THE ECONOMIC WEEKLY

August 13, 1960

The Colonial Beginnings of Calcutta

Urbanisation without Industrialisation
Benoy Ghose
an i n d u s t r i a l age, there is a
correlation
between 'urbanisat i o n ' a n d ' i n d u s t r i a l i s a t i o n ' . Some
m i n i m u m technological development
of p r o d u c t i o n , transportation, construction, utilities and a d m i n i s t r a t i o n
is clearly required to p e r m i t of large
concentrations of people in urban
areas.
The size of
population,
depending directly on ' a g r i c u l t u r e ' ,
i n c l u d i n g forestry, h u n t i n g and f i s h i n g , and also on ' t r a d i t i o n a l handicrafts', should be negligible in an
urban area in relation to that depending m a i n l y on ' i n d u s t r y , ' i.e.,
factories and public utilities (e.g.
electricity, gas, and water s u p p l y ) ,
and on 'services' in both the p u b l i c
and private sectors,
comprising,
among others, trade-commerce, transport, storage and communications.
M a n y observers of u r b a n
growth
have concluded that cities in A f r o Asian countries are faced w i t h the
problem of 'over-urbanization' in relation to the degree of economic
development, p a r t i c u l a r l y of indust r i a l i z a t i o n . T h i s is especially true
of almost all colonial cities, in the
sense that these cities do not have
the requisite productive economic
base, corresponding to the size of
their p o p u l a t i o n and to their p r o per function in the national economy as a whole.

stages of g r o w t h , f r o m ' i n f a n t i l e ' to

"mature', it not only offers better
security and protection to people,
but also greater employment opportunities and wider scope for services
and enterprises than are available
in a r u r a l area. T h e economic and
social history of the c i t y of Calcutta
provides an example of this aspect
of urbanisation, better perhaps than
any other city in I n d i a , for historical reasons.
The story of the g r o w t h of Calcutta in the 18th and 19th centuries
is largely one of the influx of people of different castes and occupations f r o m the countryside to
the
new city in quest of fortune through
new
employment
opportunities,
services and
enterprises
created
under the new B r i t i s h administration. There had been a steady m i gration of such people to Calcutta
since the days of its foundation by
Job Charnock in the closing decade
of the 17th century.
Along with
these fortune-hunters a large
number of people, uprooted f r o m village
communities, began also to flock to
the c i t y and swell the
ranks of
'domestic
servants'
and
various
'wage-earners'who were also products of the new urban
economic
conditions.

In relation to the national economy, a city may have quite different economic
functions.
It may
contribute heavily t h r o u g h industry
and commerce to the per capita production and the economic u p l i f t of
the State, or it may d r a i n off and
consume u n p r o d u c t i v e l y the wealth
of the countryside w i t h o u t g i v i n g
a n y t h i n g of economic value in ret u r n . The economic function of a
c i t y can, therefore, v a r y widely
f r o m the g e n e r a t i v e ' to the 'parasit i c ' , depending on the
relation of
the city to the rest of the c o u n t r y 1
A c i t y , of course, is not l i k e l y to
be w h o l l y 'parasitic' if even a small
fraction
o f urban
income f l o w s
d o w n to the village and contributes
to r u r a l wealth and prosperity.

Like many colonial cities in Asia.

Calcutta is chiefly the product of
economic development
oriented essentially to a foreign country, rather
than of indigenous economic development. T h i s external economic
orientation of Calcutta (Bengal) to
England emerged
in the last two
centuries, p r o d u c i n g the great city
as a l i n k between them. The 'investment'
policy
(the
purchases
made by the East I n d i a
Company
in Bengal for trade purposes acquired the name of 'investment') of the
East I n d i a Company
through 'native' brokers, merchants and gomasthas, the private trade of the Company's servants, whose sole motive
was money-making
by any means,
and the inter-caste m o b i l i t y of
trades and occupations, usually encouraged by the English merchantrulers, slowly and steadily
sapped
the vitality o f the traditional ' V i l lage C o m m u n i t y ' i n Bengal i n the
18th century, and created the eco-

IN

FORTUNE HUNTERS
A l t h o u g h a colonial
city has a
tendency to be more 'parasitic' than
others, its 'generative' r o l e
cannot
be overlooked, In
its different

INVESTMENT

1255

POLICY

nomic background for the development of a city like Calcutta. The

z a m i n d a r i p o l i c y of the Company
hastened
this
process
of r u r a l
disintegration.
The most i m p o r t a n t achievement
of the Company in the p e r i o d 16901757 was the acquisition in 1698
of the tenure, in terms of the M u ghal Revenue L a w ,
of the three
villages of ' D i h i Calcutta', ' C o v i n d pore' and *Sutanuti'. the
'nucleus'
f r o m w h i c h grew the City of Calcutta. " B y this
acquisition, the
Company obtained f o r the first time
a legal position w i t h i n the M u g h a l
E m p i r e , and thus brought i n t o existence a w o r k i n g
theory, in the
development of w h i c h the
acceptance of the D i w a n i in 1765 was the
final logical
completion". 2
The
English were made
responsible by
this grant f o r the payment of l u m p
sums,
representing the
estimated
revenue due f r o m the inhabitants of
the 'three t o w n s ' ; and to meet this
annual due, the Company was p r i vileged to collect rents f r o m the local inhabitants, to deal at pleasure
w i t h waste lands and to levy taxes,
duties and fines on them. It is
difficult to determine w i t h precision
the exact legal rights conferred on
the Company by the grant. That
point may be interesting, but not
important. What is of great historical significance is the fact that the
Company regarded itself as ' Z a m i n dar". and exercised the functions of
that office.
C O M P A N Y AS Z A M I N D A R

As zamindar the Company, while

t r y i n g to adhere to 'native' traditions and customs, made a curious
amalgam of them w i t h
extraneous
regulations to find out
ways and
means of increasing the revenue of
the town. One of these means was
' f a r m i n g " on an
extensive
scale.
Hats, bazars, marts, ghats, gunjes,
ferries, articles for sale and consumption, export and i m p o r t , articles for manufacture, collection of
rent in the different areas
of the
town and in the ceded territories in
its neighbourhood, even the grazing
r i g h t on the Calcutta maidan and
the shoemaker's r i g h t on the carcases of cattle flowing down the
Gangesall were ' f a r m e d ' out for

A u g u s t 13, 1960

THE ECONOMIC WEEKLY

1256

August 13, 1960

a l u m p sum over a certain period
of time (not always y e a r l y ) to the
highest bidder in
public auction.
When the Court of
Directors in
1758 abolished the post of zamindar
and created "an Office, the Head of
which must be called Collector of
Rents and Revenue the "articles'
placed under his management were
'Ground Kent, Duty on Sale of
Houses. D u l y on Sale of Sloops and
Boats. Duty on Sale of
Slaves.
Pottahs.
Ground Overplus.
Glass
makers Farm. Damar and
Okum
Farm, Sallamy on new Sloops and
Boats.
Commission on
Mortgage
Bonds. Duty collected on the OutTowns, Duty on
Burthened Oxen.
Bang Shops Farm and the
thirtyeight villages ceded by the Nabob
or whatever may be those acquisitions. a
The wide range of articles brought
under f a r m i n g can be easily comprehended f r o m this list.
For the
first time "all Duties relative to Food
Raiment or Trade' were
allocated
to "Customs", and the hats and bazars where these duties were collected were set
aside. Two
custom
houses were constructed and
two
custom masters appointed there. As
for 'farming, it was clearly stated
in the letter that 'all farms in future
are to be put up to Public Sale by
our Governor and Council and not
by the Collector
The reason for
this stringency was that the Collector, in collusion w i t h his 'native
deputies and assistants, was found
responsible for a considerable leakage of revenue.
FARMING OF LAND REVENUE
This farming system,
widely
practised in Calcutta since the first
decade of the l o t h century, had an
important
bearing on the subsequent land-revenue policy
of the
Company. It appears from records
that the new town of Calcutta, the
first zamindari of the English, was
made an experimental
ground for
testing the expediency of a method
for raising
revenue through a
hierarchy of intermediaries a method w h i c h was afterwards extended
to the Company's territories beyond
the town for collecting land tax.
On August 12. 1765. the M u g h a l
Emperor assigned the Dewani or
revenue administration of Bengal.
Bihar and Orissa to the English
Company for an annual payment of
26 lakhs of rupees. F r o m 1765 to
1769. the old 'native' officials were
c h i e f l y entrusted w i t h revenue adm i n i s t r a t i o n . I n the early period o f

t r a n s i t i o n , this n a t u r a l l y p r o v e d disastrous, and in 1769 B r i t i s h Supervisors were appointed to look after

local collections. The servants of
the Company were not trained f o r
the task, and this p o l i c y of B r i t i s h
supervision also failed miserably.
In 1772, W a r r e n Hastings was authorised by the Court of Directors
to inaugurate a new policy of B r i tish Central Control and a Joint
B r i t i s h and Native agency in the
Districts for establishing direct coir
tact w i t h the r u r a l people. But actually the collection of revenue was
managed
by the
farming system.
according to w h i c h tenders were invited for each Pargana, and a settlement for five years (1772-1777)
was concluded w i t h the highest
bidder, whether he was the old
zamindar or not.
PERMANENT SETTLEMENT
M a n y old zamindars were thus
ousted, and a subsistence allowance
was granted to them out of the revenue. On the t e r m i n a t i o n of the
five-year settlement in 1777' annual
settlements were made w i t h farmers
u n t i l 1781 when a Committee of
Revenue was constituted in. Calcutta.
But the f a r m i n g system was steadily wearing down the o l d village
communities which had been thriv i n g for centuries under the "benevolent
despotism'
of
the
old
zamindars. in 1785 the Court of
Directors struck the first note of
the Permanent Settlement to come
by i n t i m a t i n g to the Bengal Govern
ment that they had 'to arrange a
final system' for transacting business
w i t h the
zamindars. 1 So
when Cornwallis arrived in 1786.
the idea of a Permanent Settlement
had already taken shape; and it is
w r o n g to think that it was spun out
of his brain, w i t h a preconceived
bias for the English landlord system.
Successive blows had already been
dealt to the r u r a l structure of Bengal by the f a r m i n g system from
1760 to 1788. a n d ' the
final and
fatal blow was dealt by the Permanent Settlement in 1793. The ancient
zamindars. and w i t h them the o l d
r u r a l social organisation, were levelled
down, and a new class of revenuefarmers was levelled up into new
zamindars w i t h a legal basis for
their new social status under the
Regulations of 1793.
The Settlement could protect neither the zamindars nor the cultivators. The four
volumes of W W Hunters' Bengal
MS Records. 1782-1807 clearly i l l u 1257

strate how the historical houses and

families of Bengal Tell beneath the
guillotine of the Revenue Sale Laws,
and how a still larger number were
extinguished by their private creditors and the C i v i l Courts.
It fixed
f o r ever the revenue to be p a i d by
the landholders to the State, but
it never fixed the rent to be p a i d
by the cultivators. It also endeavoured to substitute for the village
patwaris. who had so long been
the j o i n t servants of the State and
the village community, their personal servants w o r k i n g under their
orders in their own 'kacheris' or
land offices against the interest of
the cultivators.
This was one of
the major organic defects of the
Permanent Settlement which brought
ruin to the cultivators and which
lav at the root of a l l the agrarian
troubles in Bengal throughout the
19th century.
It ruined the old
zamindars and also the cultivators,
and wrecked the foundation of the
old village c o m m u n i t y .
NEWRURALMRIET

The system of local administration was also gradually changed.

By the Proclamation of December
7. 1792. re-enacted by Regulation
XXII.
1793.
Government took the
police of the country for the first
time directly under its control,
and ' a l l paiks, chokidars, pasbans.
dusada. nigabans. bancs and other
description of village watchmen"
were declared subject to the orders
of the newly-appointed
Darogas.
The whole of the Chakran lands,
held by p u b l i c officers and private
servants in lieu of wages, were
ordered to be annexed to the matgurtni
or rent-paying lands and
declared responsible for the pubhr
revenue assessed on the Zamindaris.
The new zamindars also claimed for
themselves the right of ejecting at
will the servants of the village comm u n i t y f r o m chakran lands held by
them, and of assessing these lands
w i t h money rents. This turned a
large section of rural people, peasants and public servant into hands
of r o v i n g proletariat,"
The p i l l a r of medieval society
was land. This was ruthlessly pulled down by the economic and administrative policies of the English
Company.
In its place. a new
pillar was erected, the pillar of
'money', lo support a new type of
r u r a l society, r i s i n g on the ruins of
the old. The human relationship of
the t r a d i t i o n a l village c o m m u n i t y

August 13, 1960

was t o r n asunder a n d supplanted by

a sort of callous 'cash-nexus'. The
new zamindars f e l l back on the
same f a r m i n g system, to w h i c h a
m a j o r i t y of them owed their o r i g i n ,
to escape f r o m the direct responsib i l i t y of Public Revenue, and a
vast band of intermediaries was
created between them and the peopie, having no interest in the s o i l .
They were n o t h i n g but speculators,
out-and-out commercial i n their a t t i tude to the land and the people.
T h e i r o n l y passion was money
m a k i n g in the new r u r a l milieu as
in the case of many fortune-hunters
in the new urban centre of Calcutta.
'PULL AND

'PUSH'

W h e r e should these helpless peopie, uprooted f r o m their hereditary

lands and services, properties and
occupations, seek refuge? Of course,
in the new town of Calcutta, w h i c h
was then emerging as an oasis in
the midst of a spreading desert of
r u r a l debris. W i t h i n a decade after Charnock's death, the t o w n started g r o w i n g and prospering, and
the process of urbanisation was set
in motion in the villages of 'Sutan u t i , ' 'Govindapore" and ' D i h i Calcutta', In 1706, the Calcutta Council
wrote to the Court of Directors :
"Revenues especially the Rent to the
3 Towns increase yearly, people
flocking there to make the Neighbouring
Jemindars envy them." 6
People were already d r a w n to the
new city by the employment opport u n i t i e s ' offered by the
English
zamindars and by the attractions of
a new u r b a n
existence. T h e o l d
zamindars, p a r t i c u l a r l y those of the
neighbouring villages, were therefore
e n v y i n g their lot.
But the operation of these p u l l
factors was very slow in the firsthalf of the 18th century, as i n d i cated by the p o p u l a t i o n g r o w t h of
Calcutta.
H a m i l t o n was an eyewitness to the condition of the town
in 1710-1727, and he gives, in the
East India Gazetteer ( 1 8 1 5 ) , the
the f o l l o w i n g 'correct description' of
Calcutta as it existed in 1717 :
"The present town was then a village . . . the houses of w h i c h were
scattered about in clusters of ten
or twelve each, and the inhabitants
chiefly husbandmen . . . . I n 1717
there was a small village consisting
of straggling houses surrounded by
puddles of water, where now stand
the elegant houses at Chowringhee.
. . . W h a t are now called the Es-

plahade, the site o f F o r t W i l l i a m

and Chowringhee, were so late as
1756 a complete jungle interspersed
w i t h a few huts and small pieces of
grazing and arable l a n d . " I n 1710
the population of Calcutta was estimated at 12,000 by H a m i l t o n , in
1752 at 209,720 by W i l s o n and at
409,056 by H o l w e l l (undoubtedly an
overestimate), in 1796 at 500,000 by
M a r t i n , in 1802 at 600,000 by the
Police Committee, and in 1814 at
700,000 by Justice Hyde. A l l these
estimates appear to have been mere
guesses.
MEDIEVAL

PATTERN

A c t u a l l y the p o p u l a t i o n of Cab
cutta began
to increase steadily,
t h o u g h not r a p i d l y , f r o m the last
quarter of the 18th century, when
the c r u m b l i n g village communities
began to ^push1 r u r a l people f r o m
their l i m i t s towards the t o w n . Before that, efforts were made by the
Company to encourage all classes
of artisans, p a r t i c u l a r l y the weavers,
to settle w i t h i n the l i m i t s of Calcutta to serve their own commercial
interests. The ostensible purpose of
this was, it seems, to develop their
new headquarters on the model of
a medieval trading town and a selfsufficient
village
c o m m u n i t y for
m a k i n g their 'investment* under their
own eyes. The Court of Directors
wrote in 1755, and again in 1758 :
" A s it is evidently for our interest
therefore to encourage not o n l y all
the weavers now in our bounds, but
likewise to draw as many others as
possible f r o m all countries to reside
under our protection, we shall depend on y o u r utmost efforts to accomplish the same . . . wherein we
shall find a great share of your
investment made under y o u r o w n
eyes" 7 It was suggested in 1757
that all weavers, carpenters, smiths,
tailors and other artisans should be
incorporated into
their respective
bodies, one in each district of the
town, and that each body should
elect a 'chowdree' or headman to
represent its interest. The 'Mandals'
of each district of the t o w n were
to s u b m i t an account ( m o n t h l y ) to
the zamindar for every artisan residing w i t h i n his l i m i t s as well as
for all other 'tenants', l o d g e r s ' and
'sojourners'.
T h e wages of
the
artisans and labourers were to be
regulated by the zamindar of Calcutta, and every artisan was to take
out a licence for his trade f r o m h i m ,
p a y i n g a quarter of a month's wage
for it"8.
1258

This is not a v e r y ' m o d e r n ' p l a n

f o r a c i t y l i k e Calcutta, a n d n o t h i n g
beyond this was thought of by the
Company about two h u n d r e d years
ago for 'urbanising' i t . Allocation
of separate segments of the t o w n to
different occupational castes, and
regulation o f their trade b y r i g i d
laws, certainly d i d not further the
cause of urbanisation, in the real economic sense.
T h e p l a n was not
related to any new method of economic p r o d u c t i o n or new t y p e of
economic organisation. It was never
contemplated by the English rulers,
at least not in the first h a l f of the
18th century. Not even a l i t t l e
vertical social m o b i l i t y , inter-caste
and occupational, so essential for
urbanisation, was consciously encouraged by them. But s t i l l Calcutta, though not so much economically, was being steadily urbanised
socially and demographically throughout the 18th century.
It appears
f r o m its history that the early phase
of urbanisation of a colonial city,
economically oriented to a foreign
country, is p r i m a r i l y social and demographic, and secondarily economic. A n d between the 'pull' and
'push' factors, the latter appears to
be at times more active in this process of urbanisation than the former.
NON-PRODUCTIVE URBAN
PROLETARIAT

It is difficult to determine how

much of the urban p o p u l a t i o n grow t h o f Calcutta i n the I 8 t h a n d i n
the first h a l f of the 10th centuries
had occurred in response to real
economic need for large urban concentrations. that is, due to 'pull'
factors represented by greater employment opportunities and brighter
income prospects f r o m new indust r i a l developments in the c i t y or
a r o u n d i t , and how much due to
'push' factors a r i s i n g out of the
steadily deteriorating r u r a l situation.
We have already stated how the o l d
v i l l a g e communities and the bases
of r u r a l social organisation were disr u p t e d by the 'investment' and 'landrevenue' policies of the Company,
and how large numbers of r u r a l
people were uprooted f r o m t h e i r
hereditary soil and services a n d
turned into bands of w a n d e r i n g
proletariat. A section of them organised themselves into gangs of robbers and dacoits f o r p l u n d e r i n g a n d
looting, a n d another section moved
to the new t o w n in expectation of
some employment (as 'domestics' and
wage-earners').
B u t there was no

August 13,1960
industry then, either in the city or
in its suburbs, to absorb them as
the new ' i n d u s t r i a l proletariat',
There were employment opportunities only as personal and domestic
servants of the new 'European' and
the ' N a t i v e ' aristocracy, as bearers,
chaprasis and harkaras in the new
city-offices and mercantile firms, in
shops, hats and bazars, and also as
coolies and day-labourers in gigantic
constructional works of roads, drains
and squares, of the Fort and p u b l i c
buildings and of new residential
bouses in the city. A huge battalion
of domestic servants was needed by
the city aristocrats, both 'sahibs' and
'natives', to maintain the paraphernalia of their new urban aristocracy.
The demand for domestic, servants
rose as the. ranks of the aristocracy
swelled w i t h the growth of the city.
The stories of these domestic servants of Calcutta have been narrated
in detail by many travellers and
city-dwellers in their memoirs, reminiscences and letters, and they
constitute one of the most interesti n g chapters of the socio-economic
history of Calcutta and of its urbanisation. There are also many interesting facts about them, about
their wages, customs and manners,
master-servant relationships etc. in
Government Records and old periodicals. The story of the coolies and
day-labourers of Calcutta in the 18th
and the early 19th centuries, related in the records and the T o w n i m provement Committees' Reports, are
also equally interesting.
A l l these facts indicate that the
urban growth of a colonial city may
be largely non-economic and the
new urban proletariat, accounting
for a considerable bulk of its population, may also be ' n o n - i n d u s t r i a l ' ,
and therefore 'non-productive'.
It
may be said that urban g r o w t h in
a colonial country is directly related
to the g r o w t h of a vast army of nonproductive urban proletariat, who
are expected to exert a backward
pull in (he social and cultural sectors of the urban centre.
THE

NEW

ARISTOCRACY

What is economically true of the

new urban proletariat is also largely true of the so-called new urban
'bourgeoisie' or 'aristocracy'. T h e y
were not i n d u s t r i a l entrepreneurs,
harbingers of a new age of capitalistic p r o d u c t i o n , but desperate fortune-hunters, a band of shrewd and
intelligent middlemen and speculators, some of whom were n o t h i n g
but talented 'traders' o n l y . They
began to m i g r a t e to the new town

of Calcutta From the b e g i n n i n g of

the 18th century to t r y their l u c k ,
u n l i k e the Bengali cloth and y a r n
dealers, viz. Setts and Basyacks, who
had established themselves at Suta
n u t i ( B u r r a b a z a r ) some time in the
17th century, long before the English settlement was founded. H a m i l ton, therefore, speaks of the Sells as
the ancient family of the .Seats, who
were at that time (1717) merchants,
of great note and very instrumental
in b r i n g i n g Calcutta into the f o r m
of town'. Except the Bengali Setts,
most of the wealthy family-founders
of the new city, started their adventurous careers in fortune-ma k i n g
from the beginning of the 18th cere
tury. The Calcutta Council wrote to
the Court in 1710 about the people
of the new t o w n ; "The people are
poor, the Rich Merchants live at
H u g l e y ' It is evident therefore
that the "anonymous" fortune-hunters
had not yet been able to establish
themselves and form a new urban
aristocracy in the first quarter of the
as a distinct 'social class' in the
18th century. They began to emerge
in the second half of it,
The history of the
founders of
wealthy families of Calcutta is ex
trentely, interesting and
important
f r o m the economic and social point
of view.
Although a very difficult
task, their history may be traced
through the Records of the Home,
Foreign and
Public Departments
and scattered ' f a m i l y
papers'.
1
shall relate very b r i e f l y here f r o m
these sources the history of
few
families only to illustrate my point. 1 "
SOME NOTABLE: F A M I L I E S

M a h a r a j a Nabakrishna. the founder of Sohhabazar Raj family "was

L o r d Clive's Dewan at the time of
the elevation of Jefur Ulee K h a n to
the Musnud of Bengal. He arnased
an immense fortune on
that occasion,
and subsequently
upon the
acquisition of the Dew a nee. was
placed by L o r d G i v e in most confidential situations".
Nabakrishna
was also a l u g farmer of the hats,
bazars and ghats of Calcutta
and
of other zamindaris.
The founder
of Raja Sukhornay Roy's f a m i l y
was "Lukshmee
K u n t D h u r , who
made his fortune as Buneea (banker) to Colonel G i v e and other
Governors of that time. Sookhmaee
was his daughter's son and increased his inheritance by acting as
Dewan to Sir Elizah I m p e y " . The
founder of Paikpara Raj f a m i l y was
"Gunga G o v i n d Singh who was
Dewan to the Council and subsequ
1259

ently to the Board of Revenue in

the time of Mr Hastings and thus
amassed
a large fortune".
The
founder of A n d u l Raj f a m i l y was
" R a m Churn Race, who made his
fortune under Governor Vansittart
to whom he was private Dewan as
well as to General S m i t h " . The
founder of K i d d e r p o r e (bhukailas)
Raj f a m i l y was " G o k u l Chunder
Ghosaul, who made the fortune of
the family as Dewan to Mr Verelst"
G o k u l Ghoshal earned a huge lot of
money by extensive inland and foreign trade transactions, and by farming.
The founder of the famous
Tagore f a m i l y was " D u r o p Narayan
Thakoor, who made his fortune as
Dewan to Mr Wheeler and in the
pay office of that t i m e " , D w a r k a n a t h
Tagore, a contemporary and friend
of Rammohan Roy. amassed huge
fortune by dewanee and trade.
The Selts, it is noted in the Records of 1839, were "conducting a
very extensive b a n k i n g business in
the B u r r a Bazarr where they have
established for several generations".
The Setts, and the Basyaeks also,
were the most i m p o r t a n t dadni merchants and brokers of the Company,
and their history can be traced
through the Records f r o m about
1706.
The founder of the S i m l a h
De ( S a r k a r ) family was " R a m Doolal De. the richest man nearly in
Calcutta"", who "acquired his wealth
w h o l l y by Trade and as Dewan to
Messrs F a i r l i e & Co he had most
extensive dealings with Americans
at the
time when they engrossed much of the c a r r y i n g trade of
the Port". The founder of the Biswas f a m i l y was " R a m h u r r e e Biswas"
who made his fortune "as Dewan to
Mr H a r r i s when salt agent at Bulooah and Chittagong". The found
er of the Singha f a m i l y of Jorasanko
was "Santeeram Singh, dewan to Mr
M i d d l e t o n and Sir Thomas Rumbold. Chief of
Palna". Dewan
Santeeram was also a notable farmer
in his time.
The founder of the
Kumartuli (in North
Calcutta)
M i t r a f a m i l y was G o v i n d r a m M i t r a ,
who made his fortune as "dewan to
the Zemindaree Cutchery of Calcutta and by trade." This Govindar a m was perhaps the most influential man of Calcutta in the first half
of the 18th century and he was
k n o w n as 'black deputy'. He was
also a very b i g farmer of Calcutta
hats and bazars in his time.
The
founder of the Pal Chowdhury farm
lv was " K i s h e n
Chunder Panl
Chowdree. one of three brothers,
o r i g i n a l l y in very low circumstan-

August 1 3 . 1 9 6 0
ces" but afterwards "acquired an
immense fortune in the salt trade".
The f a m i l y of Radhamadhab Banerjea acquired a considerable fortune
"as Dewan to the Patna O p i u m
A g e n t " and by trade. "Sheeb Naray u n Chose, w i t h t w o b r o t h e r s " were
enjoying a large fortune ( i n 1 8 3 9 ) ,
"made by Ramlochun Ghose their
father (and founder of the Pathuriaghata Ghose f a m i l y ) w h o was S i r k a r
t o M r Hastings".
No

INDUSTRIALISATION

I t i s d e a r f r o m this account o f
notable Bengali family-founders of
Calcutta that none of them was in
any way connected w i t h any indust r i a l enterprise whatsoever. There
was, of course, no scope f o r such
enterprise in the 18th century under
B r i t i s h rule. Most of them acquired their fortunes as Dewans, Sircars
and Banians to the E n g l i s h Governors, Officers a n d Merchants, Some
were successful traders l i k e Bamdulal De, M o t i l a l Seal a n d M a d a n
D u t t a . but they employed their t a l ent and accumulated ' c a p i t a l ' more
in the middle-man's business, in
speculation as farmers and contractors, than in independent economic
enterprises.
And
most of their

THE ECONOMIC

WEEKLY

worthless descendants wasted

the
F i r m i n g e r ' s H i s t o r i c a l Introducenormous wealth in long-drawn-out
t i o n to the Fifth Report. T h e actual
litigations, and in conspicuous luxu- 'nishan' signed by Azim-ush-shan has
ries, ceremonies, religious endow- beer, lost; The Bai-Namah., or Deed
ments and charities.
The largest of Purchase. dated November 9,
part of the accumulated 'capital' of
1698. is preserved in the B r i t i s h
the new Bengali u r b a n aristocracy Museum ( A d d Mss No 2 4 0 3 9 ) , ' a
was thus diverted f r o m "production" translation of w h i c h by W I r v i n e is
to 'conspicuous consumption' and ,published in Wilson's Old Fort Wilwaste.
liam in Bengal ( V o l 1, 4 0 - 4 8 ) .
3
It is obvious, therefore, that the
Home Department. P u b l i c Prourbanisation of a colonial c i t y , may ceedings, Letter f r o m Court, M a r c h
not always be associated w i t h any 3, 1758.
4
'economically p r o d u c t i v e ' a c t i v i t y of
Court of Directors' Letter, dated
the new u r b a n 'bourgeoisie' or 'aris- December 22. 1785.
5
tocracy'. A city like Calcutta, ecoD J Mcneile's Report on the V i l n o m i c a l l y oriented to a f o r e i g n lage W a t c h of the L o w e r Provinces
country, may suffer, therefore, f r o m of Bengal, 1866.
the symptoms of 'over-urbanisation'',
6
Home Department, Miscellanein regard to the degree of economic ous Records. dated December 3 1 ,
development. The major benefit of
1706.
this urbanisation was o n l y some oc7
Court's Letter, dated January
cupational diversification and social
3 1 , 1755 and M a r c h 3, 1758.
m o b i l i t y ; and that was conducive
8
H o m e Department, P u b l i c Prosomewhat to social and cultural proceedings,
No 834, M a y 2, 1757.
gress, but not to any substantial
Home
Department, Miscellaneeconomic progress.
ous Records, Fort W i l l i a m General,
References
Hated October 16, 1710.
B F Hoselitz: 'Generative and
"' Foreign Department, MiscellaParasitic Cities', in Economic Deve- neous, 1839, No 139, H o m e and
lopment and Cultural Change, V o l
Public Department Records f r o m
3, N o 3, 1955.
3706.