What the removal of actress Suchitra Sen's name from a dormitory says about new Bangladesh dynamics

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26-05-2025

On the morning of May 21, workers at Government Edward College in Bangladesh's Pabna city unscrewed a plaque bearing the name Suchitra Sen – a daughter of the soil, a cinematic legend and a bridge between two nations. They replaced it with a sign declaring 'July 36 Student Dormitory'.
Principal Mohammed Abdul Awal Miah told The Daily Star that the decision to rechristen the Suchitra Sen Mohila Hall was made in keeping with student demands and the 'spirit of the July uprising'. He was referring to the July 2024 protests that ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina after 15 years in power. The uprising lasted 36 days – all of July and five days of August.
This was another example of the anti-India sentiment that has bubbled in Bangladesh as a result of New Delhi's support for Hasina's authoritarian regime and its perceived hostility towards the country's interim government.
But for many of Pabna's residents, the renaming is not merely bureaucratic – it is a symbolic severing of a shared heritage, a small act of violence against collective memory.
The action symbolised how nations weaponise history to forge monolithic identities, erasing messy, pluralistic truths that defy nationalist myth-making.
She was and will always be an epitome of beauty. She is the diva and the ultimate example of eternal angel. Her smile, her stare and her attitude can still make anyone fall for her. Mrs Sen will always be there with us . Remembering Suchitra aunty on her death anniversary. pic.twitter.com/brabDDFo7z
— Prosenjit Chatterjee (@prosenjitbumba) January 17, 2019
The story of Suchitra Sen – born Roma Dasgupta in 1931 in Bhanga Bari village, Pabna – is a palimpsest of South Asia's fractured past.
Her family fled to Kolkata during Partition. Today, her ancestral home in Pabna's Gopalpur Himsagor Lane, with crumbling walls and a statue, stands as a testament to institutional neglect.
Sen embodied the contradictions of post-Partition South Asia: a refugee turned icon, a Hindu star in Muslim-majority Bangladesh.
Her journey from Pabna to Kolkata mirrors the trauma of displacement that shaped millions. Yet, her films – 60 in total, 30 with Uttam Kumar – became emotional lifelines for a divided people.
In Saat Paake Bandha (1963), her character's anguish over societal hypocrisy resonated with audiences on both sides of the border. At the climax of the film, when she tears her husband's vest, it was not just fabric that split – it was the illusion of unity in a fractured subcontinent.
The irony of erasure
Principal Awal's claim that 'no educational institutions in Bangladesh are named after actors' rings hollow, given that the hall bore Sen's name for decades as a point of local pride. Noresh Chandra Modhu, secretary of the Suchitra Sen Smriti Sangrakkhan Parishad, told The Daily Star that the move reflects a broader trend of sidelining pluralistic history.
'Suchitra Sen was not a political symbol,' he said. 'She was our symbol.'
Today, her ancestral home lies in disrepair. The contrast is stark: a government that invests in renaming halls but neglects heritage sites embodies what scholar Pierre Nora termed lieux de mémoire – spaces where collective memory clashes with institutional amnesia.
This sort of cultural erasure is rarely accidental. It is a governance strategy. Since the July 2024 uprising, Bangladesh's interim government has been accused of pushing revisionist narratives.
Even as it highlights the authoritarian tendencies of deposed Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, it is attempting to rewrite the history of the 1971 Liberation War in which her father played a significant role, encouraged by India and its army.
The interim government seems to be hoping these performative acts will appease Islamist groups and divert attention from systemic failures – underfunded education, crumbling infrastructure.
The Government Edward College in Pabna has removed the name of film actress Suchitra Sen from a residential hall, sparking widespread criticism. #Bangladesh https://t.co/IwvfNy2y2m
— The Daily Star (@dailystarnews) May 21, 2025
By erasing Sen, the establishment is attempting to reshape collective memory to fit a homogenised, Muslim identity.
As political theorist Benedict Anderson noted, nations are 'imagined communities'. But imagination is not passive. It is actively curated by power structures to align with ideological goals. Some elements are foregrounded, while others are obliterated.
Cultural erasure, like censorship, is a confession of fear. A state that dismantles monuments to shared heritage fears the power of pluralism.
For Pabna's residents, the loss is visceral. Local journalist ABM Fazlur Rahman told The Daily Star, 'The people of Pabna bear her name in their hearts even though it has been erased from an institution.'
Voices such as these underscore a truth: cultural memory resides not in plaques but in the minds of people. Sen's legacy lives in the hum of 'Ei Raat Tomar Amar' from Harano Sur, in the faded posters in her ancestral home and in the quiet defiance of those who refuse to forget.