East Pakistan was the eastern provincial exclave of Pakistan between 1955 and 1971, covering the territory of the modern country Bangladesh. The province was restructured and renamed from East Bengal, which, in modern times, is split between India and Bangladesh. Its land borders were with India and Burma, with a coastline on the Bay of Bengal. East Pakistanis were popularly known as "Pakistani Bengalis"; to distinguish this region from India's state West Bengal, East Pakistan was known as "Pakistani Bengal". In 1971, East Pakistan became the newly independent state Bangladesh, which means "country of Bengal" or "country of Bengalis" in Bengali language.

Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy was a Pakistani Bengali barrister and politician. In Bangladesh, Suhrawardy is remembered as a pioneer of Bengali civil rights movements, later turned into Bangladesh independence movement, and the mentor of Bangladesh's founding leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. He is also remembered for his performance as the Minister for Civil Supply during the Bengal famine of 1943. In India, he is seen as a controversial figure; directly responsible for the 1946 Calcutta Killings, for which he is often referred as the "Butcher of Bengal" in West Bengal.