Calcutta during the 1700's

From around 1700, the English East India Company began to build a fort in the village of Kalikata (the area around present day BBD Bag or Dalhousie Square). This was the first Fort William. From around 1710, the British began to refer to this fortification as Fort William in Calcutta.

 

In 1740, on the pretext of protecting themselves from Maratha attacks, the British began digging a trench around the three villages, which had collectively come to be called as Calcutta, with the permission of the then Nawab of Bengal, Alivardi Khan.

 

In 1756, after Alivardi Khan’s death, the new Nawab Siraj-ud-Daulah objected to the fortifications the British were carrying out in Fort William. He also accused the English East India Company of defrauding his treasury by not paying custom duties. Failing to get an adequate response from the English East India Company, he attacked Fort William and besieged it on 15th of June, 1756 and within captured it within five days.

 

Siraj renamed Calcutta as ‘Alinagar’ and made Manik Chand its caretaker. The British went downriver to Falta and reconquered Calcutta in 1757.

 

Henry Louis Vivian Derozio

Soon after, Robert Clive came from Madras and the encounter between Siraj's troops and the British army took place on 23rd June, 1757 in Plassey. The British victory in Plassey was made possible by Clive's intrigues through which he won over Siraj's commander-in-chief, Mir Jafar in February, 1757. The bloody Battle of Plassey not only saw the defeat of Siraj-ud-Daulah, but also marked the beginning of British rule in India.

 

 

Calcutta no longer remained a small port town, but soon transformed into the political, social and economic hub of the British Empire. However, this also led to the demarcation of the town into two distinct zones – the ‘white’ localities marked with sophisticated and luxurious constructions and the ‘native’ settlements cramped with dirty lanes and crude dwellings.

 

Gradually, with the growth of trade, native Bengali traders began amassing wealth and soon started emulating the British lifestyle. Thus, came up a number of houses of rich Bengalis, modeled on the British architecture. At the same time, the city also witnessed the birth of the ‘Bengali Bhadralok’ genre comprising of rich traders, aristocratic zamindars, influential bankers and the higher middle class.

 

Soon, Calcutta began to feel the impact of Western education. The Bengali elite society responded positively to this, which led to the establishment of the Hindoo College in 1817. The college was renamed as Presidency College in 1855, and brought under the direct control of the British Government

Under the impact of Western education and western ideas, the Bengali literati became conscious of some of the superstitions that governed Indian society. With the help of the British government some of them undertook a project to reform the Indian society. Two milestones of this early phase of social reforms was the abolition of Sati (1829) initiated by Raja Ram Mohun Roy and the Hindu Re-marriage Act which was passed in 1855 at the behest of Iswar Chandra Vidya Sagar.

 

Another individual whose name is inextricably linked with the cultural efflorescence in 19th century Bengal is the Eurasian, Henry Louis Vivian Derozio (1809-1831). He was like a meteor in Bengal's cultural firmament. He was a teacher in Hindu College and through his lectures he informed his students about the fundamentals of western rationalism. Inspired by this, his students began to challenge many of the obscureantist customs and beliefs of the Hindu society. They began to eat beef and pork and to drink alcohol. This was the first burst of radicalism in Calcutta, a city which was later to become famous as a centre of radical protest. Derozio was removed from Hindu College because the Indian members of the college's govering body found him to be too much of a subversive influence on the students.

 

Derozio's followers and students came to be referred to as Young Bengal. They set up discussion groups like the Academic Association (1828) and the Society for the Acquisition of General Knowledge (1838). They also brought out a number of important journals like Jnananvesan, Enquirer and the Bengal Spectator.

 

The Derozians together with Vidyasagar played a pioneering role in the setting up of educational instituitions for women. With their help and the initiative of John Drinkwater Bethune, the Bethune School was established on the 7th of May, 1849.

 

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