Row over KMC move to rename Suhrawardy Avenue after Gopal Mukherjee

A decision by the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) to rename the city's Suhrawardy Avenue after Gopal Mukherjee - a man who took up arms to protect Hindus during the 1947 communal riots - triggered a row in West Bengal on Sunday with politicians and academicians calling it a faux pas by the state's new Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government. 

They pointed out that the arterial road in the Park Circus area was named after Sir Hassan Suhrawardy—an academic, art critic and the first Muslim vice-chancellor of the University of Calcutta—in 1933, a year after he received a knighthood, and not after his relative Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy, the prime minister of undivided Bengal in 1947, who critics accuse of engineering riots targeting Hindus.

The row started on Sunday ( 21 June) when the order surfaced and chief minister Suvendu Adhikari welcomed it.

"I commend the historic decision taken by the Kolkata Municipal Corporation, yesterday, on the solemn occasion of Paschimbanga Divas, which would be instrumental in rectifying a historical wrong. Suhrawardy Avenue will now be renamed as Gopal Mukherjee Road. 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," Adhikari wrote on X.

"By renaming it after Shri Gopal Mukherjee, the 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 savior. It's time, West Bengal remembers, corrects and honours the Real Heroes," he added.

Shantanu Mukherjee, the grandson of Gopal Mukherjee, welcomed the government's decision.

"My family is grateful to chief minister Suvendu Adhikari for recognising a man whose role in history was not acknowledged in the past," he said.