Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy was a Bengali barrister and politician in the Indian subcontinent. He held the positions of prime minister of Bengal and prime minister of Pakistan. In Pakistan, Suhrawardy is revered as one of the country's founding statesmen. In Bangladesh, Suhrawardy is remembered as the mentor of Bangladesh's founding leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. In India he is very controversial and held responsible for the 1946 Calcutta Killings and for his performance as the Civil supplies minister which handled food during the Bengal famine of 1943.
Suhrawardy was a scion of one of British Bengal's most prominent Muslim families. His father Sir Zahid Suhrawardy was a judge of the high court in Bengal. Suhrawardy studied law in Oxford. After returning to India, he joined the Indian independence movement during the 1920s as a trade union leader in Calcutta. He was initially associated with the Swaraj Party. He joined the All India Muslim League and became one of the leaders of the Bengal Provincial Muslim League. Suhrawardy was elected to the Bengal Legislative Assembly in 1937. In 1946, Suhrawardy led the BPML to decisively win the provincial general election.