CALCUTTA

Bengali Kalikata city, capital of West Bengal state, and former capital (17721912) of British India. The nation's largest metropolitan area and a major port, Calcutta is located on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River, an arm of the Ganges, about 96 miles (154 km) upstream from its mouth at the head of the Bay of Bengal. It is the dominant urban centre of eastern India. Although Calcutta is favourably located for trade, its low, swampy, hot, and humid riverbank location is not ideal for human habitation. Eastward from the river the land slopes away to marshes and swamplands. Similar topography on the western bank has confined the metropolitan area to a strip 3 to 5 miles (58 km) wide on either bank, although reclamation projects have expanded the limits of usable land to the east, south, and west of the central city. The city has numerous slum areas, occupied by about one-third of the inhabitants. The city's climate is subtropical, with summer monsoons. Calcutta is the world's largest processor of jute; also important are food processing, hosiery and footwear production, the manufacture of textiles, and the making of iron and steel goods. The coal mines, tea gardens, and industrial concerns of West Bengal and neighbouring states are managed and financed from Calcutta. Chief exports through the city's port are crude steel, pig iron, coal, machinery, gunnies (jute sacking), sugar, and tea. Calcutta is eastern India's financial headquarters, with many foreign banks, several chambers of commerce, and a stock exchange. One of the city's chief recreational areas is the Maidan (plain, or park), occupying about 1,300 acres (500 hectares) along the river; major sporting events are held there. Western and Eastern influences mingle in Calcutta's architecture: Victoria Memorial, one of the city's finest buildings, represents a mixture of classical Western and Mughal (Mogul) styles. Calcutta is a major educational and cultural centre, catering to a cosmopolitan population speaking Bengali, English, Hindi, and Urdu. Higher education is offered by the universities of Calcutta, Jadavpur, and Rabindra Bharati. The Indian Museum is the oldest in India. Other museums offer collections of archaeological and historical artifacts and folk and fine arts. Valuable library collections are housed in the National Library. Calcutta's streets are mostly narrow and in poor condition. Construction of India's first subway system was begun in Calcutta in 1973; a section in the central area opened in 1986. National highways and railways connect Calcutta to other cities; Sealdah and Howrah stations are the terminals of several railway lines; and air service is provided by the Dum Dum International Airport. Area city, 40 square miles (100 square km); metropolitan area, 533 square miles (1,380 square km). Pop. (1981) city, 3,305,006; metropolitan area, 11,100,000. Bengali Kalikata city, capital of West Bengal state, and former capital (17721912) of British India. It is India's largest city and one of its major ports. The city is located on the east bank of the Hooghly River, once the main channel of the Ganges River, about 96 miles (154 kilometres) upstream from the head of the Bay of Bengal; there the port city developed as a point of transshipment from water to land and from river to sea. The city proper has an area of about 40 square miles (104 square kilometres); the metropolitan area (Calcutta Urban Agglomeration) is much larger, however, consisting of about 533 square miles. A city of commerce, transport, and manufacture, Calcutta is the dominant urban centre of eastern India. The city's name is an Anglicized version of Kalikata. According to some, Kalikata is derived from the Bengali word Kalikshetra, meaning Ground of (the goddess) Kali. Some say the city's name derives from the location of its original settlement on the bank of a canal (khal). A third opinion traces it to the Bengali words for lime (kali) and burnt shell (kata), since the area was noted for the manufacture of shell-lime. Still another opinion is that the name is derived from the Bengali term kilkila (meaning, flat area), which is mentioned in the old literature. Additional reading Physical and human geography. Works on the people and culture include Nirmal Kumar Bose, Calcutta, 1964: A Social Survey (1968); and S. Banerjee, Spatial Pattern of Population Density in Calcutta, 1981, in Nageshwar Prasad, Swapna Banerjee, and G.K. Dutt (eds.), Modern Geographical Concepts (1985), pp. 111118. Sivaprasad Samaddar, Calcutta Is (1978), chronicles the city's growth. Economic aspects are dealt with in United Nations Dept. Of International Economic And Social Affairs, Population Growth and Policies in Mega-Cities: Calcutta (1986); Harold Lubell, Urban Development and Employment: The Prospects for Calcutta (1974); and T.B. Lahiri, Calcutta, in R.P. Misra (ed.), Million Cities of India (1978), pp. 4372. Government is described in Ali Ashraf, The City Government of Calcutta: A Study of Inertia (1966); and Keshab Choudhuri, Calcutta: Story of Its Government (1973). Calcutta's theatre history is detailed in Sushil Kumar Mukherjee, The Story of the Calcutta Theatres, 1753-1980 (1982). Art and artifact collections in nine of the city's museums are described in Heinz Mode (ed.), Calcutta (1973). History. Historical works include Walter Kelly Firminger, Historical Introduction to the Bengal Portion of the Fifth Report (1962)the Fifth Report is dated 1812; A.C. Roy, Calcutta Atlas & Guide: Comprehensive Handbook of Calcutta & Its Suburbs (1965); Pradip Sinha, Calcutta in Urban History (1978); Kathleen Blechynden, Calcutta, Past and Present, new ed. edited by N.R. Ray (1978); Alok Roy (ed.), Calcutta Keepsake (1978); Binaya Krishna Deb, The Early History and Growth of Calcutta (1905, reissued 1977); and Nilmani Mukherjee, The Port of Calcutta: A Short History (1968). Sukanta Chaudhuri (ed.), Calcutta: The Living City, 2 vol. (1990), a collection of essays, explores Calcutta's past, present, and future. A useful periodical is Bengal Past & Present (semiannual), the journal of the Calcutta Historical Society. N.K. Sinha Swapna Banerjee-Guha The Editors of the Encyclopdia Britannica History The early period The name Kalikata had been mentioned in the rent-roll of the Mughal emperor Akbar (reigned 15561605) and also in the Manasa-mangal of the Bengali poet Bipradas (1495). The history of Calcutta as a British settlement dates from the establishment of a trading post there by Job Charnock, an agent of the English East India Company, in 1690. Charnock had previously had disputes with officials of the Mughal Empire at the river port of Hooghly and had been obliged to leave, after which he attempted unsuccessfully to establish himself at other places down the river. When the Mughal officials, not wishing to lose what they had gained from the English company's commerce, permitted Charnock to return once more, he chose Calcutta as the seat of his operations. The site was apparently 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. Rival Dutch, French, and other European settlements were higher up the river on the west bank, so that access from the sea was not threatened, as it was at the port of Hooghly. The river at this point was also wide and deep; the only disadvantage was that the marshes to the east and swamps within the area made the spot unhealthy. Moreover, before the coming of the English, three local villagesSutanati, Kalikata, and Gobindapore, which were later to become parts of Calcuttahad been chosen as places to settle by Indian merchants who had migrated from the silted-up port of Satgaon, farther upstream. The presence of these merchants may have been to some extent responsible for Charnock's choice of the site. By 1696, when a rebellion broke out in the nearby district of Burdwan, the Mughal provincial administration had become friendly to the growing settlement. The servants of the company, who asked for permission to fortify their trading post, or factory, were given permission in general terms to defend themselves. The rebels were easily crushed by the Mughal government, but the settlers' defensive structure of brick and mud remained and in 1700 came to be known as Fort William. In 1698 the English obtained letters patent that granted them the privilege of purchasing the zamindari right (the right of revenue collection; in effect, the ownership) of the three villages. Growth of the city In 1717 the Mughal emperor Farrukh-siyar granted the East India Company freedom of trade in return for a yearly payment of 3,000 rupees; this arrangement gave a great impetus to the growth of Calcutta. A large number of Indian merchants flocked to the city. The servants of the company, under the company's flag, carried on a duty-free private trade. When the Marathas from the southwest began incursions against the Mughals in the western districts of Bengal in 1742, the English obtained permission from 'Ali Vardi Khan, the nawab (ruler) of Bengal, to dig an entrenchment in the northern and eastern part of the town to form a moat on the land side. This came to be known as the Maratha Ditch. Although it was not completed to the southern end of the settlement, it marked the city's eastern boundary. In 1756 the Nawab's successor, Siraj-ud-Dawlah, captured the fort and sacked the town. Calcutta was recaptured in January 1757 by Robert Clive, one of the founders of British power in India, and by the British admiral Charles Watson. The Nawab was defeated shortly afterward at Plassey (June 1757), after which British rule in Bengal was assured. Gobindapore was cleared of its forests, and the new Fort William was built on its present site, overlooking the Hooghly at Calcutta, where it became the symbol of British military ascendancy. Calcutta did not become the capital of British India until 1772, when the first governor-general, Warren Hastings, transferred all important offices to the city from Murshidabad, the provincial Mughal capital. In 1773 Bombay and Madras became subordinate to the government at Fort William. A supreme court administering English law began to exercise original jurisdiction over the city as far as the Maratha Ditch (now Acharya Prafulla Chandra and Jagadish Chandra Bose roads). In 1706 the population of Calcutta had been about 10,000 to 12,000. It increased to nearly 120,000 by 1752 and to 180,000 by 1821. The White (British) Town was built on ground that had been raised and drained. There were so many palaces in the British sector of the city that it was named the city of palaces. Outside the British town were built the mansions of the newly rich, as well as clusters of huts. The names of different quarters of the citysuch as Kumartuli (the potters' district) and Sankaripara (the conch-shell workers' district)still indicate the various occupational castes of the people who became residents of the growing metropolis. Two distinct areasone British, one Indiancame to coexist in Calcutta. Calcutta at this time was described as a pestilential town. There were few good roads. In 1814 a Lottery Committee was constituted to finance public improvement by means of lotteries, and between 1814 and 1836 it took some effective measures to improve conditions. The corporation was established in 1841. Cyclones in 1864, 1867, and 1870, however, devastated the poorer, low-lying areas. By successive stages, as British power extended over the subcontinent, the whole of northern India became a hinterland for the port of Calcutta. The abolition of inland customs duties in 1835 created an open market, and the construction of railways (beginning in 1854) further quickened the development of business and industry. It was at this time that the Grand Trunk Road from Calcutta to Peshawar (now in Pakistan) was completed. British mercantile, banking, and insurance interests flourished. The Indian sector of Calcutta also became a busy hub of commerce and was thronged with people from all parts of India and many other parts of Asia. Calcutta became the intellectual centre of the subcontinent.