Monthly Archives: February 2019

Meet the Odia bhadis who make up Kolkata’s invisible water distribution system

Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Business & Economy

Bhadis make their way through Kolkata’s streets, carrying two plastic cans of water on an eight-foot-long bamboo pole balanced on their shoulders.   | Photo Credit: Debajyoti Sarkar

The circadian rhythms of a bhadi’s life are dictated not by sunrise and sunset, but by the Kolkata Municipal Corporation

The frayed soles of his black rubber sandals scraping against the gravel, his body canted forward for balance, his steps quickened by the burden he carries, Chintamani Palai makes his way through Kolkata’s Shyampukur Street where houses look like boxes jostling for space. At either end of the eight-foot bamboo pole he carries on his shoulders hang two large, fluorescent yellow, plastic jerrycans filled with water that sloshes with every step.

It is Palai’s 21st trip of the day, between the municipal tap at the end of the street and back to the various homes, where he sells the water at ₹2 per can of 15 litres.

“I don’t need water today,” says Arup Ghose, a resident.

“You don’t? Ah! But I have brought it for you. I don’t like to throw away the water. Don’t give me money.”

“Okay. Fill the tank then.”


The numbers of bhadis in Kolkata are declining: from thousands even a decade ago they are down to a few hundreds now.   | Photo Credit: Arpita Chakrabarty

Palai removes his sandals, climbs up two floors to the terrace, and upends his two cans into a plastic tank. He is now back on the street, his stooped shoulders a visible imprint of his profession, on his way to fill the cans again.

Palai moved to Kolkata  from his hometown in Odisha 33 years ago. He is a bhadi – literally, one who carries the load.

Where are the jobs?

Odia bhadis have quenched thirsty Bengali homes for as long as one can recall. Palai’s father was a bhadi; so were his grandfather and great-grandfather. The work they do doesn’t count as registered employment — this is ‘make-work,’ necessitated by migration, unemployment and water scarcity. Back home in Odisha’s Bhadrak district, Palai could not find a stable job that would provide for the 22 members of his family. His family owns half an acre of land; his three brothers work intermittently as farm labourers, construction workers and dairy farmers. “Most of the work is seasonal, so we can’t depend on it throughout the year,” says Palai.

And so, able-bodied men like Palai have been migrating to eastern India’s biggest metropolis to look for work for decades now. Those without specific skills like cooking or plumbing end up as bhadis. But paradoxically, even though unemployment and migration is on the rise, the numbers of bhadis in Kolkata are declining: from thousands even a decade ago they are down to a few hundreds now.

“It’s a strenuous job,” says Palai. “Those of us who were trained by our fathers and grandfathers continue to work, but the young people don’t want to be bhadis anymore. They want easy, light jobs.”

***

Palai left Odisha when he was just 12. “It was the year Indira Gandhi was killed. The political atmosphere in Kolkata was volatile. So I ran back home, and returned to Kolkata a year later. I finally began working as a bhadi in 1985.” His smile is broad, his teeth are stained from the paan he chews incessantly, mostly to dull the ache of hunger and fatigue.

The circadian rhythms of a bhadi’s life are dictated not by sunrise and sunset, but by the Kolkata Municipal Corporation. The corporation releases water to the taps between 5 a.m. and 9.30 a.m., then again between 3 p.m. and 6 p.m.. In hours in between, he fills water from tubewells in the area and delivers it to those who need extra water, or who prefer tubewell water to tap water for washing. By noon, he has already ferried 990 litres of water, criss-crossing the lanes of north Kolkata. “I never counted this, all my life,” laughs Palai. “Today, when I keep a count with you, it seems quite a job.”

In the few hours that I shadow him, plotting his back and forth trips on Google Maps, I find that he has walked 5.11 km. In this time he has refilled his jerrycans 43 times, stopped at 26 homes, climbed three or more flights of stairs several times over.


The work they do doesn’t count as registered employment — this is ‘make-work,’ necessitated by migration   | Photo Credit: Arpita Chakrabarty

He squeezes in a couple of hours for lunch. It’s usually rice and fish curry. Outside the small, square single room that he shares with another bhadi and two jhalmuriwalas (men who sell the spicy, puffed rice street food), all from Odisha, pieces of rui fish are being fried on a kerosene stove. Inside, the men are busy chopping potatoes for the fish curry. Another bhadi, back from work, is crushing poppy seeds on a sil batta, working it into a creamy paste that will go into the curry.

Jhalmuri brothers

“We cook and eat together,” says Palai. “This is our bonding time. We talk, make fun of each other. There is no time for any of this in the evening — by the time the jhalmuriwalas return home, it’s close to midnight, and we are asleep.” After a short siesta, Palai is back at the taps. Now there aren’t as many people as there were in the morning, but Palai is still impatient; he has dozens of homes to deliver to before the water is shut off at 6 p.m.

“I have a client whose landlord doesn’t provide any water,” says Palai, chewing paan as he waits in line at the tap. “So I supply them 90 litres of water two times a day.” Most of his regulars are inherited — his father once delivered water to them — and so this equation is much more than transactional: both bhadi and customer have built up a relationship neither wants to forego.

“We have piped water in our house,” says Archana Dasgupa, a septuagenarian who lives on Shyampakur Street. “But Palai is more than a bhadi to us; his grandfather delivered water to my father-in-law in the 1940s. He’s now a part of our family.”

In a city whose young have been migrating out in increasing numbers, Palai and his peers are valuable resources for the ageing population left behind: Kolkata has the biggest 60-plus population of any city in the country, and it also has the least number of 20 to 30 year-olds among all the metros. “Without our children, we depend on men like Palai for other regular jobs too, like buying groceries, cleaning the house, fetching water from the Ganges for the puja, and so on,” says Dasgupta.

The price of delivery has increased from 20 paise per can in the 1980s to ₹2 in 2018. But, says Palai, he doesn’t charge everyone the same price. The West Bengal State Cooperative Bank, where he delivers, pays him a modest salary of ₹3,200 per month. “I started with ₹20 when I joined the bank in the 1980s.” Palai’s family has been delivering water ever since the branch was established 50 years ago.


Odia bhadis have quenched thirsty Bengali homes for as long as one can recall   | Photo Credit: Arpita Chakrabarty

After filling, carrying, emptying, refilling, and carrying water on his shoulders every day of the week, Palai earns ₹9,000 a month. “There are days when somebody’s water pump breaks down, and I fetch water for them till they repair it. I supply water for weddings. My earnings rise at such times.” He sends half his earnings home to the village. He is not unhappy, but his legs have begun to hurt more often, so he has begun to take painkillers.

He may well be the last bhadi in his family. “I want my son to study hard and get a proper job. I tell him, become something else. If you live as a bhadi, you die a bhadi.”

***

The Hooghly River flows west of Kolkata; there’s a huge groundwater reserve. The city’s eastern fringes are covered with wetlands that naturally treat waste water into raw water for fisheries and agriculture. Two decades ago, only a handful of houses in the city had piped water supply. Bhadis formed the water army who supplied water for drinking and washing across households. “There was an acute water crisis in those days, and it was the bhadis who brought water to our homes, like they do now.”

Manual support

Today, the demand for bhadis is lower. Five water treatment plants have boosted water supply to Kolkata’s homes. But the city now grapples with depleting groundwater. As independent houses turn into multistoreyed apartments pumping their own water from large tubewells, they deplete the city’s natural groundwater reservoirs.

In some places, the corporation does not supply water at the right pressure for it to be piped to above-ground storage tanks. Says Arunabha Majumdar, Chairman, Indian Water Works Association, “The residents then depend on the manual support system, the bhadis, to fetch water.”


A bhadis in Kolkata   | Photo Credit: Arunangsu Roy Chowdhury

Like 77-year-old Shyamal Mitra. “Every summer we face an intense water crisis. The piped corporation water is not regular. The supply pipeline has no pressure and water cannot be pumped up to the first and second floors,” says Mitra.

A floating population of six million per day — greater than the city’s resident population of 4.4 million — also depends on public water taps. The city, within the municipal corporation limits, draws 300 gallons of drinking water a day from 18,000 water taps, 12,000 hand tubewells and 400 tubewells.

High levels of arsenic have been found in the groundwater in various parts of Kolkata. The prolonged water depletion raises the risk of contamination, especially in the areas that are heavily dependent on groundwater, forcing them to turn to bottled water and the service of the bhadis.

Corporation tap water has been found to be safer than the packaged water sold in the city, and to contain more minerals and to be less acidic.

Since bhadis fetch water from Corporation taps, they are still getting takers.

***

Pitabas Parida has been supplying water for just two years in the Bagbazar area. Parida, who belongs to Odisha’s Jujpur district, has travelled to all major metros looking for work. He worked in a fibre factory in Bengaluru, made milk packets in Chennai, shaped iron rods in Hyderabad, and worked as a farm labourer back home, before coming to Kolkata.

He has no house in the city. Parida and another bhadi live in a dilapidated Shiv temple in Bagbazar. It is surrounded by high-rises and wild shrubs have taken over its crumbling walls. The duo’s belongings — some clothes, two mobile phones, two chargers, and two thin mattresses — take up a corner of the temple. Parida eats at a local dhaba and uses public toilets.

Around the temple are water cans of all sizes. It is wise to keep them there because no one will steal from the house of god. Parida, 38, a frail man whose bony face is his most striking feature, delivers water to 30 houses every day.

“Why do you this job?” I asked him.

“Back home there’s nothing I can do for a livelihood. Besides, Kolkata is close to home. This is my life,” he said.

Men like Palai and Parida make up Kolkata’s invisible water distribution system. It is hard labour for little money, but it is all they know.

This essay is from a National Geographic Society and Out of Eden Walk journalism workshop.)

The Uttarakhand-based writer explores the lives of those who walk mountains.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Society> Cover Story / by Arpita Chakrabarty / February 09th, 2019



In Kolkata, Women Priests Conduct Wedding And ‘Progressive’ Father Refuses to do ‘Kanyadaan’

Arts, Culture & Entertainment

Many on Twitter identified the head priestess as Nandini Bhowmick, who apart from being a woman priestess is also a drama enthusiast and professor of Sanskrit.


Many on Twitter identified the head priestess as Nandini Bhowmick, who apart from being a woman priestess is also a drama enthusiast and professor of Sanskrit.

Weddings are auspicious events. But it is rare that wedding is touted as progressive. That’s just what happened recently at a wedding ceremony in Kolkata which was conducted by four women priests. 

And the women pundits were not even the only thing special about the wedding. In a yet more progressive move, the father of the bride refused to perform the ‘kanyadaan’, the act of ‘giving away’ one’s daughter as gift to her husband and in-laws. 

Instead, the father read out a speech at the wedding, adding that his daughter was not property to give away. 

One of the guests present at the wedding shared an update regarding the same on Twitter. she wrote, I’m at a wedding with female pandits. They introduce the bride as the daughter of and (mom first!!!)”. She further added, “The bride’s dad gave a speech saying he wasn’t doing ‘kanyadaan’ because his daughter wasn’t property to give away. I’m so impressed “.

Many on Twitter identified the head priestess as Nandini Bhowmick, who apart from being a woman priestess is also a drama enthusiast and professor of Sanskrit. She is well known in Kolkata for performing weddings without the ‘kanyadaan’ ritual. In a 2018 interview to New Indian Express, Bhowmick had said that she did not perform ‘kanyadaan’ as she thought it was a regressive custom.

Though many on social media objected to the idea of the father foregoing the ritual, with some accusing the family of ‘mocking’ Hindu traditions, others held that the move was progressive. In fact, this is not the first time that a family has decided to ignore or modify the ‘kanyadaan’ ritual, traditionally performed by fathers. 

In 2017, a Nagpur couple made the headlines for having a wedding sans the patriarchal custom. Even last year, the image of a single mother from Chennai performing ‘kanyadaan’ for her daughter at her wedding went viral. 

The conversation about letting the custom be edited out of weddings invokes strong reactions from many on social media, especially those adhering to the Hindu right. 

Last year, a tweet by Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen went viral. In it she questioned the custom and asked why there was no ritual called ‘Putradaan’, alleging that the custom treated women like objects. 

source: http://www.news18.com / News18.com / Home> English> News18.com / Buzz / February 05th, 2019

The Calcutta story

About Kolkata / West Bengal, Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Historical Links / Pre-Independence, Records, All, World Opinion

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

About Kolkata / West Bengal, Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Historical Links / Pre-Independence, Records, All, Travel, World Opinion

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

Sabyasachi Bhattacharya, one of the country’s leading historians, passes away in Kolkata

Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Education, Records, All

A prolific writer, Bhattacharya stepped out from the strict confines of his specialisation in economic history and provided an all-encompassing view of modern India, placing it in the context of world history.

Sabyasachi Bhattacharya (1938-2019), one of the foremost historians of modern India, died in Kolkata on Monday. He was 81 and suffering from cancer of the spinal cord for well over a year.

A prolific writer, he enjoyed a stature similar to historians Romila Thapar, K N Panicker and Sumit Sarkar. He made lasting contribution for his study of the working of the colonial regime and various economic aspects in colonial and post-colonial India.

On Monday historians recalled how, Bhattacharya, suffering from cancer, did not spare himself the rigour of editing a three volume Comprehensive History of Modern Bengal (1700-1950), to be published by Asiatic Society. As many as 65 scholars from India and abroad contributed to this book that has been sent to the press.

Despite illness, he remained intellectually active throughout 2017 and 2018 and his last book, ‘Archiving the British Raj: History of the Archival Policy of the Government of India, with Selected Documents, 1858–1947’, was published in November 2018.

The disciplined approach marked Bhattacharya’s academic journey down the years.

His monumental work, ‘Financial Foundations Of the British Raj: Ideas And Interests In The Reconstruction Of Indian Public Finance (1858-1872)’, which was first published in 1971 and has run into its seventh edition, is considered a classic. ‘The Colonial State: Theory and Practice’ is another of his esteemed books.

Bhattacharya initially earned his repute as a historian with his seminal works on economic history of India under the colonial rule, based on archival research, and later also worked on political and cultural-intellectual history of Independent India.

Historians also valued his journey from the strict confines of the area of specialisation — economic history — to providing an all-encompassing view of India, placing it in the context of world history for colonial and post-colonial periods.

Bhattacharya was also reputed as a teacher and administrator. He had served as the vice-chancellor of Visva-Bharati University (1991-1995) and Chairman of the Indian Council of Historical Research (2007-2011), besides teaching history at Jawaharlal Nehru University (1976-2003) (JNU).

He played a pivotal role behind the foundation of Centre for Historical Studies at JNU.

Bhattacharya also held teaching and research positions at St. Antony’s College (University of Oxford), University of Chicago and El Colegio de Mexico.

Besides having written more than three dozen books, he was the chief editor of Indian Historical Review and the general editor of Towards Freedom, a series on the movement for Independence in India published by Oxford University Press in collaboration with ICHR.

‘Essays in Modern Indian Economic History’ (2015) and ‘Towards a New History of Work’ (2017), two books he edited during the last phase of his life, continued with the same mission of chronicling the country’s economic history.

He also co-edited ‘Workers in the Informal Sector: studies in labour history, 1800-2000’ (2005), ‘The Vernacularization of Labour Politics’ (2016) and ‘The Past of the Outcast: Reading in Dalit History’ (2017).

Among his works on India’s cultural and intellectual history are ‘The Mahatma and the Poet’ (2011), ‘Vande Mataram: A Biography of a Song’ (2013), ‘The Idea of Civilization in the Indian Nationalist Discourse (2011)’, ‘Cultural unity of India’ (2013), and ‘Rabindranath Tagore: An Interpretation’ (2016).

He is survived by his wife, Malabika and daughter, Ashidhara Das. His last rites will be performed on Wednesday.

source: http://www.hindustantimes.com / Hindustan Times / Home> Kolkata / by HT Correspondent, Kolkata / January 08th, 2019

The only Greek of Calcutta

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Sister Nectaria Paridisi of the Greek Orthodox Church is the only Greek left in the city


Ground reality: Sister Nectaria at the Greek Orthodox ChurchManasi Shah

Sister Nectaria Paridisi sips on her Darjeeling tea. She is sitting in the lounge on the ground floor of the Greek Orthodox Church in Kalighat in south Calcutta and talking animatedly about a whole lot of things — the church, the state government’s lack of interest in the heritage property and its history, the uncaring locals. The room is full of antique furniture, framed photographs of bishops and Greek inscriptions. Flags of Greece, India and the bygone Byzantine Empire stand in different corners of the room. Our host is Father Raphael, a priest at the church. And the nun, Sister Nectaria, is the only Greek resident left in Calcutta.

To trace the beginning of Calcutta’s Greek association, however, we have to trek to Phoolbagan in the eastern part of the city. It is not difficult to miss the plaque at the entrance to the Greek cemetery. For one, the compound itself is surrounded by a gaggle of residential buildings and then there is the flurry of activity from the ongoing expansion work of the Kolkata Metro. Unlike some of the other cemeteries of the city, such as South Park Cemetery or the Scottish Cemetery, this one is smaller and way less verdant.

The caretaker, Basanta Das, says there are more than 200 graves here. Das, whose father and grandfather have also been caretakers here, says, “Not all the graves have bodies. Some of them are just epitaphs and tombstones.” Most of the graves have inscriptions in Greek. One such reads: “In the memory of Mavrody Athanass Mitchoo who died on December 9, 1855.” But the oldest grave is of Alexander Argeery, who died on August 5, 1777.

“From the 17th century, Calcutta was home to a Greek community,” says Sister Nectaria. In his book, Calcutta Old And New, H.E.A. Cotton writes: “The Greeks, like the Armenians, owe their association with Calcutta to the allurements of commerce.” According to Cotton, the first Greek settler of note in Calcutta was Hadjee Alexias Argyree, a native of Philippopolis, who came to Bengal in 1750 and earned his living as an interpreter.

In fact, it was Argyree who founded the first Orthodox Church of Calcutta. The story goes that in 1770, he set sail from Calcutta for Mocha and Jeddah. But his vessel was hit by a severe storm and was close to sinking. A devout, Argyree promised the gods that if he survived the peril he would found a church in Calcutta for its Greek inhabitants. True to his word, upon return to the city, he obtained relevant permissions and started to move on the purchase of a property. But then, he died in 1777.

Three years later the church came up. Writes Cotton, “…his family contributed a considerable sum, the remainder being made up by voluntary contributions, Warren Hastings heading the subscription list with 2,000 rupees.” Sister Nectaria confirms that the first Greek church to be built in Calcutta was indeed at Amratollah Street (in central Calcutta) and it had a cemetery adjoining it.

The first minister of the church was Father Parthenio, a native of Corfu, who settled in Bengal in 1775 and who is said to have sat for the figure of Jesus in German neoclassical artist Johann Zoffany’s painting, Last Supper.

The Greeks of Calcutta were a wealthy and powerful community. This is borne out by some of the epitaphs. One of them reads: “In the memory of Sir Gregory Charles Paul, Advocate General of Bengal, died on January 1, 1900.” Another grave belongs to Mavrodi Athanass Mitchoo, a planter.

According to Sister Nectaria, in 1922 another wave of Greeks fled their homeland. “A major reason was the genocide that happened at that time. Calcutta was an important port those days and so many came to Calcutta,” she says. The long and short of it, the Greek community continued to flourish till 1947 and, thereafter, began its denouement. Says Sister Nectaria, “Greeks started to leave India and move to London, Johannesburg, some moved back to Greece even.”

In 1924, the Amratollah property on which the Greek church stood was sold. Says Sister Nectaria, “The church authorities bought the Kalighat property and decided to move the cemetery out of town.” [At that time, Phoolbagan was not part of the city.]

The entrance to the Kalighat church building has two plaques on either side. The inscriptions are in Greek. Sister Nectaria translates it: “It is in memory of the Greeks who donated generously to build the first church in Amratollah… Their bodies are buried but their names will remain alive for generations.”


A tombstone in the cemetery at Phoolbagan / Manasi Shah

With the Greeks moving out, the church became non-functional and was finally locked down in 1972. And then, in 1991, it was reopened on the initiative of the Greek embassy. At the time, Sister Nectaria, who was posted in South Korea, was asked to come and take care of the church. Father Ignatios was in charge of the church. He also established the Philanthropic Society of the Orthodox Church.

According to the nun, the years of neglect had literally eaten into the church building. The whole place had been taken over by termites. She says, “It was just black. And I started cleaning through the layers of dirt. The termites had eaten all the ornaments of the Lord, the clothes, the books and even the wall clock.”

Sitting in the church that afternoon, it was difficult to imagine that scene. The wooden altar is now beautifully polished and has intricate panels and paintings related to the life of Christ, Virgin Mary, archangels Gabriel and Michael with their swords drawn out.

Calcutta is now emptied of its Greek populace. The church is frequented by local Christians and Sunday services are held regularly in Bengali. “Many Hindus also just come to pray. Sometimes I see Krishna monks, who come, sit, pray and leave silently,” says Sister Nectaria.

If she resents anything it is the attitude of the people in the neighbourhood. Breaking his silence for a change, Father Raphael says, “This is a Grade 1 heritage building [as declared by the Kolkata Municipal Corporation] and still we have to struggle for its maintenance.”

Sister Nectaria elaborates, “The local people force the guard to open the gates and act like this is their property. During Durga Puja, they put lights around the church. It is not as if we are against Durga Puja, but it is about the whole attitude. Whenever there is a festival, they block the church entrance and dump chairs, lights and sound equipment in the church premises as if it were a store room. And when I oppose, they call me an outsider.”

These days, Sister Nectaria visits the church only every other week. She remains busy in Bakeswar on the southern reaches of the city, where she is in charge of two orphanages under the Greek Church. Then there is the St. Ignatius High School, which is also under her supervision. And does she feel like an outsider?

She smiles, “Now? I am now half Indian.”

source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph, Online edition / Calcutta / Home> Heritage / by Manasi Shah / February 02nd, 2019