Job Charnock
Encyclopedia
Job Charnock was a servant and administrator of the English East India Company
, traditionally regarded as the founder of the city of Calcutta
.
family and was the second son of Richard Charnock (d. c. 1665), of London
. The Puritan preacher
Stephen Charnock
(1628–1680) was probably his elder brother. He went out to India on a private trading enterprise in the employ of the merchant Maurice Thomson, some time between 1650 and 1653, but in January 1658 he joined the East India Company's service in Bengal
, where he was stationed by turn at Cossimbazar
, Hooghly (a Portuguese
trading settlement on the river of the same name), and Balasore
. He learnt the local languages, cut his hair and dressed in "Moores fashion", and lived very much as an Indian
among the Indians, who called him Channuck.
Charnock was described as a silent morose man, not popular among his contemporaries, but as "always a faithful man to the Company", which rated his services very highly. In addition to his business acumen, he won the Company's esteem by stamping out smuggling among his less scrupulous colleagues. His zeal in this regard made him enemies who throughout his life spread malicious gossip to discredit him.
and appointed to the centre of the trade, Patna
in Bihar
, on 2 February 1659. After four years at the factory he contemplated returning to England, but the court of directors in London were keen to retain his services, and won him over by promoting him to the position of chief factor in 1664.
About 1663 Charnock took a Hindu
widow as his common-law wife. A Company servant, Alexander Hamilton
, later wrote that she had been a sati
and that Charnock, smitten by her beauty, had rescued her from her husband's funeral
pyre
by the Ganges in Bihar. She was said to be a fifteen-year-old Rajput
princess. Charnock renamed her Maria, and soon after he was accused of converting to Hinduism. Though he remained a devout Christian
, the story of his conversion and moral laxity was so widely believed that it became a cautionary tale in a more puritanical age
.
Charnock was promoted to the rank of senior merchant by 1666, and became third in the Bengal hierarchy in 1676. He was now the Company's longest-serving servant in Bengal, and applied for a transfer to a more senior post. After some haggling due to difficulties with resentful colleagues who hoped to see him sent away to Madras, on 3 January 1679 the directors promoted him to the position of head at Cossimbazar, second in charge of the Company's operations in Bengal.
, president at Madras, who oversaw the Company's operations in the whole bay of Bengal
. Master received a reprimand from the directors for his interference, but although they agreed to free Bengal from oversight by the Madras presidency, Charnock's hopes of promotion to the top Bengal post at Hooghly were dashed when in 1681 the directors sent out one of their own, William Hedges
, as agent of the bay and governor of Bengal.
On Hedges's arrival at Hooghly Charnock found him to be an officious neophyte. The rivalry between the Company's two most senior servants in Bengal was aggravated by the intrigues of Company servants and interlopers keen to undermine Charnock's authority and resume their smuggling operations on the side. Charnock was further irritated by the fact that members of Hedges's staff from Hooghly were regularly sabotaging their colleagues' work in Cossimbazar by poaching the local commodities. In 1684 the exasperated directors restored supervisory control over Bengal to the new president at Madras, William Gyfford
, and replaced Hedges in Bengal with John Beard
, the elder.
nawab
's imposition of a customs duty of 3½ per cent, which the English refused to pay on the grounds that it was in breach of the original firman which exempted them from customs. Relations with the nawab deteriorated into violent conflict. When Charnock received word of his promotion Cossimbazar was under siege, and he could not leave to take up his responsibilities at Hooghly until April 1686. On his arrival he continued to resist what he saw as extortion, by force or persuasion, and when these did not serve, by taking the Company's business elsewhere.
Finding himself again besieged at Hooghly, Charnock put the Company's goods and servants on board his light vessels. Pursued by the nawab's troops, on 20 December 1686 he dropped down the river 27 miles (43.5 km) to Sutanuti
, then "a low swampy village of scattered huts", but a place well chosen for the purpose of defence. From Sutanuti he moved on to Hijili
in February 1687, where he was again besieged from March to June 1687. After negotiating a truce and safe passage, he transferred the factory back to Sutanuti in November 1687.
It was probably during this interlude at Sutanuti that Charnock suffered an irreparable personal loss in the death of his wife Maria. They had been together for some twenty-five years. They had one son (who would predecease his father), and three surviving daughters who were later baptised
in Madras. Although Maria was buried like a Christian
, and not cremated as a Hindu, Charnock was said to sacrifice a cock
over her grave each year on the anniversary of her death, "after the Pagan Manner
". The ritual resembles the Sufi
custom of the panch peer or "five saints", which Charnock might have learnt from his years in Bihar. He was also said to have built his garden house at Barrackpore
so as to be near her grave.
Accordingly in September 1688 the largest naval force the Company had ever assembled swept into the bay, with orders to blockade the ports and arrest the ships of the Grand Mughal
, and, if this did not bring satisfaction, to take the town of Chittagong
. Beard being dead, authority devolved to a reluctant Charnock as commander-in-chief. As he anticipated, Chittagong proved remote and unviable. Sutanuti had in the meantime been razed by the nawab's troops, therefore the squadron sailed for Madras, arriving on 7 March 1689.
In March 1690 the Company received permission from Aurangzeb
in Delhi
to re-establish a factory in Bengal, and on 24 August 1690 Charnock returned to set up his headquarters in the place he called Calcutta; the appointment of a new nawab ensured this agreement was honoured, and on 10 February 1691 an imperial grant was issued for the English to "contentedly continue their trade".
The directors showed their approval of Charnock's initiative by making his agency independent of Madras on 22 January 1692. Thereafter "Calcutta grew steadily till it became India's 'city of cities' and capital".
.
A mausoleum was erected over Charnock's simple grave by Eyre, his son-in-law and successor, in 1695. It can still be seen in the graveyard of St. John's Church, the second oldest Protestant church in Calcutta after John Zacharias Kiernander's Old Mission Church (1770), and is now regarded as a national monument. His tomb is made from a kind of rock named after him as Charnockite
. It is inscribed with the Latin
epitaph
:
.jpg)
Translation:
The inscription omits any mention of Charnock's Hindu wife Maria. Eyre may have hoped to make the public image of his predecessors and in-laws seem more respectable to the growing Anglican
community in Calcutta. Even so, the monument was built by Bengali craftsmen, and its incorporation of Indo-Islamic design
reflects the intersection of two cultures their union personified.
:
ruling (May 16, 2003) based on a report from an academic committee, found that a 'highly civilized society' and 'an important trading centre' had existed on the site of Calcutta long before the first European settlers came down the Hooghly. They also found the place then called Kalikatah was an important religious centre due to the existence of the Kali
temple in the adjacent village of Kalighat
. The first literary reference to the site is found in Bipradas Pipilai
's magnum opus Manasa Mangala which dates back to 1495. Abul Fazl's Ain-I-Akbari
dating 1596 also mentions the place. The Sabarna Roy Choudhury
family was granted the Jagirdari of Kalikatah by Emperor Jehangir in 1608. The report added that Charnock's name was just the first of those, including Eyre, Goldsborough, Lakshmikanta Majumdar, the Sett Bysack families and Sabarna Choudhuries, that could be celebrated for developing the city. The court declared that Charnock ought not to be regarded as the founder of Calcutta, and ordered government authorities to purge his name from all text books and official documents containing the history of the founding story of the city.
Other historical authorities reject such revisionism
:
----
British East India Company
The East India Company was an early English joint-stock company that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China...
, traditionally regarded as the founder of the city of Calcutta
Kolkata
Kolkata , formerly known as Calcutta, is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal. Located on the east bank of the Hooghly River, it was the commercial capital of East India...
.
Early life and career
Charnock came from a LancashireLancashire
Lancashire is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in the North West of England. It takes its name from the city of Lancaster, and is sometimes known as the County of Lancaster. Although Lancaster is still considered to be the county town, Lancashire County Council is based in Preston...
family and was the second son of Richard Charnock (d. c. 1665), of London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
. The Puritan preacher
Preacher
Preacher is a term for someone who preaches sermons or gives homilies. A preacher is distinct from a theologian by focusing on the communication rather than the development of doctrine. Others see preaching and theology as being intertwined...
Stephen Charnock
Stephen Charnock
Stephen Charnock , Puritan divine, was an English Puritan Presbyterian clergyman born at the St Katherine Cree parish of London.-Life:...
(1628–1680) was probably his elder brother. He went out to India on a private trading enterprise in the employ of the merchant Maurice Thomson, some time between 1650 and 1653, but in January 1658 he joined the East India Company's service in Bengal
Bengal
Bengal is a historical and geographical region in the northeast region of the Indian Subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal. Today, it is mainly divided between the sovereign land of People's Republic of Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal, although some regions of the previous...
, where he was stationed by turn at Cossimbazar
Cossimbazar
Kasim Bazar or Cossimbazar, or Kasimbazar is a census town in Murshidabad in the Indian state of West Bengal. The town on the river Bhagirathi in the Murshidabad district of West Bengal, India, at one time included in the Berhampore municipality. In 1901 its population was just...
, Hooghly (a Portuguese
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
trading settlement on the river of the same name), and Balasore
Balasore
Balasore is a strategically located city in the state of Orissa, about north of the state capital Bhubaneswar, in eastern India. It is the administrative headquarters of Balasore district. It is best known for Chandipur beach. It is also the site of the Indian Ballistic Missile Defense...
. He learnt the local languages, cut his hair and dressed in "Moores fashion", and lived very much as an Indian
Demographics of India
The demographics of India are inclusive of the second most populous country in the world, with over 1.21 billion people , more than a sixth of the world's population. Already containing 17.5% of the world's population, India is projected to be the world's most populous country by 2025, surpassing...
among the Indians, who called him Channuck.
Charnock was described as a silent morose man, not popular among his contemporaries, but as "always a faithful man to the Company", which rated his services very highly. In addition to his business acumen, he won the Company's esteem by stamping out smuggling among his less scrupulous colleagues. His zeal in this regard made him enemies who throughout his life spread malicious gossip to discredit him.
Patna factory
Charnock was entrusted with the duty of procuring the Company's saltpetrePotassium nitrate
Potassium nitrate is a chemical compound with the formula KNO3. It is an ionic salt of potassium ions K+ and nitrate ions NO3−.It occurs as a mineral niter and is a natural solid source of nitrogen. Its common names include saltpetre , from medieval Latin sal petræ: "stone salt" or possibly "Salt...
and appointed to the centre of the trade, Patna
Patna
Paṭnā , is the capital of the Indian state of Bihar and the second largest city in Eastern India . Patna is one of the oldest continuously inhabited places in the world...
in Bihar
Bihar
Bihar is a state in eastern India. It is the 12th largest state in terms of geographical size at and 3rd largest by population. Almost 58% of Biharis are below the age of 25, which is the highest proportion in India....
, on 2 February 1659. After four years at the factory he contemplated returning to England, but the court of directors in London were keen to retain his services, and won him over by promoting him to the position of chief factor in 1664.
About 1663 Charnock took a Hindu
Hinduism
Hinduism is the predominant and indigenous religious tradition of the Indian Subcontinent. Hinduism is known to its followers as , amongst many other expressions...
widow as his common-law wife. A Company servant, Alexander Hamilton
Alexander Hamilton (sailor)
Alexander Hamilton was a Scottish sea captain, privateer and merchant.-Biography:In his early years he travelled widely through Europe, the Barbary coast, the West Indies, India and South-east Asia...
, later wrote that she had been a sati
Sati (practice)
For other uses, see Sati .Satī was a religious funeral practice among some Indian communities in which a recently widowed woman either voluntarily or by use of force and coercion would have immolated herself on her husband’s funeral pyre...
and that Charnock, smitten by her beauty, had rescued her from her husband's funeral
Funeral
A funeral is a ceremony for celebrating, sanctifying, or remembering the life of a person who has died. Funerary customs comprise the complex of beliefs and practices used by a culture to remember the dead, from interment itself, to various monuments, prayers, and rituals undertaken in their honor...
pyre
Pyre
A pyre , also known as a funeral pyre, is a structure, usually made of wood, for burning a body as part of a funeral rite...
by the Ganges in Bihar. She was said to be a fifteen-year-old Rajput
Rajput
A Rajput is a member of one of the patrilineal clans of western, central, northern India and in some parts of Pakistan. Rajputs are descendants of one of the major ruling warrior classes in the Indian subcontinent, particularly North India...
princess. Charnock renamed her Maria, and soon after he was accused of converting to Hinduism. Though he remained a devout Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
, the story of his conversion and moral laxity was so widely believed that it became a cautionary tale in a more puritanical age
Victorian era
The Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence...
.
Charnock was promoted to the rank of senior merchant by 1666, and became third in the Bengal hierarchy in 1676. He was now the Company's longest-serving servant in Bengal, and applied for a transfer to a more senior post. After some haggling due to difficulties with resentful colleagues who hoped to see him sent away to Madras, on 3 January 1679 the directors promoted him to the position of head at Cossimbazar, second in charge of the Company's operations in Bengal.
Rivalry with William Hedges
Cossimbazar was notorious as a smugglers' den, and when Charnock assumed his new post on Christmas Day 1680 it was over the objections of Streynsham MasterStreynsham Master
Sir Streynsham Master was one of the 17th century pioneers of the English East India Company. He served as the Agent of Madras from 27 January 1678 to 3 July 1681 and is credited with having introduced the first administrative reforms in the Madras Government.Returning to England, in 1692 he...
, president at Madras, who oversaw the Company's operations in the whole bay of Bengal
Bay of Bengal
The Bay of Bengal , the largest bay in the world, forms the northeastern part of the Indian Ocean. It resembles a triangle in shape, and is bordered mostly by the Eastern Coast of India, southern coast of Bangladesh and Sri Lanka to the west and Burma and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands to the...
. Master received a reprimand from the directors for his interference, but although they agreed to free Bengal from oversight by the Madras presidency, Charnock's hopes of promotion to the top Bengal post at Hooghly were dashed when in 1681 the directors sent out one of their own, William Hedges
William Hedges (colonial administrator)
Sir William Hedges was a British merchant and the first governor of the East India Company in Bengal.-Life and career:He was born in Coole in County Cork, Ireland, the eldest son of Robert and Catharine Hedges...
, as agent of the bay and governor of Bengal.
On Hedges's arrival at Hooghly Charnock found him to be an officious neophyte. The rivalry between the Company's two most senior servants in Bengal was aggravated by the intrigues of Company servants and interlopers keen to undermine Charnock's authority and resume their smuggling operations on the side. Charnock was further irritated by the fact that members of Hedges's staff from Hooghly were regularly sabotaging their colleagues' work in Cossimbazar by poaching the local commodities. In 1684 the exasperated directors restored supervisory control over Bengal to the new president at Madras, William Gyfford
William Gyfford
William Gyfford was an English factor and Agent of Madras from July 3, 1681 to August 8, 1684 and the President of Madras from January 26, 1685 to July 25, 1687.....
, and replaced Hedges in Bengal with John Beard
John Beard (colonial administrator)
-References:...
, the elder.
Chief agent in Bengal
When Beard died on 28 August 1685 Charnock finally assumed the position of agent and chief in the bay of Bengal. By this time a crisis had arisen over restrictions on trade, and in particular the MughalMughal Empire
The Mughal Empire , or Mogul Empire in traditional English usage, was an imperial power from the Indian Subcontinent. The Mughal emperors were descendants of the Timurids...
nawab
Nawab
A Nawab or Nawaab is an honorific title given to Muslim rulers of princely states in South Asia. It is the Muslim equivalent of the term "maharaja" that was granted to Hindu rulers....
's imposition of a customs duty of 3½ per cent, which the English refused to pay on the grounds that it was in breach of the original firman which exempted them from customs. Relations with the nawab deteriorated into violent conflict. When Charnock received word of his promotion Cossimbazar was under siege, and he could not leave to take up his responsibilities at Hooghly until April 1686. On his arrival he continued to resist what he saw as extortion, by force or persuasion, and when these did not serve, by taking the Company's business elsewhere.
Finding himself again besieged at Hooghly, Charnock put the Company's goods and servants on board his light vessels. Pursued by the nawab's troops, on 20 December 1686 he dropped down the river 27 miles (43.5 km) to Sutanuti
Sutanuti
Sutanuti was one of the three villages which were merged to form the city of Kolkata in India. The other two villages were Gobindapur and Kalikata. Job Charnock, an administrator with the British East India Company is traditionally credited with the honour of founding the city...
, then "a low swampy village of scattered huts", but a place well chosen for the purpose of defence. From Sutanuti he moved on to Hijili
Hijli Kingdom
The Hijli Kingdom existed between 1687 and 1886 in the eastern part of India. Initially Hijli was a small island village on the banks of the Rasulpur River as it flows to the Bay of Bengal. It developed into a port town in 1687. Slowly, it converted into a province or kingdom covering parts of...
in February 1687, where he was again besieged from March to June 1687. After negotiating a truce and safe passage, he transferred the factory back to Sutanuti in November 1687.
It was probably during this interlude at Sutanuti that Charnock suffered an irreparable personal loss in the death of his wife Maria. They had been together for some twenty-five years. They had one son (who would predecease his father), and three surviving daughters who were later baptised
Baptism
In Christianity, baptism is for the majority the rite of admission , almost invariably with the use of water, into the Christian Church generally and also membership of a particular church tradition...
in Madras. Although Maria was buried like a Christian
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
, and not cremated as a Hindu, Charnock was said to sacrifice a cock
Rooster
A rooster, also known as a cockerel, cock or chanticleer, is a male chicken with the female being called a hen. Immature male chickens of less than a year's age are called cockerels...
over her grave each year on the anniversary of her death, "after the Pagan Manner
Paganism
Paganism is a blanket term, typically used to refer to non-Abrahamic, indigenous polytheistic religious traditions....
". The ritual resembles the Sufi
Sufism
Sufism or ' is defined by its adherents as the inner, mystical dimension of Islam. A practitioner of this tradition is generally known as a '...
custom of the panch peer or "five saints", which Charnock might have learnt from his years in Bihar. He was also said to have built his garden house at Barrackpore
Barrackpore
Barrackpore or Barrackpur is headquarters of Barrackpore subdivision in North 24 Parganas district in the Indian state of West Bengal. The town was a military and administrative center under British rule, and was the scene of several acts of rebellion against Britain during the 19th century...
so as to be near her grave.
Chittagong expedition
By 1686 the secret committee of the court of directors in London had decided the Company should establish a fortified settlement in Bengal, to resist what they regarded as arbitrary exactions and violent harassment by Mughal officials:Accordingly in September 1688 the largest naval force the Company had ever assembled swept into the bay, with orders to blockade the ports and arrest the ships of the Grand Mughal
Aurangzeb
Abul Muzaffar Muhy-ud-Din Muhammad Aurangzeb Alamgir , more commonly known as Aurangzeb or by his chosen imperial title Alamgir , was the sixth Mughal Emperor of India, whose reign lasted from 1658 until his death in 1707.Badshah Aurangzeb, having ruled most of the Indian subcontinent for nearly...
, and, if this did not bring satisfaction, to take the town of Chittagong
Chittagong
Chittagong ) is a city in southeastern Bangladesh and the capital of an eponymous district and division. Built on the banks of the Karnaphuli River, the city is home to Bangladesh's busiest seaport and has a population of over 4.5 million, making it the second largest city in the country.A trading...
. Beard being dead, authority devolved to a reluctant Charnock as commander-in-chief. As he anticipated, Chittagong proved remote and unviable. Sutanuti had in the meantime been razed by the nawab's troops, therefore the squadron sailed for Madras, arriving on 7 March 1689.
Calcutta
In Madras Charnock persuaded the reluctant council, over the objections of its president, his old opponent William Hedges, that Sutanuti was the best place to establish the headquarters in Bengal, because of its defensible position and its deep-water anchorage for the fleet. The selection of the future capital of India was entirely due to his stubborn resolution.In March 1690 the Company received permission from Aurangzeb
Aurangzeb
Abul Muzaffar Muhy-ud-Din Muhammad Aurangzeb Alamgir , more commonly known as Aurangzeb or by his chosen imperial title Alamgir , was the sixth Mughal Emperor of India, whose reign lasted from 1658 until his death in 1707.Badshah Aurangzeb, having ruled most of the Indian subcontinent for nearly...
in Delhi
Delhi
Delhi , officially National Capital Territory of Delhi , is the largest metropolis by area and the second-largest by population in India, next to Mumbai. It is the eighth largest metropolis in the world by population with 16,753,265 inhabitants in the Territory at the 2011 Census...
to re-establish a factory in Bengal, and on 24 August 1690 Charnock returned to set up his headquarters in the place he called Calcutta; the appointment of a new nawab ensured this agreement was honoured, and on 10 February 1691 an imperial grant was issued for the English to "contentedly continue their trade".
The directors showed their approval of Charnock's initiative by making his agency independent of Madras on 22 January 1692. Thereafter "Calcutta grew steadily till it became India's 'city of cities' and capital".
Mausoleum
Charnock died in Calcutta on 10 January 1692 (or 1693 according to an exhibition at the Victoria Memorial which points out that the 1692 date on his gravestone refers to an old calendar system by which the new year began in March), shortly after the death of his son. His three surviving daughters all remained in Calcutta: Mary (d. 19 Feb 1697), Elizabeth (d. August 1753), and Katherine (d. 21 Jan 1701); all found wealthy English husbands. Mary married the first president of Bengal, Sir Charles EyreCharles Eyre
Sir Charles Eyre , of Kew, in the county of Surrey, knight, was an administrator of the English East India Company, and President of Bengal....
.
A mausoleum was erected over Charnock's simple grave by Eyre, his son-in-law and successor, in 1695. It can still be seen in the graveyard of St. John's Church, the second oldest Protestant church in Calcutta after John Zacharias Kiernander's Old Mission Church (1770), and is now regarded as a national monument. His tomb is made from a kind of rock named after him as Charnockite
Charnockite
Charnockite is applied to any orthopyroxene-bearing granite, composed mainly of quartz, perthite or antiperthite and orthopyroxene , as an end-member of the charnockite series.-Charnockite series:...
. It is inscribed with the Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
epitaph
Epitaph
An epitaph is a short text honoring a deceased person, strictly speaking that is inscribed on their tombstone or plaque, but also used figuratively. Some are specified by the dead person beforehand, others chosen by those responsible for the burial...
:
The inscription omits any mention of Charnock's Hindu wife Maria. Eyre may have hoped to make the public image of his predecessors and in-laws seem more respectable to the growing Anglican
Church of England
The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...
community in Calcutta. Even so, the monument was built by Bengali craftsmen, and its incorporation of Indo-Islamic design
Indo-Islamic Architecture
Islamic contribution to architecture in the Indian subcontinent is far reaching and undeniable. New modes and principles of construction were developed reflecting the religious and social needs of the adherents of Islam.-Masjid and Mandir:...
reflects the intersection of two cultures their union personified.
Assessment
In the verdict of Sir Henry YuleHenry Yule
Sir Henry Yule was a Scottish Orientalist.He was born at Inveresk, Scotland, near Edinburgh, the son of Major William Yule , translator of the Apothegms of Ali. Henry Yule was educated at Edinburgh, Addiscombe, and Chatham, and joined the Bengal Engineers in 1840...
:
Controversy
A Calcutta High CourtCalcutta High Court
The Calcutta High Court is the oldest High Court in India. It was established as the High Court of Judicature at Fort William on 1 July 1862 under the High Courts Act, 1861. It has jurisdiction over the state of West Bengal and the Union Territory of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The High Court...
ruling (May 16, 2003) based on a report from an academic committee, found that a 'highly civilized society' and 'an important trading centre' had existed on the site of Calcutta long before the first European settlers came down the Hooghly. They also found the place then called Kalikatah was an important religious centre due to the existence of the Kali
Kali
' , also known as ' , is the Hindu goddess associated with power, shakti. The name Kali comes from kāla, which means black, time, death, lord of death, Shiva. Kali means "the black one". Since Shiva is called Kāla - the eternal time, Kālī, his consort, also means "Time" or "Death" . Hence, Kāli is...
temple in the adjacent village of Kalighat
Kalighat
Kalighat is a locality of Kolkata, India. One of the oldest neighborhoods in South Kolkata, Kalighat is also densely populated and vibrant -- with a rich history of cultural intermingling with the various foreign incursions into the area over time....
. The first literary reference to the site is found in Bipradas Pipilai
Bipradas Pipilai
Bipradas Pipilai , was a 15th century poet. He was the son of Mukunda Pipilai, the family hailed from Badurya-Batagram in 24 Parganas, now in the Indian state of West Bengal.-The Manasa Vijay:...
's magnum opus Manasa Mangala which dates back to 1495. Abul Fazl's Ain-I-Akbari
Ain-i-Akbari
The Ain-i-Akbari or the "Institutes of Akbar", is a 16th century, detailed document recording the administration of emperor Akbar's empire, written by his vizier, Abu'l-Fazl ibn Mubarak...
dating 1596 also mentions the place. The Sabarna Roy Choudhury
Sabarna Roy Choudhury
Sabarna Ray Chaudhury family were the Zamindar of the Kolkata area, prior to the arrival of the British. On November 10, 1698, they transferred, by lease, their rights over the three villages – Sutanuti, Kalikata and Gobindapur - to the East India Company...
family was granted the Jagirdari of Kalikatah by Emperor Jehangir in 1608. The report added that Charnock's name was just the first of those, including Eyre, Goldsborough, Lakshmikanta Majumdar, the Sett Bysack families and Sabarna Choudhuries, that could be celebrated for developing the city. The court declared that Charnock ought not to be regarded as the founder of Calcutta, and ordered government authorities to purge his name from all text books and official documents containing the history of the founding story of the city.
Other historical authorities reject such revisionism
Historical revisionism
In historiography, historical revisionism is the reinterpretation of orthodox views on evidence, motivations, and decision-making processes surrounding a historical event...
:
External links
- Banglapedia
- Encyclopedia article on Charnock
- Charnock's article at the website of William Carey University
- Job Charnock: Banglapedia
- http://www.devarshi.faithweb.com Official Website of Sabarna Roy Choudhury Paribar Parishad
----