Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy (8 September 18925 December 1963) was a Pakistani politician and statesman who served as the fifth prime minister of Pakistan from 1956 to 1957 and before that as the prime minister of Bengal from 1946 to 1947. He is regarded as a patron of a Two-Nation Theory for the creation of Pakistan, for which he is revered as one of the leading founding member of Pakistan; and also as the pioneer of the Bengali civil rights movement in Bangladesh.

Born in 1892 at Midnapore, Bengal, Suhrawardy was a scion of one of Bengal's most prominent Muslim families, the Suhrawardys. He studied law at the University of Oxford, and joined the independence movement during the 1920s as a trade union leader in Calcutta, initially associated with the Swaraj Party. He joined the All-India Muslim League and became one of the leaders of its Bengal branch. Suhrawardy was elected to the Bengal Legislative Assembly in 1937 and led the Muslim League to decisively win the 1946 provincial general election in Bengal, serving as the last prime minister of Bengal until the partition of India. His premiership was notable for his proposal to create a separate and united Bengal — supported by the Muslim League but opposed by the Indian National Congress — and failing to prevent the Great Calcutta Killings.

Suhrawardy was premier under Pakistan's first republican constitution and also the mastermind of The Direct Action Day of 16 August 1946. The Noakhali riots also saw the genocide of Bengali Hindus during which Suhrawardy tried to keep the news of the atrocities from the media and for either planning the massacre or failing to take action to stop it. During the 1958 military coup, Suhrawardy was arrested by the military government, due to which he missed the wedding of his niece, Salma Sobhan, Pakistan's first woman barrister. He founded the National Democratic Front in 1962 as a political alliance to oppose the military regime of Ayub Khan but died one year later in Beirut due to a heart attack. After his death, the Awami League veered towards Bengali nationalism and launched the 6-point movement, ultimately leading to a civil war in East Pakistan and secession of Bangladesh from Pakistan in 1971.

Suhrawardy is also remembered for his role as the Minister for Civil Supply during the Bengal famine of 1943. In India's West Bengal, he is seen as the Butcher of Bengal and mastermind behind the Direct Action Day; directly responsible for the 1946 Calcutta killings. the Suhrawardy lineage is traced to Shihab al-Din 'Umar al-Suhrawardi, a Sufi who lived in Baghdad during the 12th century. The Suhrawardiyya order is one of the major Sunni orders of Sufism. His grandfather, Ubaidullah Al-Ubaidi Suhrawardy, was a Dhaka-based Sufi leader of the Bengali Renaissance and is buried beside Lalbagh Fort. His father Justice Sir Zahid Suhrawardy was a Judge of the Calcutta High Court. His brother Hasan Shaheed Suhrawardy was a linguist, poet, art-critic and diplomat. His uncles included Lieutenant Colonel Hassan Suhrawardy and Sir Abdullah Al-Mamun Suhrawardy. His cousin Shaista Suhrawardy Ikramullah was one of South Asia's pioneering women in public service. His first wife was Begum Niaz Fatima, the daughter of Justice Sir Abdur Rahim, a member of the Governor's Executive Council and Speaker of the Central Legislative Assembly. Begum Niaz Fatima died in 1922. His second wife was Begum Vera Suhrawardy, a Russian actress of Polish descent.

A young Huseyn studied in Calcutta Madrasa and attended St. Xavier's College, Kolkata where he earned a Bachelor of Science degree. Both Huseyn and his elder brother Hasan studied in St Catherine's College, Oxford. They entertained themselves with D. H. Lawrence, Robert Trevelyn, Bertrand Russell, Hugh Kingsmill, Basanta Kumar Mullick, Kiran Shankar Roy, Apurba Chanda, Sri Prakash, S K Gupta, Surendra Kumar Sen, and Syud Hossain.

His first son Shahab died of pneumonia. His granddaughter Shahida Jamil served as Pakistan's law minister. His nieces include Princess Sarvath al-Hassan of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan; the late Bangladeshi barrister Salma Sobhan; and the film-maker Naz Ikramullah.

Early political career (1924-1937)

thumb|left|upright=0.7|255x255px|Suhrawardy, 1922

Political organizer

Suhrawardy was credited as a pioneering modern political organizer in Bengal. He created 36 trade unions among sailors, railway employees, jute and cotton mills workers, rickshaw pullers, cart drivers and other working class groups dominated by Bengali Muslims.

Deputy Mayor of Calcutta (1924-1926)

Suhrawardy joined the Swaraj Party led by Bengali Hindu secularist C. R. Das in 1923. He became the Deputy Mayor of Calcutta in 1924. the Bengal Muslim Election Board; the United Muslim Party; and the Independent Muslim Party. On the other hand, Indian author, Madhushree Mukherjee, laid major responsibility of this famine to British Prime Minister Winston Churchill who wanted the ration for war efforts only and had refrained the U.S. aid to Bengal. Suhrawardy was further accused of practising a Scorched-Earth Policy to counter the Japanese Army's advances in the East and supervised to burn thousand fishing boats to block any potential movement of invading Japanese Army troops. These measures aggravated starvation and famine and the relief was only ordered when Lord Wavell became the Viceroy, using the Indian Army to organise relief.

Prime Minister of Bengal (1946-1947)

thumb|left|Suhrawardy and [[Mahatma Gandhi in Noakhali before the partition of India. A young Sheikh Mujib looks on]]

thumb|Suhrawardy and [[Muhammad Ali Jinnah|Jinnah at a rally in Calcutta, 1946]]

During the 1946 general election, Suhrawardy led the Bengal Provincial Muslim League (BPML) to a decisive victory. The Muslim League's biggest success was in Bengal where out of 119 seats for Muslims, the BPML won 113. Suhrawardy was supported by the League's chief Muhammad Ali Jinnah to assume the premiership of Bengal. Suhrawardy's cabinet included himself as home minister; Mohammad Ali of Bogra as finance, health and local government minister; Syed Muazzemuddin Hossain as education minister; Ahmed Hossain as agriculture, forest and fisheries minister; Nagendra Nath Roy as judicial and legislative minister; Abul Fazal Muhammad Abdur Rahman as cooperatives and irrigation Minister; Abul Gofran as civil supplies minister; Tarak Nath Mukherjee as waterways minister; Fazlur Rahman as land minister; and Dwarka Nath Barury as works minister.

thumb|Suhrawardy and Gandhi

Direct Action riots

Suhrawardy's tenure as premier saw the Great Calcutta Killings in 1946. The Muslim League called a strike to press its demand for the creation of Pakistan. The strike degenerated into brutal and widespread Hindu-Muslim riots in which thousands were killed on both sides. The riots were seen by some as the last nail in the coffin for Hindu-Muslim unity in British India.

thumb|left|200px|The crowd at the Muslim League rally at the Maidan.

Troubles started on the morning of 16 August. Even before 10 o'clock Police Headquarters at Lalbazar had reported that there was excitement throughout the city, that shops were being forced to close, and that there were many reports of brawls, stabbing and throwing of stones and brickbats. These were mainly concentrated in the North-central parts of the city like Rajabazar, Kelabagan, College Street, Harrison Road, Colootolla and Burrabazar. In these areas the Hindus were in a majority and were also in a superior and powerful economic position. The trouble had assumed the communal character which it was to retain throughout.

The meeting began around 2 pm though processions of Muslims from all parts of Calcutta had started assembling since the midday prayers. A large number of the participants were reported to have been armed with iron bars and lathis (bamboo sticks). The numbers attending were estimated by a Central Intelligence Officer's reporter at 30,000 and by a Special Branch Inspector of Calcutta Police at 500,000. The latter figure is impossibly high and the Star of India reporter put it at about 100,000. The main speakers were Sir Khawaja Nazimuddin and Chief Minister Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy. Khwaja Nazimuddin in his speech preached peacefulness and restraint but spoilt the effect and flared up the tensions by stating that till 11 o'clock that morning all the injured persons were Muslims, and the Muslim community had only retaliated in self-defence. Subsequently, there were reports of lorries (trucks) that came down Harrison Road in Calcutta, carrying hardline Muslim gangsters armed with brickbats and bottles as weapons and attacking Hindu-owned shops.

thumb|200px|More than 300 [[Odia people|Oriya labourers of Kesoram Cotton Mills were massacred in the slums of Lichubagan, Metiabruz.]]

A 6 pm curfew was imposed in the parts of the city where there had been rioting. At 8 pm forces were deployed to secure main routes and conduct patrols from those arteries, thereby freeing up police for work in the slums and the other underdeveloped sections.

United Bengal plan

In New Delhi on 27 April 1947, Suhrawardy called a press conference to demand an undivided, independent Bengal. Suhrawardy made an impassioned plea for setting aside religious differences in order to create an "independent, undivided, and sovereign Bengal". He opposed the British government's plan to partition India's most populous province; he was supported by the Governor of Bengal Frederick Burrows, Sarat Chandra Bose of the Indian National Congress, Kiran Shankar Roy of the Congress Parliamentary Party, Satya Ranjan Bakshi, Secretary of the Bengal Provincial Muslim League Abul Hashim, Bengal Finance Minister Mohammad Ali Chaudhury, Bengal Revenue Minister Fazlur Rahman and Tippera politician Ashrafuddin Chowdhury. Suhrawardy stated the following:-