A brief on Kolkata

Fort William, a view from inside, c. 1828

The Black Hole of Calcutta. Copyright, 1908, by Stereo- Travel Co, New York City

The Holwell Monument, Calcutta.

Calcutta (present day Kolkata), is the capital city of West Bengal state (also labelled as the cultural capital of India and city of joy) former capital (1772-1912) of British India, and India's second largest metropolitan area.

It is located on the Hooghly River, about 90 miles (145 km) from the river's mouth.

The city previously was a colonial city developed by the British East India Company and then by the British Raj or Empire.


Established as an English trading centre in 1690, it became the seat of the Bengal presidency in 1707. It was captured by Siraj-ud-Daulah, the nawab (empire) of Bengal, who in 1756 imprisoned the English there (in a prison that was later known as the Black Hole of Calcutta).

The Black Hole of Calcutta was a small dungeon in the old Fort William (a fort originally built in 1696 by the British East India Company on the eastern banks of the River Hooghly. Later another one was built by Robert Clive in the year 1781 because of the capture of the original Fort by the nawab of Bengal. It is located in the periphery of the lush green Maidan - literary means an open field and also is the largest urban park in Calcutta. Fort William has the dubious distinction of being the only Fort in the world from which not a single shot was fired) where troops of Siraj-ud-Daulah held British prisoner of war after the capture of the Fort on 19th June, 1756. One of the prisoners, John Zephaniah Holwell, claimed that following the fall of the fort, British and Anglo-Indian soldiers and civilians were held overnight in conditions so cramped that many died from suffocation, heat exhaustion and crushing. He claimed that 123 prisoners died out of 146 prisoners held. However, the precise number of deaths, and the accuracy of Holwell’s claims, has been the subject of controversy.

The city was later retaken back after the British troops under Robert Clive defeated the nawab of Bengal in the famous battle of Plassey (a town about 150 km north of Calcutta) on 23rd June, 1757.

After that Calcutta was an extremely busy 19th century commercial centre, then began a decline suddenly with the removal of the capital to Delhi (present day New Delhi) in the year 1912.

The decline continued when the province was partitioned between India and Pakistan in 1947 and when Bangladesh (also called East Bengal) was created in 1971.
The flood of refugees from these political upheavals boosted the city's population but also significantly added to its widespread poverty.

In September 2000 flood-waters inundated the city, leaving hundreds dead and tens of thousands homeless.

Despite its problems, Ours very own Kolkata remains a dominant urban area of eastern India and a major educational and cultural centre.

Etymology:

The word Kolkata derives from the Bengali term Kolikata, the name of one of three villages that predated the arrival of the British, in the area where the city eventually was to be established; the other two villages were Sutanuti and Govindapur. The term Kolikata is thought to be a variation of Kalikkhetro, meaning "Field of [the goddess] Kali". Alternatively, the name may have been derived from the Bengali term kilkila, or "flat area". The name may have its origin in the words khal meaning "canal", followed by kaṭa, which may mean "dug". According to another theory, the area specialised in the production of quicklime or koli chun and coir or kata; hence, it was called Kolikata. While the city's name has always been pronounced Kolkata or Kolikata in Bengali, the anglicised form Calcutta was the official name until 2001, when it was changed to Kolkata in order to match Bengali pronunciation.