Category Archives: About Kolkata / West Bengal

Anubhav Mukherjee, Founder of “The Kolkata Buzz” shares how he fell in love with City of Joy

Kolkata, the City of Bongs that has stood the test of time, has much to offer to anyone who has been or lived there. Just when you enter the place you feel a kind of warmth that you may not have felt anywhere else. This applies to anyone and everyone irrespective of where they come from. If you have an open heart or are trying to open your heart, this is the city where you should be. 

Despite the political unrest and slow pacing developments, the City of Joy still attracts almost everyone who visits Bengal or India at large. 

One such person is Anubhav Mukherjee, founder of The Kolkata Buzz who came to the city from Chhattisgarh. Though he intended to learn filmmaking, the city’s charisma turned him into a wanderer who would try and capture the bursting streets on his camera and post it on Facebook. He had no idea that people will fall in love with his content and that he would create an entire platform based on Kolkata. 

“When I came to Kolkata I was an outsider despite being a Bengali. So, to explore the city, I would often set out on foot and take pictures and videos. I found a lot of subjects to capture that looked ordinary but had a Bong connection. Then I started to post them on Facebook. To my surprise, it was received well by the audience and thus was born, ‘The Kolkata Buzz’ “, shares Anubhav.

In 2016 during Durga Pujo, the page was all over the place and this made Mukherjee pursue a full-time career in digital media. And all that he could do had only one USP – Kolkata and Bengali culture.

“Kolkata has been the soul of all our content. When I started the platform there was no one else who was so focused on Bengalis. So, I always made sure that my content was attractive and connected with what the public loved and I guess that is what has clicked,” explains Mukherjee.

Initially, the page had all original pictures taken by Anubhav but gradually he found and showcased pictures and quotes by several other Bengalis on his page.

“While I was working on my page, I started to spot others who were posting some great content on our theme. Although my growth mattered to me, I wanted to showcase what others tried to narrate in their posts and give them a shout-out,” says the platform’s founder.

Also, Anubhav felt the need to bring some changes to the work culture in Kolkata. Having studied the market, he knew the worth of digital and wished people to join him. So, he started pooling freelancers and professionals who now work under him to make the page even more amazing.

“I wish that Kolkata’s youth is directed towards the new age, shedding the traditional opportunities. There’s a lot to do out there other than what we are taught to aim as kids. Also, the city needs to build its startup culture and professionalism. I am doing my part and also trying to inspire my colleagues,” said Anubhav.

On today’s date, The Kolkata Buzz has 215k Followers on Instagram, and 1 Million + on Facebook. They are also into videos and are starting a website. The page’s success propelled Anubhav to start his agency – Buzzaffair ventures (OPC) Pvt. Ltd. The company is into brands, Influencer marketing, event promotions, and social media management. They have covered 1000+ brands till now.

www.facebook.com/thekolkatabuzz 

source: http://www.deccanherald.com / Deccan Herald / Home> Brandspot> PR Spot / April 27th, 2021

An acclaimed Bengali pulp fiction writer turns a voyeuristic eye on the secrets of Calcutta by night

Epicentre of the renaissance and reform by day, the city was den of shocking behaviour by night, according to Hemendra Kumar Roy’s ‘Calcutta Nights’.

Clyde Waddell / Public Domain

In these times of social distancing, Calcutta Nights , a recently translated crisp vintage work from 1923, beams up from the past the whole human mess of city life as we may fail to experience for a long time now – enticing , contagious with its mirth, sorrow and decadence, yet ultimately safe. Calcutta-ness is both a cult and a code.

That Calcutta, totem pole of cult, is a distilled city, a Xanadu rich with local detail yet universal, contemporary yet not belonging to any particular period, a continuum of experience. No wonder then, that this wondrous city, simultaneous epicentre of renaissance, nationalism, reform movements and debauchery, should inspire city sketches, first made popular in the mid and late 19th century by the inimitable Hutum Pyachar Naksha. Decades later Hemendra Kumar Roy, prolific and popular author of detective fiction, adopted a nom de guerre to have a go at chronicling the scintillating night life of Calcutta in the 1920s.

If books were bordello windows, their sepia light beckoning, Calcutta Nights would be one such, quite literally. A salacious account of what the night unravels, the book takes you behind the scenes, reports on the microcosm of hedonism, the power plays, symbiotic relations, the intimacies of a prostitute with her regular customer, the paanwali bartering and trading with the police, the beggar, the opium-smoker. What sets this book apart is the flawed and reluctant author.

A warning, apparently

A prolific writer of detective fiction, primarily for children and young adults, Roy probably stumbled upon this diverse and rich material probably while researching for his more innocuous detective novels – armed with a stout stick, he says, and at great personal risk. Against his better judgment, he writes about city la nuit, worried and embarrassed about the task at hand, the adirasa or eroticism that he has failed to avoid while raising the curtains of hell.

In his introduction, he rushes to reassure his readers that none of them will find Calcutta Nights obscene. It is, rather, written with the noble intention of sounding a warning to “fathers of young girls and boys”. Our Meghnad Gupta, author in hiding, is no Samuel Pepys, the veritable diarist of 17th century London who wrote himself into his salacious scenes, boasting about his own ardour and peccadilloes.

The city Roy writes about is a city of men, consumed by men. In the author’s own words this book is “ written for an adult male audience,” a sweeping exclusion that predictably rankles this reviewer’s entitled, liberal, feminist bourgeoise self. Said outrage is difficult to cull at first. Then, as the book shines with its vivid portrayals, the puritan author becomes part of the setting and it is possible to turn the judging “gaze” right back at him, to see him in all his troubled light.

Here was an author writing about hedonism at a time when the wave of nationalism was peaking, his puritan acuity often criss-crossing with an awakening of socialism. His feelings about the women he writes about swing from condescension and humble misogyny (empathetic and damning at the same time – a tone often taken when writing about giants by the best of Bengali literary stars, Sarat Chandra Chatterjee included) to genuine insight.

Atmospheric ride

A pacy read, the depiction is vivid and colourful. Despite his protestations the author is clearly an insider – therein lies the strength and authenticity of this sketch. The description is atmospheric. Roy bring alive, with cinematic realism, the night in which “owls flutter away…and gradually the swarthy ugly faces begin to peep and snoop.”

And slowly Chitpur Road transforms itself – weary clerks disappear, the streets are filled with the scented babus, their faces aglow with Hazeline snow seeking verandthe a belles. Kapure babus, hothat-babus, ingo- bingos, the rich, the white, the Marwari, Chinese, European women of loose morals, courtesans of Chitpur, lustful ladies of Kalighat, the poor prostitute, the wanton widow – each scene, as the chapters are aptly called, presents to us a glossary of social categories.

One of the most striking sketches is that of the Bhikiripara or beggar’s quarters. There are fabulously sensational bits, revealing the author’s – Roy had translated Bam Stoker’s Dracula – penchant for the supernatural and the fantastic. Particularly recommended are scenes from the Nimtala Crematorium and the one featuring a prostitute who beckons men into her room where a dead man lies, his throat slit open.

Translator Rajat Chaudhuri craftily balances archaic words with new ones, never upsetting the tonal authenticity of a period piece. Ultimately he strikes the right cadence – the voice often changing as it travels from Chitpur bordellos to the jazzy evenings in the Anglo quarters or the dim Chinese taverns.

For its depiction of the crowded and dense interplay of lives in the Calcutta of those days, this book is a perfect curl-up for these epic-dammed solitary afternoons. A treasure trove for every city addict has been discovered.

Calcutta Nights, Hemendra Kumar Roy, translated from the Bengali by Rajat Chaudhuri, Niyogi Books

source: http://www.scroll.in / Scroll.in / Home> Book Review / by Lopa Ghosh / March 29th, 2020

Mini Europe by the Hooghly

Kolkata’s splendid history holds impressions of waves of European cultures

Kolkata :

Across the River Hooghly – a tributary of the River Ganges – one can still see signs of various European countries that had created their own unique areas, to facilitate trade through Calcutta’s Port. For those not too familiar with Bengal’s early history, a visit to the area is a real treat as one can see signs of the settlements of various European countries, along the banks of the Hooghly River.

The countries that settled here, creating their own spaces were Denmark, France, Holland and Portugal. As one drives along the riverside road, it is fascinating to see the structures that have survived over the years. The area occupied by the European settlement is the present Hooghly District. Fortunately, these countries have begun to appreciate the historical value of these old ruins. Denmark has recently restored a Tavern at Serampore and tourists now have a splendid place for a meal.

It was almost a century after the Portuguese adventurer Vasco da Gama landed on the western coast of India in 1498, that other European countries realised that they were losing out on trade with India. Soon the European settlements began inroads into Bengal, with the Hooghly being their main source of navigation. The first to create a settlement were the Portuguese who settled down at Bandel, long before the British made Calcutta their stronghold. They were soon followed by the Dutch in Chinsurah, the Danish in Serampore and the French in Chandannagar.

Across the River Hooghly – a tributary of the River Ganges (Photo: By Shona Adhikari) Image Credit: IANS

The Portuguese also built the first Christian church in Bengal in 1599.

In 1632, Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan attacked the Portuguese settlement and demolished their small fort and their church. The head of the Church, Father Joan De Cruz, was taken prisoner to Agra, where he was thrown in front of a ferocious elephant, who instead of trampling the priest, lifted him up and seated him on his back. Shah Jahan was so impressed that he freed the priest and provided free land for a new church.

Interestingly, such miraculous episodes continued. During another siege, Taigo, a local Christian, in a desperate bid to save the statue of Mary, dived into the Hooghly with it and was never seen again. However, on the day of the inauguration of the church, it was found on the river bank. Re-established, the statue came to be known as “Our Lady of the Happy Voyage”.

There is also a splendid Imambara worth seeing in Bandel. Designed by architect Keramtulla Khan, the two-storied building is centred round a rectangular courtyard, decorated with fountains and pools and has a sundial that is a great attraction. The structure has two 85-feet high towers with 152 stairs in each – one for men and the other for women. Built in the memory of the philanthropist Hazi Muhammad Mohsin, the structure took 20 years to build. The three-storied structure connecting the towers contains a clock at the top story. The lower rooms are said to contain splendid chandeliers, but are unfortunately out of bounds to the public.

The Dutch settlement ended in 1825, the Dutch fort of Gustava was demolished by the British and very little remains of the Dutch rule in Chinsura. The Dutch church was demolished in the 1980s, but the Dutch cemetery still stands containing an assortment of graves under the shade of ancient trees, with the oldest dating back to 1743.

It was after receiving Mughal Subedar Ibrahim Khan’s permission in 1673, that the French colony Chandannagar was established as a trading post on the right bank of the Hooghly River. Bengal was then a province of the Mughal Empire. The colony became a permanent French settlement in 1688 and in 1730, when Joseph Francis Dupleix was appointed governor of the city, its development included 2,000 new houses and a considerable amount of trade and commerce. For a short while, Chandannagar also became the main centre for European trade in Bengal.

Today, Chandannagar still boasts considerable French heritage.

The Strand is considered the most beautiful stretch of the Hooghly River. The tree-shaded promenade along the river is about 1km in length and 7 meters in width, and the area houses a number of French mansions. The Durgacharan Rakshit Ghat on the Strand is also an interesting mix of Indo- French architecture.

Also on the Strand is the Dupleix Palace Museum – one of the oldest museums of the region housing French antiques and period furniture. Just off the Strand is the Sacred Heart Church, dating back to 1884. It was designed by French architect Jacques Duchatz and has beautiful stained glass windows. A French colony till 1950, French is still taught as a third language in many of Chandannagore’s schools.

To make you aware that you are in French surroundings, there is the Chandannagar Gate constructed in 1937 to mark the Fall of the Bastille. Etched on stone is the slogan ‘Liberte, egalite, fraternite’ (Liberty Equality and Fraternity).

Serampore , the Danish Settlement, remained under Danish rule till 1845, after which the Danish Governor decided to sell it to the British East India Company. The Serampore college, remains well maintained with its grand facade. Danish missionary Carey along with Ward and Marshman, began the Serampore Mission Press and published the first Bengali translation of the Bible. They also launched the “Friends of India” newspaper. Another outstanding contribution was the installation of India’s first paper mill at Battala, set up by Marshman, which was powered by a steam engine.

The Baptist Mission Cemetery in Serampore contains the family graves of Carey, Ward and Marshman – three personalities whose immense contribution to literacy, cannot be disregarded. Between 1801 and 1832, the Serampore Mission Press printed 212,000 copies of books in 40 different languages.

IANS

source: http://www.gulfnews.com / Gulf News / Home> Asia> India / by Shona Adhikari / September 13th, 2019

Kolkata: RBI Money Museum promotes people’s knowledge of banking system

Inaugurated on March 11, 2019, the Museum remains open from 10 am to 5 pm for visitors.

RBI

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Money Museum at Council House Street in Central Kolkata, which opened earlier this year, has been drawing a lot of attention for its unique initiative. The museum has been built with an aim to improve people’s knowledge of the banking system with the help of interactive displays.

Inaugurated on March 11, 2019, the Museum remains open from 10 am to 5 pm for visitors.

The main attention of the museum is a huge tree made using defunct coins and demonetised notes attached with a computer model depicting how money gets transferred to the account digitally.

Money Museum is divided into three sections, the first section depicts the evolution of the barrier system and the use of grains as currency in medieval ages. In continuity, the museum shows the evolution of money in modern times.

Its printing and bond making machines catch the attention of visitors. The bond machine is said to be the only machine which was used to print bonds for different states.

The museum is built to make people aware of the various aspects of banking and the history of RBI, said a senior RBI official.

Interestingly, the museum has everything to entertain children. There is an interactive games centre for kids with an aim to promote financial literacy. 

source: http://www.dnaindia.com / DNA / Home> India / by ANI / July 31st, 2019

Noble edifices: publication lifts veil on mysteries of Bengal’s Raj Bhavans

A view of the stately Raj Bhavan in Kolkata. File   | Photo Credit: Victoria Memorial Hall

Some of the policies that shaped colonial India, including the introduction of English education in India through Thomas Macaulay’s Minute of 1835, the Doctrine of Lapse, and the Partition of Bengal, were plotted in the Raj Bhavan.

A large room in the south of Raj Bhavan, Kolkata overlooking its gardens has a beautiful oil painting of Mahatma Gandhi by Jamini Ray, hung on the wall just above the desk of the Governor in a room that is called the Governor’s study. Not any people know that some of the most fundamentally transformative policies that shaped colonial India, including the introduction of English education in India through Thomas Macaulay’s Minute of 1835, the Doctrine of Lapse, the Ilbert Bill, the Partition of Bengal, and many others, were plotted in this very room. In words of Lord Curzon himself, the room ‘has witnessed discussions as agitated and decisions as heavily charged with fate as any private apartment in the wide circumference of the British Empire.’

Other rooms in the Raj Bhavan, Kolkata like the Council Chamber in the North-east wing of the first floor, which hosted the swearing-in ceremony for each new Governor-General or Viceroy, the Ball Room which from the very beginning was fitted with the original chandeliers and mirrors that once belonged to the French General Claude Martin and the Throne Room where the so-called throne of Tipu Sultan, captured from Seringapatam in 1799, is kept have all been witness to major historical events of the subcontinent in the 19th century.

Several anecdotes about the Raj Bhavan, Kolkata, the building that remained the principle seat of power for entire subcontinent from 1803 to 1912 have been the documented in the book titled “Those Noble Edifices- The Raj Bhavans of Bengal” which was unveiled by Governor Keshari Nath Tripathi here on Thursday. In the foreword of the publication, The Governor said that, this volume was planned because “we wanted to share these ‘secrets’ and inside stories of Kolkata’s most hallowed precincts with the public” and “ the purpose is to bring the Raj Bhavan – including its exteriors and interiors – closer to the public”.

Jaynata Sengupta, secretary and curator of Victoria Memorial Hall, who has written the book ,said that this publication is an attempt to “ lift this shroud of mystery and show what lies beneath, what the Raj Bhavan really means as a residence, to its exalted overlords as well as to its humbler inmates and workers”. Mr. Sengupta, in the publication about throws light of three Raj Bhavans of Bengal, the Raj Bhavan build by Lord Wellesley in Esplanade in early 19 th century which is similar to architecture of the Kedleston Hall in Derbyshire and the Raj Bhavans at Barrackpore and Darjeeling.

Full of maps, hundreds of archival photographs, letters and manuscripts the 200 page publication also refers buildings older that the existing Raj Bhavans where Governor General and officials of the East India company lived, from the Old Fort located between the river Ganges and today’s BBD Bagh (erstwhile Dalhousie Square), a house on what is on the street that subsequently came to be named after him (Clive Street) and the Old Government House which was also known as the ‘Buckingham House,’ . It was at this very spot at the Old Government House that Lord Wellesley constructed the Raj Bhavan. The cost of building Raj Bhavan then to between £1,70,000 and £1,80,000, that is, between Rs. 22 and 24 lakh which angered the East India Company’s Board of Directors.

In fact Lord Wellesley had similar plans of making another Raj Bhavan at Barrackpore, which derives its name British barrack or cantonment, but the plans were rejected by the Board of Governors of East India Company. The first bungalows at Barrackpore, was bought by the Bengal Government in 1785 for the occupation of the British Commander-in-Chief. After assuming the title of British Commander-in-Chief, which was conferred to him after the Battle of Seringapatam in 1799, Lord Wellesely took over the house British Commander-in-Chief was Sir Alured Clarke. “Wellesley later described Barrackpore as ‘a charming spot which, in my usual spirit of tyranny, I have plucked from the Commander in Chief.” Mr Sengupta writes in the book. Documents like a minute dated 1 April 1857, in Governor-General’s Lord Canning’s own handwriting, “regarding the outbreak of the ‘disturbance’ (the Revolt of 1857) at Barrackpore on the occasion of the disbandment of the 19th Native Infantry” have been highlighted in the book. It is believed that Lord Canning’s note was written at Barrackpore not far from where the “disturbances” have broken out. Mr Sengupta said that the Government House at Barrackpore was a mere shadow of what Wellesley’s grand and ambitious plan could have produced, it was still spacious enough to serve as a country residence for Governor-Generals and Viceroys. After independence, the Raj Bhavan at Barrackpore came under the care of West Bengal Police, housing the police training academy. Now the academy has been shifted out and the building has been restored. The restored building now houses a museum.

The third important structure the book discusses in detail is the Raj Bhavan in Darjeeling which came up on what was not of the conquered territory of the British. After the introduction of Tea to Darjeeling in the early 1840s and the British negotiating treaties with both Sikkim and Bhutan in the 1860s, Darjeeling became formally a part of British India in 1866. By the 1870’s Darjeeling became the summer seat of the Bengal Government and a suitable accommodation for the Lieutenant-Governor was built in the late 19 th century. Unlike the Raj Bhavan at Kolkata, which was built without a Garden the Raj Bhavan at Darjeeling always had a Garden.

“The main house was so extensively damaged by the Nepal-Bihar earthquake of January 1934 that it had to be entirely demolished, and replaced by a new Government House built in ferroconcrete during the tenure of Sir John Anderson (1932–37),” Mr Sengupta writes.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> National / by Shiv Sahay Singh / Kolkata – July 18th, 2019

New strain on ancient post of village headman

Recently, a Santhal village in Birbhum killed the post of majhi haram or morol. We visit the headman of a nearby village


Majhi haram Nilu Mardi with a neighbour / Image: Moumita Chaudhuri

Gopal Nagar Dakshin Palli in Bengal’s Birbhum district is a tribal village. The drive from Bolpur town to the house of Nilu Mardi, the village headman, takes all of half an hour. The reason behind the trip — a recent report about another tribal village in this very district doing away with the concept of morol or village headman. Reports attributed the move by Chatormath village in Suri town to political interference. It also said that other villages were planning to follow suit. Nilu Mardi is a majhi haram, a term used to describe the headman of a Santhal village.

majhi haram performs the role of a morol, but all morols are not majhi harams. Mardi hurries out of his mud hut, his hands folded in greeting. The 40-something moustachioed headman is of shy demeanour; he offers his visitors a charpoy and fetches a low cane stool for himself. Over steaming cups of milky tea, he starts to talk.

He says, “My father was a majhi haram and I have inherited the title from him.” According to him, the headman in every Santhal village is actually the religious head, selected quite literally by the higher powers. Mardi describes how a jaan or seer performs rites, which involves among other things blessing a magic stick.

The stick hops out on its own and stops at a house of its choice and the male head of that household is anointed majhi haram. Says Mardi, “One cannot assume or give up the title at whim. It remains in the family as long as it has to be there.” In case there are no male successors, the stick and the title are passed on to the son-in-law.

At this point in the conversation, Balu Tulu, a man of average build, not more than 60 years old, enters the courtyard. There is another mud hut facing Mardi’s home; the courtyard is common to both.

Tulu lives in the second hut; he is also a relation of Mardi. A concrete structure is coming up on another end of the courtyard — an uncommon sight in a village where there is no pucca house — which houses a common kitchen with two clay ovens. A little away from it, there is a generous stack of straw.

Tulu expresses shock and surprise at the fact that a tribal village has decided to do away the headman’s post. “Chatormath will actually lose the status of being a Santhal village in that case,” he announces to no one in particular. As it turns out, to date, in a Santhal village, money and social hierarchy is no great divider. Tulu speaks freely in front of the headman.

Mardi too does not seem to mind. “I am the majhi haram but he is an elderly person and in a Santhal village we always consult the elders and respect their knowledge,” he says humbly. The women of the family are sitting out too, witnessing the conversation unfold; from time to time there is giggling, oftentimes someone makes a point without any inhibition. “I have to preside over cases where one has stolen a morog (rooster) or a handi (utensil),” says Mardi and there is tittering all around. He also settles household feuds, big and small, and skirmishes.

The main issue these days, however, is inter-caste marriage. There is an unwritten rule among the Santhal tribes that if two adults marry without the consent of their families, then the families have to bear the consequences. Tulu says, “If two adults marry within the community, they are allowed to stay together but then both the bride and the groom’s families have to do the ritual goat sacrifice — the boy’s family has to sacrifice two goats, while the girl’s family has to sacrifice one.” But when the marriage happens outside the caste, there is a problem. “We generally call off the marriage and order them to stay apart. And if they refuse to listen to the village head, they are asked to leave the village,” says Tulu. But matters don’t end here. “Nowadays, aggrieved parties approach courts of law and even the panchayat. They also take the help of the police and are eventually allowed to stay on,” he adds.

The older man repeats what Mardi has already explained — that the majhi haram of a Santhal village is not a political post. “That is why political parties do not interfere in the works of a majhi haram,” says Tulu. So when a village in Birbhum has turned hostile towards an age-old Santhal ritual, we have to understand there are other reasons, he adds knowingly. Mardi agrees: “Let alone the police, the panchayat won’t even entertain a case from our village if anyone tries to bypass the majhi haram.”

source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph, online edition / Home> Heritage / by Moumita Chaudhuri / March 17th, 2019

Meet the survivors of the 1943 Bengal Famine

In the 75th anniversary year of the Bengal Famine, Prasun Chaudhuri travels to K-Plot in the Sunderbans to meet survivors .


Memory Bank: Writer Sailen Sarkar hears out Khoshain Sheikh, who was 16 when he came to K-Plot / Prasun Chaudhuri

The island is called K-Plot. It might be only 130 kilometres south of Calcutta, but it is not easy to access. First, you have to take the Lakshmikantapur-bound local train from Sealdah. Get off at Mathurapur. Pack yourself into a crowded mini-van to reach Raidighi. Get off it and into another shared vehicle that will drop you to the Raidighi ferry ghat. Then board a motorised country boat to Bamunghat in K-Plot. In all, you need about six hours to touch this southern tip of the Sunderbans surrounded by Thakuran river on the east and west, Shibua river on the north and the Bay of Bengal on the south.

The name K-Plot is a British legacy. Successive officials of the East India Company had unimaginatively named these islands after the English alphabet sometime in the late 18th century. These settlements had been conceived by Collector General Claude Russell in 1771, soon after the company got Diwani rights or the permission to collect taxes on behalf of the Mughal emperor. Russell had initiated extensive reclamation of mangrove forests and offered pieces of land ranging from five to 10,000 bighas to businessmen, landlords and government employees based in Calcutta. (In Bengal, the bigha was standardised under colonial rule at 1/3 acre.)

Years later, post the notorious Bengal famine of 1943, which killed an estimated 35 million, many people sought a home in the Sunderbans in general and K-Plot in particular. Most of them were from Midnapore district, which was the worst affected. Turns out many of these famine survivors managed to give both tide and time a slip and are still around to tell their olden tale.

It is late afternoon by the time we reach K-Plot. We meaning, myself and writer Sailen Sarkar. A retired schoolteacher, Sarkar travelled extensively across southern Bengal before he wrote his Bengali book, Durbhikkher Sakkhi or Witness of the Famine.

It is one long walk to famine survivor Bijoykrishna Tripathi’s house. On the way Sarkar tells me, “I discovered these survivors by chance during my travels. While chatting with the elders of the islands, it emerged that many farmers have roots in Midnapore and clear recollections of panchasher manwantar (the famine happened in the Bengali calendar year 1350). These conversations opened up for me bits and pieces of oral history of one of the biggest tragedies of modern Indian history.”

Sarkar’s first interviewee, Sripaticharan Samanta, didn’t open up to him at first. Instead, he wept and asked, “Why did you come so late?” Soon after the interview, Samanta died. Says the writer, “That’s when I realised the urgency of documenting the oral narratives of famine survivors. I knew we were about to lose pieces of history, the legacy and tales of the indomitable spirit of ordinary human beings.”

When we finally find Tripathi, the 108-year-old patriarch is sitting in the courtyard of his home surrounded by six grown-up great-grandsons and some relations from East Midnapore who have come to seek his advice regarding a land dispute. Tripathi stands up to greet us; a tall man, ramrod straight, wearing a dhoti and uttariya, his sacred thread wound around his bare torso.

“Our misery began with a crazy rainstorm,” begins Tripathi. “It was Ashtami day of 1942, the year of the Quit India movement.” Shortly before the Pujas, an agitating 33-year-old Tripathi had burnt down a police station in East Midnapore’s Bhagabanpur village. That night, he recalls, there was a terrible cyclone. It ravaged the farms and turned everything into a wasteland. The next morning, Tripathi says, he saw hundreds of human corpses floating around along with carcasses of cattle.

The widespread devastation was followed by an acute shortage of rice. Says Tripathi, “The price of rice that cost an anna a seer [16 annas make rupee; one seer equals 1.25 kilos] doubled immediately after the cyclone and tripled in a few weeks. There was starvation and then famine.”

Some people survived on bulga or soup made from discarded wheat served at community kitchens; most others died like flies. According to Tripathi, many sold their wives and daughters in exchange for sacks of rice. He says, “Women ran away with complete strangers for two square meals a day.”


There were hundreds of human corpses floating around along with carcasses of cattle, recalls Bijoykrishna Tripathi, 108 / Prasun Chaudhuri

Researcher and writer Madhushree Mukherjee, who interviewed many famine survivors of Bengal, toes the line that the catastrophe was engineered largely by the then British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill. For her 2010 book Churchill’s Secret War, she delved into oral accounts of survivors and official documents. She cites documents and exchanges to support the view that Churchill ordered the diversion of food from starving Indians to add to stockpiles of grains in Britain and Europe.

In a more recent research, historian and anthropologist Janam Mukherjee writes, “High colonial policy, of course, usually in the name of the war effort, played an important role, but responsibilities were widespread. Seeking colonial favor, or entrenched in ‘opposition’, the response to famine by Indian politicians in both Bengal and New Delhi, was also guided, often enough, by political interest rather than public welfare.”

By November of 1943, much of the Bengal countryside lay in ruins. Artist and active member of the Communist Party of India, Chittaprosad Bhattacharya, journeyed through the innards of the famine-struck Midnapore district. In page after page of ink drawings, he tried to capture the general predicament. The visuals came lined with annotations, observations. Eventually, all those sketches came to be his book, Hungry Bengal. The book, however, was banned by the British government and thousands of copies were destroyed.

Destruction, epidemic and mass death had people fleeing cityward. A lot many died on the way, those who made it starved on the streets of the city. But there were people like Tripathi who ventured beyond the city, to the marshes of the Sunderbans, in pursuit of food and new life.

Initially they landed up as raiyats or cultivators who farmed on lands held by absentee landlords. The chain of command ran thus: first came chakdars, who further sublet the land to raiyats.

One of the reasons Tripathi chose K-Plot was that he knew a chakdar who was looking for a raiyat to cultivate 50 bighas of land he had taken at lease. “Initially I farmed the land with some labourers and sent half of the harvest to the chakdar. But the chakdar was a kind man. He eventually gifted me a part of the land when I got married.”

Khoshain Sheikh is also a resident of K-Plot. When we arrive at his hut on the edge of the island, his younger brother, Qurbat, tells us that he is gone to sow paddy saplings. He takes us to the field and we find the 92-year-old crouched there in knee-deep water. “I have been sowing paddy since I was 12,” says the man with a goatee. Then, over a bowl of puffed rice, he tells us his story.

Sheikh was 16 when he arrived here. He says, “The famine actually started before 1943. While foodgrains were fast disappearing into hoarders’ godowns, the cyclone dealt a deadly blow to the belly. My father left our village in Bhagabanpur months before the cyclone.” The Sheikhs crossed the Hooghly and reached the island via Kakdwip. “It took over 12 hours to get here that day,” he reminisces.

All 12 brothers tilled the land, sowed paddy and harvested rich crop within a year. “When we first arrived, we had to deal with wild beasts and snakes. Many of my relatives succumbed to snakebite,” says Sheikh. Then adds, “We desalinated the water by boiling tamarind in it. In the initial period, we survived on gimey shaak and other wild herbs.” The landless are now land owners. Sheikh shows us around K-Plot. He points to the greenery, new embankments and plantations.

Next, Sarkar takes me to Maipith, a neighbouring island. “Maipith is one of those rare islands where tigers and humans co-exist. There is just an embankment that separates the tiger forest from the villages,” he says as we cross two wide rivers.

Pulin Samanta has been living on the edge of Maipith in Nagenabad village since early 1944. He has turned 100 this year. Tigers often enter his paddy fields but he feels these beasts are not as scary as the black-marketeers. “The day we left Jugiberi [Midnapore], the price of rice went up to eight annas per seer, an eight-fold increase in just a year. Only the very rich could buy from hoarders.”

The Samantas had to walk for four hours to reach Rasulpur on the banks of the Hooghly. “On the way, we saw starving people lying on the fields and vultures circling them.” They crossed the river to reach Kakdwip, where they met a chakdar. He had been looking for able farmers. “We rowed for two days to reach this place,” he says. “The first thing the family built was a ‘tonger bari’ or a tree house to survive the wild beasts at night.”

Samanta’s great grandson is trying to recharge his smartphone with a solar battery. Pump sets, parts of mechanised boats and a dish antenna on the roof of the double-storey house are obvious signs of prosperity.

Samanta’s neighbour, Abedan Bibi, is the last famine survivor we meet. The sun has set by then, LED lamps can be seen all around. Rural electrification has been patchy in the island because people here have always voted against the ruling party, says Asura Khatun, who shows us the way to Abedan’s home. The 103-year old woman used to cook her own food and roam the village on her own until she lost her eyesight a few years ago. That night, by the time we reach, she has already finished dinner.

When her granddaughter-in-law informs her that we’ve come to meet her for an interview about the famine, the frail woman crawls out of the mosquito net. She settles down on a wooden stool. In the faint rays of a solar light, we can barely discern her tiny figure in a white cotton printed sari with a blue border.

She begins, “I had got married a few years before the famine.” Her father-in-law, it seems, was an enterprising man who decided to switch his base to the island soon after the cyclone. “He had apprehended the famine as the problem of food shortage had been gradually deepening.”

She continues, “The first few weeks were difficult. We survived on boiled gira shaak and shapla — aquatic plants — fished out from ponds. Occasionally, we got some flour sent by the government in flood-relief boats.”

Sarkar and I leave the island the next day at the crack of dawn. As our motorised boat sputters across Thakuran river, I try to imagine how the scattered bits of land with its dense mangrove forests would have appeared to boatloads of people trying to escape starvation and death, 75 years ago. Like a green beckon perhaps, who can say.

source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph, online edition / Home> Culture / by Prasun Chaudhuri / December 09th, 2018

Calcutta’s Brush with War

The year 1942 was a landmark year in terms of political and military changes, especially in East Asia.


Calcutta in post-World War II days

Calcutta Under Fire: The Second World War Years
By: David Lockwood
Publisher: Rupa 
Pages: 294
Price: `295

The year 1942 was a landmark year in terms of political and military changes, especially in East Asia. Japan, which had entered World War II spectacularly by bombing Pearl Harbour in December 1941, had—within less than a year—successfully invaded Malaya, Hong Kong, Singapore and Burma. In each of these territories, the defending (and now defeated) forces had been the British.

With the Japanese occupying Burma, sitting literally on the doorstep of India, it was unsurprising that by late 1942, fears of a Japanese invasion of India, or at least of its eastern and coastal stretches, should be widespread. 

Yet, there were other factors to be considered. Political, social, and military factors, and factors regarding less tangible ideas, such as the need to save face, or to put up a brave front. There was the Indian national movement, there was the growing doubt among many Britishers themselves regarding the future of India as part of the Empire. There was the (natural, given what had happened in Burma and elsewhere) fear among Indians that the British would be incapable of defending India against the Japanese. 

David Lockwood examines all of these and more in an attempt to explain the circumstances and events that shaped India during  World War II, especially around the tumultuous year of 1942, when the Japanese bombed Calcutta and sent thousands fleeing the city in panic. 

But merely looking at the Japanese bombing of Calcutta in isolation would not make a complete book, so Lockwood instead spreads his net wide to encompass events, ideologies, movements, policies and more. He examines the theory of hegemony as an intrinsic part of British imperialism, and from there goes on to discuss how the Congress’s policies were tailored towards a counter-hegemony.

There is a detailed discussion of how the Congress’s policies underwent changes; of the work the Congress did to mobilise the general populace in what was essentially a counter-hegemonistic movement; of the role played by radio (including the Congress’s illegal, underground radio broadcasts as well as Subhas Chandra Bose’s broadcasts from Berlin); and of rising discontent and nationalism among the Indians in the British Indian military and civil services.

The final picture is a complex but intriguing one of the different forces that not only shaped India in 1942, but which eventually led to independence. Lockwood manages to present interesting insights into the considerations that made the British, the Congress, and the general Indian public (both urban as well as rural) act as they did. 

Lockwood’s research is extensive (he even manages to present the Japanese side of it: did they really intend to invade India and make it part of a Japanese Empire?). There are some delightful bits of trivia, too (the thought of an impending Japanese invasion seems to have encouraged some Indians, who looked on the approaching Japanese armies more as liberators than conquerors, to take some very surprising steps, such as learning Japanese). While Lockwood’s style of writing may at times seem more geared towards an academic audience than a layperson, the book is an invaluable resource for understanding India during World War II.

source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> Lifestyle> Books / by Madhulika Liddle / Express News Service / February 24th, 2019

The Calcutta story

This book offers insights into a chapter of Calcutta’s history that is frightening and inspiring at the same time. David Lockwood takes readers back to 1942 when the city was bombed by the Japanese air force. An excerpt:

December 20, 1942, was a Sunday. On that day, Calcutta’s ‘Oldest Nationalist Daily’ (according to the masthead), the Amrita Bazar Patrika, reported that in Burma there was a possibility of ‘the end of defensive warfare on this frontier [by the Allies] and the beginning of a war of attack.’ Meanwhile, in the Don-Volga area, ‘the Soviet ring is drawing tighter around the enemy.’ Despite this optimistic note, the paper reflected evidence of wartime stringencies. The Imperial Tobacco Company appealed to its customers to accept cigarettes without packets in order to alleviate the paper shortage. The Government denied a shortage of rice. Women were told that they were ‘the Inner Wall of Defence’ and as such they should join the Women’s Auxiliary Corps (India). Indian political problems were also evident in the shape of the continuing Quit India campaign. An attack on a police station, bombs in Baroda and acid attacks on the police were reported.

The Calcutta races, however, went ahead as normal and were graced by the presence of the Marchioness of Linlithgow, His Excellency the Governor of Bengal, and Lady Mary Herbert. There was cricket on Saturday and Sunday and a tennis carnival to look forward to on Thursday. Cinemas catering to English speakers were featuring Chaplin in Goldrush, Robert Taylor in Her Cardboard Lover, and Abbott and Costello in Pardon My Sarong. The paper reported an increase in the production of Indian films for ‘the surging crowds during yuletide hungry for entertainment.’

That night Calcutta was bombed by the Japanese air force. The structural damage was minimal, but the panic that ensued was widespread. Large numbers of Calcutta residents fled. Fear was exacerbated by indications that neither the Government of India nor the Government of Bengal nor the Calcutta municipality were prepared for the defence of the city.

The air raid took place in a context of overwhelming Japanese military success and territorial expansion. The British — the assumed defenders of India — had been pushed out of Malaya, Singapore, Hong Kong and Burma. In late 1942, it was widely expected, in India and beyond, that a Japanese move into northern India was inevitable, imminent—and perhaps unstoppable.

Calcutta served as an industrial centre, a port and a transit point for troops moving up to fight the Japanese in Malaya and then in Burma. It was a city of considerable strategic importance to the Allies. Once Burma fell, Calcutta was the mainstay of the Allies’ Asian front. Consequently, it was a Japanese target. As Prasad points out, ‘Their air force was also well poised…to inflict continuous and heavy raids on Calcutta and the industrial area in the eastern regions. The official reaction to these first raids on the city was very much along the ‘we can take it’ and ‘business as usual’ line, modelled no doubt on the (officially) stoic British reaction to the Blitz. The Governor of Bengal, Sir John Herbert, telegrammed the Viceroy after the first raid that despite two deaths and fourteen injuries, there had been ‘No noticeable effect on morale.’ Later the Chief Secretary related that ‘ARP Services are in general reported to have done excellent work,’ demonstrated by the fact that ‘defections were very few.’ The Viceroy was moved to tell Calcutta’s citizens:

Yours is the first capital city in India to suffer in this war a baptism of fire and her citizens have provided an admirable example of steadiness and fortitude. Well done Calcutta.

The English press was, if anything, even more relaxed. The European-owned Statesman declared that the first raid was ‘a small affair and, if the city has to be raided, it can be described as a very suitable introduction.’ Even the Amrita Bazar Patrika reported that ‘Little damage was done and no nervousness was shown by the townspeople.’

Down amongst the townspeople, however, things were not quite so sanguine. After the first raid, ‘nervousness’ broke out on a wide scale. According to Joydeep Sircar, the raid was a ‘devastating blow to the morale of the inhabitants.’ Sircar suggests that ‘one and-a-half million people’ fled, causing a breakdown in ‘the civil services.’  There was a widespread feeling that ‘The Government had not prepared for the eventuality and seemed overwhelmed by developments in Southeast Asia.’

In the ensuing days and weeks, some signs of defence began to appear: A number of Hurricane aircraft were moved to Calcutta; emergency airfields were constructed, including one in the centre of the city between Chowringhee and the Maidan; slit trenches were dug in the same area. But following the December 1942 raids, many of Calcutta’s citizens were not concerned with defence. They were more interested in flight.

On December 23, Governor Herbert reported to the Viceroy that there had been a ‘considerable exodus of people from Calcutta though not yet amounting to a panic rush.’ Workers had ‘wholly disappeared from the dock area’ and morale was deteriorating — though ‘nothing like a landslide’. The post-bombing exodus took up the full capacity of the railways. Special trains were laid on to cope with the numbers attempting to leave the city. On December 27, ‘measures were taken to clear crowds of refugees collected at railway stations along the evacuation routes.’ The British authorities estimated that some 2,50,000 people left the city by road and another 1,00,000 by rail. Katyun Randhawa, a Calcutta schoolgirl, remembered the exodus and the railway stations ‘packed with people trying to get out’—some permanently. ‘Some of our street hawkers also disappeared,’ she relates, ‘—we never saw our bread delivery man again.’

Not unnaturally, those who felt the most vulnerable —from working-class suburbs, industrial establishments and around the docks — were those most inclined to leave. The Bengal Government Labour Commissioner put a brave face on the situation on the Monday morning after the first raid: ‘There was full attendance this morning in mills and in engineering firms. In fact, some engineering firms reported better attendance than on normal Monday mornings.’ The docks presented a different picture. The Chief Secretary reported that boatmen, port employees and contract labour (including coal coolies) all evacuated. Workers from outside Calcutta ‘left in large numbers on foot both by way of the Grand Trunk Road and the Orissa Trunk Road.’ He estimated their number at 2–3,00,000. Severe labour shortages ensued. The workers that remained took the opportunity of pressing their demands on the employers. There was an increase in strikes in Calcutta after the raids. The Australian war correspondent, Wilfred Burchett, was present in the Calcutta Port Commissioner’s office after one of the December raids, when the latter was confronted by a deputation of wharf labourers. They told him:

We don’t mind staying and working, even if they do bomb us, but we want food in our bellies and decent shelters. At present we’ve got neither.

The Scavengers’ Union demanded wage increases and free accommodation as ‘a large number of sweepers had already left the city and many would go away in the near future.’ The wharf labourers’ demand for shelters reflected, again, the feeling in the city and in the province—and perhaps across India as a whole—that the Government had not prepared well enough for the possibility of war and was not doing enough about it now that it had arrived. In the aftermath of the raids, Sudata Debchaudhury argues, ‘[t]he Government had practically collapsed.’ This may be overstating the case, but at the time the Amrita Bazar Patrika was complaining that the Government of Bengal had done nothing to organise an orderly evacuation, or to provide the evacuees with alternative means of livelihood, shelter and conveyance. Confidence in the authorities could not have been strengthened by the fact that during the December raids about 10 per cent of ‘the lower ranks of the Calcutta Police’ themselves abandoned their posts and fled.

Widespread fear of air raids and even invasion had taken hold in India well before December 1942, and this laid the basis for the civilian exodus from Calcutta. In the early part of the year, the example of Burma was there for all to contemplate. The Government should have known what to expect. On the basis of Burma’s experience of attack from the air, the Government of India’s Civil Defence Department sent out a circular, Lessons learned during air raids, to all Provincial Governments in August 1942.

Excerpted with permission from David Lockwood’s Calcutta Under Fire, Rupa Publications India, Rs 295

source: http://www.dailypioneer.com / Daily Pioneer / Home> Sunday Edition> Agenda> Backbone > Excerpt / February 10th, 2019

French heritage seal on Chandernagore buildings

The Registry Office, Chandernagore College and Sacred Heart Church are declared as heritage structures


(From left) French ambassador Alexandre Ziegler; consul general Virginie Corteval; Shuvaprasanna, chairman, West Bengal Heritage Commission; and Fabrice Plancon, director, Alliance Francaise du Bengale at Sacred Heart Church on WednesdayPicture by Sudeshna Banerjee

French ambassador Alexandre Ziegler unveiled plaques declaring three buildings in Chandernagore heritage structures on Wednesday.

He was accompanied by members of the West Bengal Heritage Commission.

“The French consulate in Calcutta had sent a proposal for enlistment of 14 buildings in Chandernagore as heritage structures in 2017. Acting on it, the commission has made the declaration for eight buildings. Plaques will be laid today on three of them,” commission chairman Shuvaprasanna said at a programme at the start of the tour at Institut de Chandernagore.

The blue enamel plaques reminded the ambassador of the street name signage in France. “They are very French,” he smiled, unveiling one at the first stop on the tour — the Registry Office and French Court.

The derelict structure rich in history at the starting point on the Strand, facing the river, has been saved from demolition after the petition from the French.

It was also the focal point of a workshop called House of the Moon during Bonjour India, the French festival in India, in 2017, for which students of design from India and France co-created and collaborated to develop an intervention in Chandernagore.

Once restored, Ziegler envisions it as a focal point of tourist interest, with a coffee house and an information centre.


Ziegler unveils the plaque declaring the Registry Office a heritage structure.

But he insisted that the day’s exercise was not just about restoring history. “It’s about what you can do with heritage while looking at the future. It is much more than architecture, for our vision involves economic revitalisation of the town. We will be working on giving ownership to the whole community by working with students and children, and making Chandernagore the focal point of our common history and bilateral relations.”


The heritage structure plaque at Chandernagore College.Pictures by Sudeshna Banerjee

The other two buildings where plaques were unveiled are Chandernagore College and Sacred Heart Church.

The college, originally established as St Mary’s Institution by the French Catholic Missionary, Rev. Magloire Barthet in 1862, had received an affiliation to Calcutta University as a First Arts Level College in 1891.

The principal, Debasish Sarkar, had a piece of good news to share with the ambassador — the college had just been granted Rs 1.68 crore for the upkeep of the building by the higher education department.

“This is a memorable day for Chandernagore. The laying of the plaques invests the buildings with importance and insures their future. It also gives the young generation something to take pride in,” said Basabi Pal, the head of the college’s French department, which is the oldest in Bengal. The department now grants even postgraduate degrees.

Father Orson Welles received the ambassador at Sacred Heart Church, which dates back to 1875.

The consul general of France in Calcutta, Virginie Corteval, and district magistrate J.P. Meena were present at the programme.

A team of technical experts will visit Chandernagore “by the summer” to help with the restoration, the ambassador said.

source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph, Online Edition / Home> Heritage / by The Telegraph – Special Correspondent in Chandernagore / February 07th, 2019