125th birthday anniv of Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy

The 125th birthday anniversary of great Bengali leader Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy is being observed on Thursday.

Suhrwardy, former chief minister of united Bengal in 1946 and prime minister of Pakistan in 1956, was born on September 8, 1892 and died on December 5, 1963.

Born into a prominent Bengali Muslim family, Suhrawardy was educated at Oxford, and joined the Swaraj Party of Chittaranjan Das upon returning to India in 1921.

He became the Mayor of Calcutta, the largest city in British India, during the 1930s, and later, as a member of the All-India Muslim League, assumed the premiership of Bengal in the mid-1940s. Along with Sarat Chandra Bose, Suhrawardy mooted the United Bengal proposal, in an attempt to prevent the Partition of Bengal.

Following the independence of Pakistan in 1947, he became a leading populist statesman of East Pakistan, leaving the Muslim League to join the newly formed centre-left Awami League in 1952.

Along with A. K. Fazlul Huq and Maulana Bhashani, he led the pan-Bengali United Front alliance to a resounding victory in the 1954 East Bengal elections and defeated the Muslim League.

In 1956, the Awami League formed an alliance with the Republican Party to lead a coalition government in Pakistan.

Suhrawardy became prime minister and pledged to resolve the energy crises, address economic disparities between East and West Pakistan, and strengthen the armed forces. His initiatives included supply side economic policies, planning nuclear power and energy and reorganizing and reforming the Pakistani military.

In foreign policy, he pioneered a strategic partnership with the United States. Faced with pressure from the bureaucracy and business community over his policies in aid distribution, nationalization and opposition to the One Unit scheme, he was forced to resign on 10 October 1957, under threat of dismissal by President Iskandar Mirza.

He was banned from public life by the military junta of General Ayub Khan. Suhrawardy died in 1963 in Beirut, Lebanon after suffering a massive heart attack.