My Kolkata

HISTORY OF KOLKATA
The area of Kolkata has been inhabited for over two millennia whose proof is provided by the discovery of the archeological site, Chandraketugarh.
Job Charnock, an administrator of East India Company was credited as the founder of the city, Kolkata but researches of academicians have recently challenged this view of Charnock being the founder of Kolkata. In response to public interest, the High Court has ruled in 2003  that the city does not have any specific founder.
Up to the 18th century, Kolkata was under the indirect rule of the Nawab of Bengal and comprosed of three villages, Kalikata, Gobindapur and Sutanati.
These villages were part of a ‘khas mahal’ or imperial jagir or an estate belonging to the Mughal emperor, whose jagirdari rights were held by the family of Sabarna Roy Choudhury.
In 1698, these rights were transferred to the East India Company against their wishes in spite of their strong protests.
Kolkata was of prime focus not only by the Britist but also by the Dutch, Portuguese and the French. In the late 17th century, the British wanted to build a fort near Gobindapur in order to consolidate their power over the other mentioned foreign powers.
Fort William, was built by the British in 1702 in the city premises used to station its troops and as a regional base.
Calcutta was declared a Presidency City by the Bristish and later became the headquarters of the Bengal Presidency.After facing frequent clashes with the French forces which was also trying to consolidate its powers over the city, in 1756, the British began to upgrade their fortifications.
The last independent Nawab of Bengal, Sirah ud Daulah attacked and captured Fort William when protests against the militarization went unheeded, leading to the Black Hole of Calcutta incident. However Robert Clive led a force of Bristish sepoys and troops and recaptured Fort Williams in the following year and the defeat of Siraj ud Daulah ended the reign of independent rule of the Nawab of Bengal. The next Nawab, Mir Jafar was a mere puppet in the hands of the British. It was Mir Jafer who betrayed Siraj ud Daulah to gain the access to the throne.
Calcutta was named the British capital in 1772, and starting in 1864 , the capital was temporarily shifted to Shimla, due to the unbearable heat of the city. In the early 19th century, the marshes surrounding the city were drained and the government area was laid out along the banks of the Hooghly River. Richard Wellesley, the Governor General of  British India between 1797-1805 was responsible for the growth of the city and its public architecture which led to the description of Calcutta as the “City of Palaces”.
Calcutta was a centre of the British East India Company’s opium trade during the late 18th and 19th century.
By 1850, Kolkata was split into two distinct areas – one was the WHITE TOWN centred around Chowringhee, the British area, and the other was centred around North Calcutta, the Indian centre.
The city underwent rapid industrial growth from the early 1850s, especially in the textile and jute industries which involved massive investment by British companies in infrastructure such as the telegraph connections and Howrah Station.
BENGAL RENAISSANCE
Kolkata was the centre of Bengal Renaissance which was a socio-cultural reform for the general upliftment of the people of Bengal. In 1883, Surendranath Banerjee organized a national conference. Gradually Calcutta became the centre of Indian Independence movement, especially revolutionary organizations. The 1905 partition of Bengal on communal grounds resulted in widespread public agitation and the boycott of British goods like the Swadeshi movement.
All these activities, along with the administratively disadvantageous location of  Calcutta in the eastern fringes of India, prompted the British to shift the capital of British India from Calcutta to Delhi.
Large scale communal violence spread not only in the city but throughout the province of Bengal in 1946 in the demand for the creation of a Muslim state and resulted in the death of over 4000 people. The partition of India into East Pakistan also created intense violence and since then, Bengal could never regain back to its glorious past.