History of Kolkata
Kolkata is also noted for its revolutionary history, ranging from the
Before the British
From the 14th to 16th centuries, Kolkata was under the rule of the
Establishment of English trade in Bengal (1600–1700)
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There is a long chain of events behind the arrival of the East India Company in Bengal, specifically Job Charnock in Sutanuti in 1690. These incidents are documented in numerous records of the East India Company and by several authors [Bruce 1810 (Vol I and II), Marshman Vol I, Unknown 1829; see references below]. These documents tell the story of how the English were severely beaten and wiped out from Bengal several times by the forces of the Mughal Emperor and how each time they came back to Bengal to continue their trade.
The agents of the East India Company first visited the provinces of
He was able to successfully treat her burns and in reward the Emperor allowed the company to establish factory at
Shaista Khan was appointed as the governor of Bengal in around 1664 by Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb and was relieved upon his request in around 1682. While he was returning to Delhi, Englishmen sent with him a request to the Emperor to obtain a special firman to do business forever in Bengal; the Emperor was pleased to provide them the Firman and the occasion was celebrated with a 300 gun salute at Hooghly. The investment in Bengal soared, the Bengal residency was separated from Madras and Mr. Hedges was appointed as the chief officer to oversee trade in Bengal. His residence in Hooghly was secured with soldiers obtained from Madras. This is the first time English soldiers came on the soil of Bengal. However, the Firman was vague in many aspects and soon disputes started to grow between the English and the governor.
During this time a local disturbance occurred when the
Enraged with this situation and determined to establish their authority, the company requested King James II in 1685 to permit the use of force against the Emperor's army to settle the matter. Admiral Nicholson was sent with ships to attack the port at Chittagong, fortify it, make an alliance with the King of Arakan who was against the Mughals, establish a mint and collect revenue, thus making Chittagong a fort city for the Company in the eastern part. Then he was ordered to proceed to Dhaka. It was assumed that the governor would abandon the city and then a peace treaty would be offered which would guarantee free trade and other economic benefits for the company and he would give up the territory of Dhaka and Chittagong. Job Charnock was then at Madras and was directed to join the expedition with 400 soldiers from the Madras division.
Unfortunately the plan went awry; some of the ships, due to the change in current and wind, arrived at
Upon hearing the news of Shaista Khan's plan, Mr. Charnock determined that it was no longer safe to remain in Hooghly and decided to move downstream to Sutanuti, a small hamlet on the banks of the river Hooghly on 20 December 1686. At this time their ships in Bengal required extensive repairs and the remainder of their fleet were considered in danger. In this situation they considered that they would be extremely fortunate if they could hold their current position instead of their desires on Chittagong and for this matter they decided to ask forgiveness from the Emperor and requested to reinstate the previously obtained Firman.
Peace treaty was again offered by the governor at the end of December 1686 but it was mainly to buy out time for attack and by February 1687 a large troop of Shaista Khan's army arrived at Hooghly to drive the Company out of Bengal. Charnock decided it was not safe to remain in Sutanuti and moved to the island village at Hijli. There he remained with his soldiers in an utterly inhospitable place full of mosquitoes, snakes and tigers. The Governor's troops did not bother them there since they knew the company would not be able to survive long there. In fact, within three months about half of Charnock's soldiers died and the remaining half were ready to be hospitalized.
With his back to the wall, Charnock was desperately willing to negotiate with Shaista Khan to get out of this mess. Luck favored him because of an unexpected event. At the time when Nicholson was ordered to proceed to Chittagong, Sir John Child was ordered to withdraw the company's establishment from Bombay, commence hostilities on the western coast, blockade Mughal harbors and attack their ships anywhere to be found. Emperor Aurangzeb wanted to reconcile with the company to ensure uninterrupted voyage of pilgrims to Mecca and asked his governors to make terms with them.
As a result, a peace treaty was signed between Shaista Khan and Charnock on 16 August 1687. Shaista Khan allowed them to remain in Bengal, however to be limited only to Uluberia, a small town on the bank of river Hooghly south of Sutanuti, where they were allowed to make a port and do business from there, but their war ships were strictly not allowed to enter Hooghly. Charnock arrived at Uluberia, started making a dock there, however soon started to dislike the place and wanted to return to Sutanuti. At this time the governor asked them to return and settle at Hooghly, ordered them not to build any structure at Sutanuti and asked Charnock to pay a large sum of money for compensation. While not in a position to fight against the Governor's troops, two Company agents were sent to Dhaka to plead to the governor to allow them to return to Sutanuti and build a fort there.
At the same time, when the news of failure of Nicholson reached England, it was decided that until a fort was built on the bank of the river, the English would never be able to do business with ease and would always be on the mercy of the forces of the governor. For this, Captain Heath was sent to Bengal with 160 soldiers either to fight and win against the forces of the governor or to bring back all the properties of the company to Madras and abandon the trade in Bengal. Captain Heath arrived in October 1688 in Bengal, took all of company persons on board, set sail to Balasore on 8 November 1688. He reached Balasore on 29 November, pounded and destroyed the town including their own factory and released some English prisoners from the Governor's prison.
They left Balasore on 13 December for Chittagong, reached there on 17 December, found the Governor's fortification too strong to destroy and decided to wait until his demands are answered by the governor. However, instead of waiting for Governor's answer, Captain Heath set sail to Arakan, arrived there on 31 January 1689 and offered treaty to the king that English will fight against the Mughals at Dhaka and the king would provide them settlements in his dominion. When a fortnight passed without any answer from the king, Captain Heath, frustrated and dejected, returned to Madras on 4 March 1689. This was a total failure of English objectives in Bengal during the early period of 1689 which caused them abandoning Bengal as their trading location in eastern region.
Emperor Aurangzeb, enraged with the situation that the Company fortified Madras, occupied territory around it, captured Mughal ships, went into alliance with his enemy Sambhaji, he ordered his commanders everywhere in India to exterminate Company from the country and seize their properties anywhere to be found. Warehouses in Visakhapatnam were destroyed and many English men were captured and put to death. Shaista Khan went after them in Dhaka, captured them and put them behind bars.
Shaista Khan retired from his duty as governor in ca 1689 and Ibrahim Khan was appointed as the new governor of Bengal by Emperor Aurangzeb. By this time Aurangzeb was camping at Visapur and was much aware of the fact that he was losing revenues from the Company trade and the Company ships could cause him much trouble by stopping the pilgrimage to Mecca since they controlled the sea-route. At the same time, the company were desperate to open negotiations with the Emperor after they left Bengal and Mr. Child was sent to him. He decided to accept the offer and ordered the Governor of Bengal to allow Company to return there.
As a result, Ibrahim Khan invited Mr. Charnock back to Bengal; but Mr. Charnock refused to come back until a specific Firman with terms and conditions clearly specified was issued by the Emperor so that they would not be subjected to further humiliations. Ibrahim Khan again sent letter to Mr. Charnock explaining that he had requested for the special Firman from the Emperor and it would take a few months before it arrived, and in the meantime Mr. Charnock was welcome to settle in Bengal and the governor would pay him 80,000 rupees for the goods that have been destroyed by Shaista Khan's regime.
With this friendly invitation, Mr. Job Charnock with 30 soldiers returned to Sutanuti on 24 August 1690 and hoisted the Company standard on the banks of river Hooghly, thus beginning a new era of Company involvement in Bengal. In the next year, Ibrahim Khan sent the order from the Emperor to Mr. Charnock which allowed unrestricted trade without paying any other taxes except the usual 3,000 rupees.
Mr. Charnock died in January 1692. While the English were always looking for fortification of their factories in Bengal, Ibrahim Khan never allowed them to do so. In 1695 the town of Hooghly was seized by Sobha Singh along with an unknown Afghan Rahim Khan, and the English at Sutanuti requested from the governor to use their own armed protection for their factories when their factories were surrounded by the enemy.
Ibrahim Khan allowed them to protect their own factories, but did not allow any fortification explicitly. However, in the absence of specific orders the permission to defend their property was taken as a permit to build fortress and construction began immediately overnight with all available manpower. The fort was built on the bank of river Hooghly at Sutanuti with mortar brought from Madras, completed in ca 1701 and was called
In 1690, Job Charnok, an agent of the East India Company chose this place for a British trade settlement. The site was carefully selected, being protected by the Hooghly River on the west, a creek to the north, and by salt lakes about two and a half miles to the east. There were three large villages along the east bank of the river Ganges, named, Sutanuti, Gobindapur and Kalikata. These three villages were bought by the British from the local land lords. The Mughal emperor granted East India Company freedom of trade in return for a yearly payment of 3,000 rupees.
Origins
Name
The rent-roll of Akbar, the 16th century Mughal emperor, and the work of a Bengali poet, Bipradas Pipilai, of the late 15th century, both make mention of the area's early name's being Kolikata, from which Kolkata/Calcutta derive.[4]
There is much discussion about the origin of the city's name. The most accepted view is that it comes from the Hindu goddess Kali and the original name was KaliKshetra, "the place of Kali".
Other theories include:
- The name comes from the location of the original settlement beside a khal ("canal" in Bengali)
- The place was known for its manufacture of shell-lime, the name deriving from kali ("lime") and kata ("burnt shell")
- The name is derived from the Bengali kilkila ("flat area"), which is mentioned in the old literature.[5]
- The name came into being when Job Charnock asked a farmer the name of the area around Hooghly River. The farmer misunderstood due to language problems and thought that he was referring as to when he harvested his paddy. He proudly replied "Kal Kaata hoe chhilo" meaning "I cut it yesterday." Job Charnock thought that the name of the place is Calcutta.[citation needed]
The area where the city is now located was originally inhabited by the people of three villages:
The Calcutta High Court ruled in 2003[7] that Job Charnock, the Englishman generally believed to be the founder of the Calcutta, is not the founder of the city and that hence Kolkata has no birthday. According to the Court, the city has its genesis in the Maurya and Gupta period and it was an established trading post long before the Slave Dynasty of the Delhi Sultanate, the Mughals, the Portuguese, the French or the East India Company established a modern township there.
The
Journey from British rule to independence
The three villages (Sutanuti, Gobindapur & Kalikata), particularly in Kalikata, where Calcutta is located, came into the possession of the
The fall of Calcutta to Siraj ud-Daula
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When the
This is now known as the
Although Siraj ud-Daula conceded temporary defeat in the Pact of Alinagar, he once again began scheming with the French against the British. Meanwhile, the
Clive seized on this plan to get rid of two enemies at once. Citing non-existent reasons, he attacked Murshidabad, having previously reached an agreement with Mir Jafar to install him on the musnud of Bengal. On the fateful day of 23 June 1757, 23 miles away from Murshidabad in the mango groves of Palashi, the armies met at the Battle of Plassey. The British army consisted of 800 European soldiers and 2,200 Indian soldiers, while the Nawab's army was made up of 18,000 cavalry and 50,000 infantry. At the start of this seemingly impossible battle, generals Rai Durlav and Iar Latif held their armies together, but in an act of treachery Mir Jafar led his troops away from the battlefield, and the remaining army led by Mirmadan and Mohanlal was defeated.
Siraj ud-Daula escaped but was later caught and killed by Miran, the son of Mir Jafar. Mir Jafar was made the new Nawab, and the British had effectively seized control of Bengal. In 1765, after defeating the next Nawab,
Calcutta also had an indirect but important influence on the battles of the
British India
Churches
St. John's Church, originally a cathedral, was among the first public buildings erected by the East India Company after Kolkata became the effective capital of Company rule in India.[10] It is located at the North-Western corner of Raj Bhavan, and served as the Anglican Cathedral of Calcutta till 1847, when the see was transferred to St. Paul's Cathedral. Construction of the building, modelled on St Martin-in-the-Fields of London,[11] started in 1784, with Rs 30,000 raised through a public lottery,[12] and was completed in 1787. It is the third oldest church in the city, next to the Armenian and the Old Mission Church.[13]
18th century scandals
One of the most notorious incidents of the latter part of the century was the trial and execution of
Warren Hastings and Sir
Opium trade
After the territorial conquest of Bengal in 1757, the
Social and intellectual life in the 18th century
In 1772, Calcutta became the capital of
Such unions between Europeans, English, French and Portuguese, and local women, both Hindu and Muslim, were common throughout the 18th century in Calcutta, and are the origin of the city's substantial Anglo-Indian (or Eurasian) community today; by the early 19th century, however, increasing racial intolerance made marriages of this kind much rarer.
Calcutta's intellectual life received a great boost in 1784 with the foundation of the
Calcutta saw the establishment of several different Western-style higher education institutions this period, including
The Baboo/Babu culture and the Bengal renaissance
In the time of
Growth
In 1750, Calcutta had a population of 120,000.[23] The centre of company control over the whole of Bengal from 1757, Calcutta underwent rapid industrial growth from the 1850s, especially in the textile sector, despite the poverty of the surrounding region. Trade with other nations also grew. For example, the first U.S. merchant ship arrived in Kolkata in 1787. In fact, the U.S. Consulate in Calcutta is the U.S. Department of State's second-oldest consulate and dates from 19 November 1792.[24]
Despite being almost totally destroyed by a cyclone, in which 60,000 died, on 5 October 1864, Calcutta grew, mostly in an unplanned way, in the next 150 years from 117,000 to 1,098,000 inhabitants (including suburbs), and now has a metropolitan population of approximately 14.6 million.
Contribution to the independence movement of India
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Historically, Calcutta was the centre of activity in the early stages of the national movement of independence. Exactly a hundred years after the fall of Bengal in the
In 1883,
Other societies based on nationalist or religious thoughts were started, like the
The Elgin Road residence of
Muslims were also involved in the nationalist movement, most notably Fazl Huq who from Calcutta in the 1930s attempted to organise a non-communal peasant party to agitate against the British and the wealthy Indian landowning class. The fact that many of the Hindus in this latter group were linked to the local Congress organisation and dominated the mainstream nationalist movement in Bengal from Calcutta led to attempts to thwart Huq's activities and fed into the tragic decline in communal relations that savaged Calcutta in 1946 and 1947.[25]
After independence
The intense violence caused during the partition of India led to a shift in demographics in Bengal, and especially Kolkata; large numbers of Muslims left for East Pakistan, while hundreds of thousands of Hindus arrived to take their place.[26] Kolkata received millions of refugees from what became East Pakistan without receiving substantial assistance from the central government.[27][28]
Over the 1960s and 1970s, severe power shortages, strife in labour relations (including strikes by workers and lockouts by employers) and a militant
In the mid-1980s, Bombay overtook Calcutta as India's most populous city.
Calcutta became plagued by power outages, labor unrest, disappearing industry, and violence from the
The city's economic recovery gathered momentum after
See also
- 2007 Kolkata riots
- British India
- French India
Notes
- ^ Nolan, Edward (1878). "The illustrated history of the British empire in India and the East vol 3". Retrieved 15 August 2016.
- ^ Danvers, Frederick Charles (1888). Bengal; its chiefs, agents, and governors. p. 4.
- ^ Frazer, R. W. (Robert Watson) (1896). British India. Story of Nations. London / New York: T. Fisher Unwin / G.P. Putnam. pp. 39–40.
- Encyclopedia Britannica. Archivedfrom the original on 13 August 2020. Retrieved 8 September 2021.
- ^ "Calcuttaweb article". Archived from the original on 10 May 2007.
- ^ Mukerji, Dr. S.C. 1991. The Changing Face of Calcutta: An Architectural Approach. Government of West Bengal
- The Tribune online edition. Archivedfrom the original on 29 November 2006. Retrieved 17 December 2006.
- ^ Bhattacharyya, Sancharii (16 December 2019). "History of Mint (টাকার আঁতুরঘরের ইতিহাস)". jiyobangla.com (in Bengali). Archived from the original on 1 January 2022. Retrieved 1 January 2022.
- ^ Ghulam Husain Salim Riyazu-s-Salatin. A History of Bengal Ed. & Trans. Maulavi Abdus Salam (Calcutta: Baptist Mission Press) 1902 Fasc. IV
- ^ "Kolkata: Heritage Tour: Religious Buildings: St. John's Church". kolkatainformation.com. 2003. Archived from the original on 8 February 2012. Retrieved 24 January 2012.
- ^ Das, Soumitra (22 June 2008). "Gour to St. John's". The Telegraph. Archived from the original on 5 January 2013. Retrieved 24 January 2012.
- ^ Lahiri, Samhita Chakraborty (3 January 2010). "Wicked man on the wall". The Telegraph. Archived from the original on 3 February 2013. Retrieved 25 January 2012.
- ^ Roy, Nishitranjan,Swasato Kolkata Ingrej Amaler Sthapathya, (in Bengali), pp. 24, 1st edition, 1988, Prtikhan Press Pvt. Ltd.
- ^ The Memoirs of William Hickey (London: Hurst & Blackett) Vol.II (1918) pp154-5
- ^ H.E. Busteed Echoes of Old Calcutta (Calcutta) 1908 pp73-106; H. Beveridge The Trial of Nanda Kumar
- ^ Busteed Old Calcutta pp107-117
- ^ The Memoirs of William Hickey (London: Hurst & Blackett) Vol.II (1918) pp. 136–37 Vol. III (1923) pp. 205–06, 234–05; Percival Spear (1998), The Nabobs (Delhi: Oxford University Press), p. 36
- ^ Memoirs of William Hickey (London: Hurst & Blackett) Vol. IV (1925) p. 141
- ^ O. P. Kejariwal (1988), The Asiatic Society of Bengal and the Discovery of India's past (Delhi: Oxford University Press), 1988, pp. 29–75
- ^ Turner, Steve (16 March 2013). "Colonial echoes in old Calcutta". The Independent. Archived from the original on 8 September 2021. Retrieved 24 April 2018.
- ISBN 9780712302043. Archivedfrom the original on 7 April 2023. Retrieved 28 July 2022 – via Google Books.
- ^ "Mark Twain's Jewel of the East glitters again in Kolkata". Hindustan Times. 19 November 2013. Archived from the original on 8 September 2021. Retrieved 8 September 2021.
- ISBN 978-0-8021-4558-1.
- ^ "Remarks by U.S. Consul General Henry V. Jardine for the Bharat Chamber Of Commerce". Speeches and Articles, Consulate General of the United States, Kolkata, India. U.S. Department of State. 15 September 2005. Archived from the original on 7 August 2008. Retrieved 26 March 2008.
- ^ McPherson, Kenneth (1973). The Muslim Microcosm: the Muslims of Calcutta 1918–1935. Wiesbaden: Steiner.
- ^ (Gandhi 1992, pp. 497)
- ^ National Geographic. Volume 213, Number 4. April 2008. 95–97.
- ^ Ritajyoti Bandyopadhyay, Streets in Motion: The Making of Infrastructure, Property, and Political Culture in Twentieth-century Calcutta, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/streets-in-motion/2D42F4BF0D2086A1DBB254A5120ACB42 Archived 3 July 2022 at the Wayback Machine, https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009109208
- ^ Biswas, S. (16 April 2006). "Calcutta's colourless campaign". BBC. Archived from the original on 14 February 2012. Retrieved 26 April 2006.
- ^ (Roy & Alsayyad 2004)
- ^ (Bennett & Hindle 1996, pp. 63–70)
- National Geographic. Volume 213, Number 4. April 2008. 97.
- Spiegel Online.
- ^ Easwaran K. "Politics of name change". Archived from the original on 19 July 2011. Retrieved 26 April 2006.
References
- Bennett, A; Hindle, J (1996), London Review of Books: An Anthology, Verso, pp. 63–70, ISBN 1-85984-121-X
- Datta. Partho. Planning the City: Urbanization and Reform in Calcutta c. 1800–c. 1940 (New Delhi: Tulika Books, 2012). xv, 332 pp.
- Gandhi, R (1992), Patel: A Life, Navajivan
- Roy, A; Alsayyad, N (2004), Urban Informality: Transnational Perspectives from the Middle East, Latin America and South Asia, Lexington Books, ISBN 0-7391-0741-0
- Ray Choudhury, Ranabir (2022), The Shaping of Modern Calcutta, Niyogi Books, ISBN 978-93-91125-30-1
Older sources
- Historical and Ecclesiastical Sketches of Bengal; From the Earliest Settlement, Until the Virtual Conquest of that Country by the English, in 1757, Calcutta, 1829
- Bruce, John (1810), Annals of the Honorable East-India Company: from their establishment by the charter of queen Elizabeth, 1600 to the Union of the London and the English East India Companies 1707-8, Vol-I
- Bruce, John (1810), Annals of the Honorable East-India Company: from their establishment by the charter of queen Elizabeth, 1600 to the Union of the London and the English East India Companies 1707-8, Vol-II
- Marshman, John Clark (1867), The History of India From the Earliest Period to the Close of Lord Dalhousie's Administration – 1867, Vol-I, Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer