Kalikata
Encyclopedia
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...
(formerly, Calcutta) in India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
. The other two villages were Gobindapur and 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...
. Job Charnock
Job Charnock
Job Charnock was a servant and administrator of the English East India Company, traditionally regarded as the founder of the city of Calcutta.-Early life and career:...
, an administrator with the British East India Company
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...
is traditionally credited with the honour of founding the city. He settled in the village of Sutanuti.
Kalikata was much less important than Sutanuti and Gobindapur, and this, along with the consequent abundance of space, afforded the British room to settle there. While both Sutanati and Gobindapur appear on old maps like Thomas Bowrey’s of 1687 and George Herron’s of 1690, Kalikata situated between the two is not depicted. However, one variant of the name, ‘Kalkata’, is shown in Abul Fazal
Abu'l-Fazl ibn Mubarak
Shaikh Abu al-Fazl ibn Mubarak also known as Abu'l-Fazl, Abu'l Fadl and Abu'l-Fadl 'Allami was the vizier of the great Mughal emperor Akbar, and author of the Akbarnama, the official history of Akbar's reign in three volumes, and a Persian translation of the Bible...
’s Ain-i-Akbari (around 1590).
History
A British trader Job CharnockJob Charnock
Job Charnock was a servant and administrator of the English East India Company, traditionally regarded as the founder of the city of Calcutta.-Early life and career:...
landed at Sutanuti on 24 August 1690 with the objective of establishing the East India Company
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...
’s Bengal headquarters. As Kalikata did not have any settled native population, it was easy for the British to occupy the site. In 1696, construction of old Fort William
Fort William, India
Fort William is a fort built in Calcutta on the Eastern banks of the River Hooghly, the major distributary of the River Ganges, during the early years of the Bengal Presidency of British India. It was named after King William III of England...
began (near the site of the present day General Post Office) without legal title to the land. Legal title was eventually secured on 10 November 1698 when Charles Eyre
Charles 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....
, Job Charnock’s son-in-law and ultimate successor, acquired the zemindari (land-holding) rights from 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, the zemindars (landlords) of the area. It is from this date that Kolkata came legally under British control. (At this time, the Mughal empire was still strong, under 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...
).
It is not clear when the Sabarna Roy Choudhury family acquired the village of Kalikata, but they acquired a vast acreage by grant allegedly in 1608 from Raja Man Singh, a maternal cousin of the reigning Mughal emperor Jahangir
Jahangir
Jahangir was the ruler of the Mughal Empire from 1605 until his death. The name Jahangir is from Persian جهانگیر,meaning "Conqueror of the World"...
. However, other sources state that a founder only impressed Man Singh in 1612. The Sabarna Roy Choudhury's own tenure of the three villages - Kalikata, 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...
, and Govindapur
Govindapur
Govindapur may refer to:*Govindapur, Dhanusa, Nepal*Govindapur, Parsa, Nepal*Govindapur, Morang, Nepal...
- is thus of uncertain duration, although in 1698, they were certainly the zemindars, or landlords, with their lands acquired by some sort of grant or lease from the Mughal emperors. They were apparently reluctant to transfer their rights as landlords but were forced to do so under pressure from the Mughal court.
In Colonel Mark Wood’s map of 1784, published in 1792 by William Baillie, Dhee or Dihi (meaning village or group of villages) Kalikata is shown as extending from Jorabagan Ghat to Baboo ghat.
Kalikata was called ‘Calcutta’ by the British and the metropolis that grew around it acquired that name; it was renamed Kolkata in 2001 as per the colloquial Bengali version of the name.
White Town
According to H.E.A.Cotton, “The pivot of the settlement must be sought in what is now Dalhousie Square, but was then known as the Lall Bagh or Park. In the centre was the Lall Dighi, or great Tank, which has been in existence before the coming of Charnock within what was the cutcherry (court-house) of the former zemindars (landlords)… There was no Strand Road, and the waves of the Hooghly lapped the ramparts of the Fort. To the south there extended from Koila Ghat to Chandpal Ghat the mouth of a creek, navigable for large boats, which passed along Hastings Street and made way through Creek Row and Wellington Square to Beliaghata near the Salt Lakes… Beyond Chitpore Road, which formed the eastern boundary of the settlement, lay more pools, swamps and rice-fields, dotted here and there with the struggling huts of fishermen, falconers, wood-cutters, weavers and cultivators.” That in short was Kalikata in the early 18th century. As Calcutta became settled Sutanuti was gradually abandoned by the English as a place of abode.As the English withdrew to ‘White Town’ restricted mostly to the north of the old fort, the sharp division was sealed with ‘Black Town’ spread over Sutanuti, Chitpur and Gobindapur.
Battles fought around Kalikata
Siraj ud-DaulahSiraj ud-Daulah
Mîrzâ Muhammad Sirâj-ud-Daulah , more commonly known as Siraj ud-Daulah , was the last independent Nawab of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa. The end of his reign marks the start of British East India Company rule over Bengal and later almost all of South Asia...
, the Nawab of Bengal
Nawab of Bengal
The Nawabs of Bengal were the hereditary nazims or subadars of the subah of Bengal during the Mughal rule and the de-facto rulers of the province.-History:...
, was alarmed by the growing prosperity and enhanced fortifications of Kolkata. In 1756, he decided to attack Kolkata. After capturing Kolkata, Siraj ud-Daula named it Alinagar, after his grandfather Alivardi Khan
Alivardi Khan
Ali Vardi Khan was the Nawab of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa during 1740 - 1756. He toppled the Nasiri Dynasty of Bengal and took power as Nawab.-Early life:...
. The name of Kolkata was restored in 1758, after the British regained control of Bengal. “To the English indeed, the sack of Kolkata must have appeared little short of devastation. But in fact, of the four contiguous villages of Gobindapur, Kalikata, Sutanuti and Chitpur, only Kalikata or ‘White’ Calcutta suffered extensively… The Black Town escaped major damage, except the burning down of Barabazar… Gobindapur had been fired by the English themselves.” The English evacuees set up temporary quarters at Falta, some 40 miles downstream. What followed was a series of skirmishes finally leading to the Battle of Plassey
Battle of Plassey
The Battle of Plassey , 23 June 1757, was a decisive British East India Company victory over the Nawab of Bengal and his French allies, establishing Company rule in South Asia which expanded over much of the Indies for the next hundred years...
on 23 June 1757 and the establishment of British power in Bengal.
The re-establishment of British power was followed by the construction of the new Fort William
Fort William, India
Fort William is a fort built in Calcutta on the Eastern banks of the River Hooghly, the major distributary of the River Ganges, during the early years of the Bengal Presidency of British India. It was named after King William III of England...
, in 1758 and the demolition of Gobindapur. The Indians moved out mostly to the north. European inhabitants gradually forsook the narrow limits of the old palisades and moved to around the Maidan
Maidan (Kolkata)
The Maidan is the largest urban park in Kolkata in the Indian state of West Bengal. It is a vast stretch of field and home to numerous play grounds, including the famous cricketing venue Eden Gardens, several football stadia, and Kolkata Race Course. Maidan is dotted with several statues and...
.
The most important public buildings and imposing private houses lined the northern side of the Esplanade
Esplanade, Calcutta
Esplanade is an area in central Kolkata, earlier known as Calcutta, in the Indian state of West Bengal. This is not a conventional esplanade in the sense that the place is not exactly situated alongside a waterbody. However, the river Ganges, also known as the Ganga or the Hooghly, is located nearby...
, facing the Maidan on the south. “Esplanade Row,” wrote Mrs. Fay, “seems to be composed of palaces.” The movement of the white population was then directed towards Chaurangi
Chowringhee Avenue
Jawaharlal Nehru Road , in the Chowringhee neighbourhood, is the arterial road running from the eastern fringes of Esplanade southwards up to the crossing with Lower Circular Road , in the city of Calcutta, India. It is the single most important road of the metropolis of Kolkata...
, then a small village, and away from such areas as Baitakkhana (Bowbazar)
Bowbazar
Bowbazar is a neighbourhood and police stationin central Kolkata, earlier known as Calcutta, in the Indian state of West Bengal...
, Dharmatala
Dharmatala
Dharmatala is a neighbourhood in central Kolkata, earlier known as Calcutta, in the Indian state of West Bengal. Dharmatala Street has been renamed Lenin Sarani but the neighbourhood continues to be referred to as Dharmatala...
and Janbazar
Janbazar
Janbazar is a neighbourhood in central Kolkata, earlier known as Calcutta, in the Indian state of West Bengal. The two century-old house of Rani Rashmoni, the central attraction in Janbazar, is still used by descendants in the family.-History:...
. The latter areas were taken over by ‘the rest’, which included half-castes, Portuguese, Armenians and so on, to become a grey area between Black and White towns.
With the passage of time, as the metropolis grew it absorbed the village of Kalikata and it lost its identity, except in the books of history.