A version of this essay was published in the Encyclopedia of World Trade published by ME Sharpe Publishers, Armonk, New York.

Calcutta (Kolkata) © Anup Mukherjee

Calcutta is located on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River, the westernmost branch of the Ganges that drains to the Bay of Bengal. It has been the most important river port and urban centre of the East.

The date of origin of Calcutta is taken to be August 24, 1690, when Job Charnock, Chief of English Factory at Cassim Bazar, anchored at village called Sutanati. The British Fort William began to be constructed in 1696. The fort was named after William III, the emperor of Britain. The actual deed of purchase for the three villages- Kalikata, Sutanati and Govindpur, was executed on Nov 10, 1698, when for a sum of Rs. 1300/- the British East India Company got the zamindari rights over the lands.

Three important suburbs of Calcutta have important history. The Danish East India Company established a colony at Serampur in 1699 that was finally ceded to Britain in 1845. Serampore became famous because of William Carey who set up a printing press here and also opened a college in 1819. This college was incorporated as a university in 1827 by a Royal Charter of the King of Denmark, at par with those in Copenhagen and Kiel. But Serampore was more important for missionary activity, because the British did not allow missionary activity in their territory before 1833. The Dutch, since 1653, already had settlement twenty-five miles upstream at Chinsurah with Fort Gustavus, which was ceded to William IV together with £ 100,000 in exchange for Sumatra in 1825. Similarly a French Colony was founded at nearby Chandernagor in 1673 that remained under French control till 1951. These now form part of the suburbs of Calcutta.

British made Calcutta a separate presidency in 1707. In 1717, Mughal emperor Farrukhsiyar granted the British Company duty free trading rights in Bengal for an annual sum of rupees three thousand. By 1735, Calcutta had become an important port and trading centre and its population rose to 100,000. The choice of Calcutta for Britain was beneficial. It was at some distance from the sea and thus would not face the threat of direct invasions. Being situated between Hoogly and the marshlands, it was protected from invasions. And for security purpose, troops could be stationed on the river port. Calcutta became the official capital of Bengal province in 1772 during the time of Warren Hastings. It was the capital of British India from 1833 to 1912, when the capital was officially transferred to Delhi. By 1850s, Dalhousie’s expansionist policies had led to considerable addition of territories into British India. Fallout of this was that eventhough Calcutta remained the imperial seat of administration, for a considerable part of the year the imperial government would be located at Shimla. Calcutta continued to be the most important city of the East. It became modernised early. It got a telegraph line in 1851, railway service in 1854, and the University of Calcutta was established in 1857. Calcutta currently is the capital of the West Bengal province of India, and is the biggest city of eastern India. In this regard, Calcutta has been centre of important research in science. Scientists like JS Bose, SN Bose etc. belonged to Calcutta, the latter being also associated with Einstein in the famous Bose Einstein equation that has resulted in discovery of sub atomic particle, named Boson after him. The city also contains some of the famous bridges on the Hoogly, particularly the Howrah Bridge. In terms of interface between people and high technology, the city has seen development of the first underground metro rail system in India.

Commercial importance of Calcutta was derived by the connection of Hoogly to the Ganges River, by which Calcutta served as an entrepot for goods from hinterland. Being an important seaport, it gained a prime position in the international trading network. It became an important centre of commerce for the British for products like jute, tea, saltpetre, indigo and opium, and also for muslin, silk, and calicos. The Diamond Harbour and Kidderpore Dock constitute the most important of the port area. The affairs of the Port were brought under the administrative control of the Government with the appointment of a Port Commission in 1870.

Much of Calcutta’s importance was derived from its thriving mercantile and trade activity. It received the goods from the hinterland that was routed through the various intermediaries that had developed in the city. These included finance, banking, insurance, shipping etc. In this during the colonial times, the Managing Agency System created many such firms who were actively involved with export and import apart from providing financial services. These agencies were invariably controlled by the British firms. From the early twentieth century there was much industrial development in the hinterland from extraction to manufacturing industries, and the belt has justifiably been termed as the Ruhr of modern India. All the wealth got outlet from the port of Calcutta. While Calcutta is the centre of Bengal, it is home to many non-Bengali communities. There are Armenian, Chinese, Marwaris, Sikhs and Biharis, among many others. These communities are mostly engaged in private trade and business enterprises, adding to the entrepreneurial spirit of the city. There is also a significant concentration of corporate offices of private and transnational companies.

Calcutta is known as the cultural capital of India. It has been on the forefront of the socio-religious reform movement during the nineteenth century that went into transforming the socio-religious fabric of India. Some of the personalities associated with such change were Rammohun Roy, Vivekananda, Aurobindo Ghosh etc. It was a centre of culture, art and literature. The renaissance of literature here and Calcutta has been home to many famous poets and novelists, including Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, Sharat Chandra Chatterjee, Rabindranath Tagore etc. Calcutta was also in the forefront of the freedom movement, with many statesmen and revolutionaries emerging from here. The most famous of them being Subhas Chandra Bose. In some ways anti-imperialism was part of the cultural heritage of the city. Though in terms of peace, it has also been the adopted home of Mother Teresa. It was also the centre of modern school of painting in India that emerged with Nandlal Bose. It has also been the centre of creative genius of cinema of Satyajit Ray. The cultural aspect also includes the architectural heritage that has both the western and the eastern influences in it. These include the buildings of colonial heritage as well as the indigenous architectural styles, the most famous of the colonial building being the Victoria Memorial.

Bibliography:

1) Calcutta - The Living City (Vol-1), Ed. Sukanta Chaudhuri, (Oxford Univ Press, 1995)
2) Sameeran Roy, Calcutta, (Rupa, 1991)
3) Geoffrey Moorehouse, Calcutta, (Penguin, 1988)

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