak-China friendship and strengthened the 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).

Nuclear energy programme

During 1950s, Pakistan was suffering from severe energy crises. It was Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy's premiership when Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) was established by a Parliamentary Act of 1956.^[7] He also appointed Dr. Nazir Ahmad, a noted physicist and scientist, to be its first Chairman.^[7] Under Dr. Nazir Ahmad's direction, Pakistan started its nuclear energy programme.^[7] Prime Minister Suhrawardy also allotted PAEC to set up its new pilot-nuclear labs.^[7] As premier, he played an important role in establishing of Nuclear research institutes in West-Pakistan.^[7] He also laid foundation of the first nuclear power plant in Karachi, when it was recommended by the PAEC.^[7] However, after his removal from office, the proposal went into cold storage and severely undermined by a political turmoil in the country.^[7] Furthermore, Ayub Khan had also froze the further programmes as he thought Pakistan was too poor to work on this programme.^[7] Thus, the nuclear energy programme and academic research was halted by Ayub Khan's military regime for more than a decade.^[7]

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, gassed or subjected to blunt-trauma 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.

See also

• List of Prime Ministers of Pakistan
• Politics of Pakistan

References

Further reading

• 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)
• Memoirs of Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy by Muhammad H R Talukdar (University Press Limited, 1987)

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
• Interview with Prime Minister Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy of Pakistan, video footage of an interview on NBC's "Face the Nation"