Memoirs of Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardsy With A Brief Account of His Life and Work

These are the memoirs of Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy (September 8th, 1892-December 5th, 1963) who began his political career as an associate of the great liberal nationalist leader of Bengal, C.R. Das. After Das's death in 1925 and in the wake of the growing divide between the Hindu and Muslim communities in general, Suhrawardy was drawn to Muslim separatist politics. For quite some time he was a prominent Muslim League leader and it was chiefly due to his dynamic leadership that the Muslim League won their spectacular victory in the elections of 1946 However, the Great Calcutta Killing in 1946 and subsequent communal riots in many parts of India wrought a radical change in his outlook as he began to realize the dangerous implications of communal politics. In 1947, at the height of the communal violence he worked with Mahatma Gandhi in his peace mission. He eventually returned to secular politics and this transformation if fully reflected in the United Bengal scheme propounded by him and other leaders such as Sarat Bose. Although this move failed, Suhrawardy's greatness is reflected in the fact that he had the wisdom to learn from experience. After independence, Suhrawardy believed that Pakistan and India should be guided by the modern concepts of secularism and democracy. This was also the view taken by M.A. Jinnah, founder of Pakistan. In these memoirs, Suhrawardy describes how he fought to establish a democratic regime in Pakistan but how the army sought to perpetuate its rule by various means. These memoirs serve as an object lesson in light of the contemporary situation in Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy, (1893-1963), hailed from a prominent Muslim Bengali family, many of whose members were civil servants, politicians and scientists. After his education at Oxford and in the Inns of Court, he was elected to the Bengal Legislative Council from 1921 to 1936 and the Bengal Legislative Assembly from 1937 until 1947. Suhrawardy served in the cabinets of Fazlul Haq and Khwaja Nazimuddin. He was also deputy mayor of Calcutta (now Kolkata) in addition to service in the Legislative Council and Assembly. His group defeated Nazimuddin in 1946 and he was elected prime minister of Bengal serving until the partition of India in 1947. He was a key organizer of the Awami League. In 1954, Suhrawardy's Awami League and Fazlul Haq's Krishak Sramik Party formed the United Front that severely defeated the Muslim League in East Pakistan. Suhrawardy moved from provincial politics to the national stage, leaving Ataur Rahman Khan (1907-91) in charge of East Pakistan politics. Suhrawardy was a member of the cabinet headed by Mohammad Ali Bogra, 1954-5, and was prime minister, 1956-7. After Field Marshal Mohammad Ayub Khan declared martial law in 1959, Suhrawardy worked for the restoration of democracy. He died in Beirut on December 5th 1963.
Mohammad H.R. Talukdar did his BA (Hons) and MA from Rajshahi University. He has taught history at Kushtia Degree College (now in Bangladesh) and was Research Fellow at the Central Institute of Islamic Research, Karachi, Pakistan. He has also published numerous articles in journals and newspapers.