Politicians who want to right the imagined wrongs of past regimes often miss their mark by throwing hasty punches that land on unintended spots. The new West Bengal government has renamed Suhrawardy Avenue in central Kolkata to Gopal Mukherjee Road, proclaiming insensitivity in naming a thoroughfare after someone complicit in the 1946 communal riots—never mind that the changed name belongs to someone also accused of similar excesses. But in their hurry, they did not mind that the street was named after Hasan Shahid Suhrawardy, a well-regarded scholar and former Vice Chancellor of Calcutta University, not his brother Huseyn Suhrawardy, who had served as premier of undivided Bengal. Maybe the answer to such ahistoricity lies in naming public facilities only after scientists, artists and sports stars—the sorts we need more of, not politicians.
