2.   Partial reproduction of 'Blaev's Theatrum Orbis Terrarum', Vol II (Amsterdam, 1650), showing a fifteenth century, European conception of India.

DISCUSSIONS: Comment # 1: Received from S. Mukherjee on July 25, 1998  What could it really have been like, though ... I wonder...?

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6.   Excerpts from 'Calcutta : Society and Change: 1690 - 1990; "The Bengal Army" , by Samaren Roy'; Rupa & Co. 1991; pages 39 to 47

The Bengal Army was one of the two factors contributing to Calcutta superseding Madras in 1774 as the East India Company's headquarters in India. The other was more land and hence availability of more revenue in Calcutta than Madras. The two were interconnected, for more revenue meant ability to recruit and maintain a larger army than it could at Madras or Bombay. The larger Bengal Army in its turn enabled the Company to expand its territory faster than from Madras or Bombay, each of which had its own army. The three armies were merged and placed under one Commander-in-Chief as late as 1893. Lord Roberts, the first C-in-C of the army in India, had served in the Bengal Army. The soldier who later distinguished himself as the Duke of Wellington belonged to the Madras Army, and Lord Napier to the Bombay Army. Neither of them enjoyed overall command of the (British) Army in India. Similarly, Warren Hastings from the Bengal cadre became the first Governor-General. Lord Roberts had been born in Calcutta. Elsewhere, the details of the expansion of the jurisdiction of Fort William at Calcutta have been given - three adjoining villages in 24 Parganas in 1698; rent collection rights in three zillas in 1760; and extension of the same rights over three subas, Bengal, Bihar and Orissa, in 1765. After 1760, the revenue raised in Bengal could pay for the Company's purchases in India, China and Indonesia without remittances in bullion from Britain. These purchases were sold in Europe, earning handsome profits for the Company, larger than before. Yet the Bengal Army was not the first to be raised by the Company. The first units were raised at Madras for fighting in the Carnatic. In fact, the battle of Plassey was fought and won with troops from Madras and for a long time British Indian soldiers were derogatorily called Telengani. Out of the money Mir Jafar paid for being proclaimed Nawab Nazim, the company raised at Calcutta a 5000-strong force consisting mainly of Hindustanis - men from Bihar and Oudh The Mughal imperial army became unimportant during the succession disputes bewteen 1712 and 1720 ... Moghul territory had shrunk throughout Bengal, Oudh and in the Deccan. The Maratha confederacy had already established principalities in the western and central parts of the erstwhile Mughal terrtories at Gwalior, Indore, Baroda and Nagpur ... In 1742, Alivardi Khan raised an army to resist Maratha raiders. At Patna, he recruited Brahmins, Rajputs and Shaibzada Muslims, descendants of pre-Moghul settlers. At Purnea, he recruited Pathans who had ruled Bengal till the last quarter of the 16th century. This might be considered the start of the Bengal Army. Alivardi Khan died in 1756, while the Deccan and Oudh families were fighting around Delhi for tha Wazarat. The following year, Ahmad Shah Abdali sacked Delhi. Alivardi Khan's army disintegrated after the historic defeat at Plassey and Siraj-ud-dowla's death, but Mir Kasim reorganized it under an Armenian General and equipped it with artillery. He also provided it with means to engage arms. He engaged Walter Rheinhart, a German, to train his army. After a few initial successes against the British, however, the army was not tested, since Mir Kasim quit the Nizamat. By the time the next historic battle of Buxar was fought, the Bengal Army of the British was 5,000-strong, trained along the European system of warfare. Between 1761 and 1893, the Bengal Army went on expanding. It first defeated the Marathas and then the Sikhs, both these armies having been trained by European soldirs of fortune. Having defeated the Marathas, the Burmese, the Gurkhas, and the Sikhs, and having held Afghanistan under occupation for two years, the Bengal Army felt confident of taking on any opponent. Recruiment to the Bengal Army was open to all, although most came from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. Each battalion had around 400 men - Brahmins, Rajputs and Muslims, but there were no denominational companies. The composition of the companies was mixed, which over the years developed a nationalist feeling - Indian! Other ranks having reservations assumed the characteristics of resentment led to the Mutiny. Indians from good families and educated in Persian, the Companies official language till 1835, joined as havildars and acted as sergeants to their companies. After a period, they were commissioned to act as second in command of a company as jamadars. The company commander used to be a subedar. The highest position to which an Indian could rise was that of subedar-major, who functioned as the Indian officer commanding the battalion. At all levels there were British officers who had the command of platoons, companies and battalions, and were treated as seniors to their Indian counterparts. The same system was followed in the cavalry, artillery and engineers units, though the designations were different. Only one Indian, English-knowing, rose to be a major, and that was immediately after the Mutiny, when the Queen's proclamation had opened all careers to Indian talent ... but was retired lest he command British juniors. Till the Mutiny, a third of the Bengal Army was recruited from three districts of Bihar - Sahabad, Saran and Patna - which till 1912 were parts of Bengal. The nomenclature, Bengal Army, derived as much from the main area of enlistment as from the administrative agency which paid for it. Barrackpore, north of Calcutta, was the first headquarters of the Bengal Army for British troops garrisoned at Fort William within the city. The first frontier cantonment of the army was at Berhampore, further north of Calcutta, and from where a watch could be maintained on the Nazim's troops at Murshidabad and Purnea. After the battle of Buxar, another cantonment was built at Danapur to guard any incursion from the Nawab Wazir of Oudh, who was the solitairy potentate in the Ganga basin having an army.The Moghul Emperor, Shah Alam II, had none of his own, being a fugitive at Allahabad. Mir Jafar had paid for the first five thousand men in the Bengal Army; the rulers of Oudh and Hyderabad paid for its subsequent enlargement ... In due course the Bengal Army was quartered at Chunar Fort and Benares to prevent a Martha raid from Nagpur, at Allahabad to prevent one from Jhansi and at Farrukhabad to quieten the Rohillas.Then Farrukhabad became a very large cantonment till Meerut was established as a larger station to dwarf the Maratha military centre at Aligarh.Still later, Rawalpindi became the Bengal Army's largest cantonment to guard against a Russian invasion through Afganisthan. No Oudh contingent of the Bengal Army was formally constituted, but two extensive and rich areas - Allahabad and Kara - were ceded to the Company for the maintenance of the large military establishment of the Bengal Army for the defence of Oudh. Similarly territory was given to the Company for cantonments of the Bengal Army at Bareilly and Shaharanpur. Ringed as Oudh was by these cantonments, the last Nawab Wajid Ali Shah could be easily deposed in 1856. The Nizam of Hyderabad felt threatened by the Marathas and let the Company raise units of the Bengal Army for the defence of his territory, after dismissing the French officers in his employment. The Hyderabad contingent of the Bengal Army continued to the name and be of near brigade strength till the outbreak of World War II. Sikh principalities east of the Sutlej feared incorporation into the Punjab, which had a large army trained by European soldiers of fortune. When they entered into an alliance with the Company for the protection of their territories, the Bengal Army established a cantonment at Ambala. It was at this stage that the Sikhs and the Gurkhas were enlisted individually into the Bengal Army. After the Sikh wars and annexation of the Punjab and the Afghan interludes, the Bengal Army was restive. Nothing like the Bengal Army had existed before in India's long history. More territory had accrued to the Company for the protection assured to ruling houses by the Army than by conquest. Armies trained by Europeans had been humbled by it. In its nineties, the Bengal Army was aware and proud of its achievements ... The Bengal Army mutinied in 1857 throughout the country wherever its unit was not outnumbered by British and other units. These latter -the others - were mostly units of defeated Sikh Army absorbed in the Company's forces, Gurkha units recruited for the Cis-Sutlej Sikh principalities and local irregulars raised on the North-West Frontier. Where a unit of the Bengal Army was outnumbered it had to submit to being disarmed, as at Barrackpore and at Peshawar and other places on the Frontier. At cantonments on the fringes of the Bengal Army, the Madras and the Bombay Armies were used to quell the Mutiny. In Oudh, which was ringed by units of the Bengal Armay, the outbreak was most ferocious, and the troops lent by Nepal were used against the mutineers. Lucknow and Delhi were the two centers of high drama and prolonged sieges. The siege at Delhi was conducted by mutineers marching to the Mughal capital from Meerut and Bareilly. Mostly Sikh and a sprinkiling of Gurkha troops were used by the British to regain Delhi. The units of the Bengal Army were not the only ones to mutiny, for then the uprising would have confined to cantonments and the focal points like Delhi, where the last Moghul Emperor (then not even a titular emperor) lived, and Lucknow, where a descendant of the Nawab Wazirs had been deposed only a year earlier. In 1784, Shah Alam II has sought the protectuion of the Marathas and conferred a nominal Wazarat on the Peshwa and the actual administration of whatever territory was left to him, to Madhaji Scindia, a member of the Maratha confederacy. Nana Sahib, whom the British had denied succession to the gaddi of the Peshwa, lived at Bithur near Cawnpore and provided a third rallying point. At the Scindia seat of Gwalior, only the unit of the Bengal Army posted there had mutineed. In spite of the paucity of focal points - even the cantonments were far and few apart - the Mutiny turned into a popular upsurge throughout the countryside from Delhi and Gwalior in the west to Assam in the east. Landlords and peasants participated in it. Of course, the movement was stronger in areas whence men had enlisted in the Bengal Army. The Mutiny changed the composition of the Bengal Army. No longer were Indians to be enlisted into the artillery, and engineer units were turned into sappers and miners. The cavalry was to be recruited entirely from the Punjab and the North West Frontier. None from Bihar and Eastern Uttar Pradesh, the recruitng areas of the Bengal Army, was acceptable to the Army any more. The units which had mutineed and disbanded were replaced by Sikhs, other Punjabis and the Gurkhas. That testifies to a national awakening having taken place, though confined to the areas of recruitment of the Bengal Army, and that Army was the conduit of communication of that awakening. Calcutta was panic-stricken till the unit at Barrackpore permitted itself to be dismissed. The period of fear lasted for three or four days, and during that period most of the Europeans in the city slept at night on board the ships moored on the river. Events of a hundred years ago, that is 1757, were recalled and exaggerated in the narration. No wonder the Holwell monument was erected after the Mutiny - to be precise, 43 years later.

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7.   Excerpts from "Chapter X: Rammohun's impact on the Indian mind",   by Soumendranath Tagore; in 'Rammohun Roy: His Role in Indian Renaissance'; The Asiatic Society, 1975; page 96. See 'Introduction to Rammohun Roy: His Role in Indian Renaissance', by Soumendranath Tagore for an excellent introduction to the subject of not only Bengal's Renaissance, but Indian Renaissance as well.

What was Rammohun's total impact on the Indian mind? It has been said by some that Rammohun's social and religious reform movements did not influence the people very much and were limited to a small minority of the Hindu society. It could not have been otherwise. History shows that all great thought-movements are initially minority movements. They are generated by a creative elite and then gradually percolate downwards and then permeate the society. As Arnold Toynbee says in his Study of History : "In all acts of social creation, the creators are either creative individuals or, at most, creative minorities..." If we study the history of any great thought movement, we shall see the truth of this statement. Minority or majority cannot be a criterion of judging the historical importance of a social movement. Buddhism, for instance, was a minority movement when it began its historical march. So was the Vaisnava movement of Chaitanya Maháprabhu. The French Illumination, or the Encyclopaedist Movement, was also a minority movement. But, despite the small numbers of those who consciously adhered to the Encyclopaedists, the impact of the movement on the minds of the people was so great that it finally led to the French Revolution. The same is true as well of the movement created by Marx and Engels, which gave birth to the Russian Revolution decades later. Thus, fetishism of number cannot be considered as the objective historical method to determine the historical truth about great thought-movements. To my mind, the best way to evaluate Rammohun's influence should be by the religious and social thinking and opinions of the generations immediately following him, so that a true assessment can be made as to what extent his ideas influenced those who moulded the opinion of the society and brought about social changes. Thus, one must not ignore the activities of the "Tattwabodhini Sabha", the largest and most influential cultural organization of Bengal (1839 - 1854), which came into existence immediately after the death of Rammohun and which, without any doubt, was inspired by his ideas. This was made clear in the declared objective of the Sabha, which was to revitalize the "religion of Rammohun Roy" and other social movements initiated by him. The nature and influence of the Sabha can be judged by the quality of its membership. Among the members were men like Mahrishi Devendranath Tagore, Pandit Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, who was also Secretary of the Calcutta Brahmo Samaj for a while, Pandit Madan Mohun Tarkalankar, Tarachand Chakravorty, Ramgopal Ghosh, Bhudev Mukherjee, Raja Rajendralala Mitra, Sambhunath Pandit, Pyarichand Mitra, Kissory Chand Mitra, Ishwar Chandra Gupta, Hemchandra Bandyopadhyay, Madhusudan Dutta, Askay Kumar Dutta, Maharaja Mahtab Chand of Burdwan, Raja Srichandra of Nadia, and others. During the Tattwabodhini period - a period spread over at least twenty years - which was indeed the formative and most productive period of Renascent Bengal, there was not a single great figure of any historical importance who can be said to be completely free from Rammohun's influence. Can it be denied that the contributions of the members of the Tattwabodhini Sabha had laid the foundation of what we now call the modern society of India. The influence of the Tattwabodhini Sabha was not limited to Bengal only. The journal published by the Sabha had an all-India circulation, as the Tattwabodhini Patrika was published in five different languages from five different centers - in Bengali from Calcutta, in Tamil and English from Madras and in Hindi and Urdu from Bareilly. Another characteristic of any great thought-movement is that even those who are not open adherents of it are influenced by it in many ways. For instance, even those thinkers in the fields of history, economics, sociology, etc who have not accepted Marxism as an ideology are today influenced by Marxist ideas in more ways than one. Similarly, the declared adherents of Rammohun's Brahmavad - the Brahmos - might have been small in number, but it cannot be denied that a large section of the educated, enlightened people was greatly influenced by Rammohun. Even those great men who brought about reforms in the Hindu Society from within like Swami Vivekananda were greatly influenced by him. This process of the gradual spreading of Rammohun's ideas was pointed out in the Census Reports of Bengal even as late as 1911 and 1921. In the census Report of 1911: "The actual number, however, gives no idea of the extent to which the Brahmo doctrines have spread." In the Census Report of 1921, Mr W J Thomas writes: "Though the number of progressive Brahmos is small and increased by little in the last 20 years, thousands of intellectual Hindus of Bengal have been so profoudly influenced by the monotheistic ideas of the Brahmo Samaj as really to be Brahmos at heart, though they have not actually joined the Samaj." In more recent times, Rabindranath Tagore - pointing out the universal vision of Rammohun - writes: "Rammohun was the only person in his time in the whole world of men to realize completely the significance of the Modern Age. He knew that the ideal of human civilization did not lie in the isolation of independance, but in the brotherhood of interdependance of individuals as well as of nations in all spheres of thought and activity." Swami Vivekananda emphasized that by welcoming western thoughts, Rammohun brought India into the mainstream of world history and wrote: "That we did not go out, that we did not compare notes with other nations - that has been the one great cause of our downfall, and every one of you know that the little stir, the little life that you see in India, begins from the day when Raja Rammohun broke through the walls of that exclusiveness. Since that day, the history of India has taken another turn, and it is growing with accelarated motion." (Emphasis mine - S.T.) Referring to her discussions with Swamiji about Rammohun, Sister Nivedita wrote in her 'Master As I Saw Him' - "It was here (Nainital) too that we heard a talk on Rammohun Roy in which he (Swami Vivekananda - S.T.) pointed out three things as the domimant notes of his teacher's message - his acceptance of Vedanta, his preaching of patriotism and the love that embraced the Mussalman along with the Hindu. In all of these three things, he (Swami Vivekananda -S.T.) claimed himself to have taken the task that the breadth and foresight of Rammohun Roy had mapped out."(Emphasis mine - S.T.) In his inaugural address read at the Sri Ramkrishna Centenary Parliament of Religion and published in the Modern Review in April 1937, Dr Brajendranath Seal said: "Rammohun Roy, the precursor and in a very real sense the father of Modern India, sought the Universal Religion, the common basis of the Hindu, Moslem, Christian and other faiths. He found that each of the national religions was based on this common faith with a certain distinctive historical and cultural embodiment. "It is fundamental to note that Rammohun Roy played two roles in his own person: As an universalist he formulated the creed of what was called Neo-theophilanthropy (a new love of God and man) on positive and constructive lines. He construed the Gayatri on this basis. And, strange to say, this Hindu became one of the forefathers of the Unitarian creed and worship in the West, the other three being Prince, Priestly and Canning. As a Nationalist Reformer, Rammuhun Roy had a three-fold mission: As a Hindu Reformer, he gave a Unitarian redaction of the Hindu Shastras from the Vedanta and the Mahanirvana Tantra As a Moslem defender of he faith, he wrote the Tuhfat-Ul-Muwahhiddin and the Monozeautul Adiyan, which were polemical works, and As a Christian, he gave a Unitarian version of the entire body of scriptures, old and new, in his controversies with the Christian Missionaries. Rammohun Roy was thus in himself, a Universalist and three nationalists all in one." Mahadev Govind Ranade, the great social reformer of Maharashtra, also pointed out the manifold contributions of Rammuhun and wrote: "Rammohun Roy was at once a social reformer, the founder of a great religious movement and a great politician. These three activities were combined in him in such a way that they put to shame the performance of the best among us at the present time." Underscoring Rammohun Roy's revolt as a revolt against interference with independence of thought, Maulvi Abdul Karim wrote: "Rammohun Roy, to my mind, was one of those inspired messengers of truth whom God is pleased to send from time to time for the reclamation of degraded humanity. Rammohun Roy whose career was one of revolt - revolt against interference with independence of thought and action, revolt against social and religious tyranny, revolt against superstitious customs and inhuman practices. It was Rammohun Roy who laid the foundation of all modern movements for the amelioration and elevation of the people of India." (Emphasis mine - S.T.) "His was a heart that transcended all geographical boundaries. His sympathies were world-wide, embracing all mankind." Calling Rammohun Roy "the apostle of a religious revival" in India, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose in his The India Struggle wrote: "Faced with the menace of being swallowed up by a new religion and a new culture, the soul of the people revolted. The first visible embodiment of this revolt was Raja Rammohun Roy and the movement of which he was the father, the Brahmo Samaj movement. Rammohun Roy stood out as the apostle of a religious revival. He urged a return to the original principles of Vedantism and for a total rejection of all the religions and social impurities that had crept into Hinduism in later times. He also advocated an all-round regeneration of the social and national life and the acceptance of all that is useful and beneficial in the modern life of Europe. Raja Rammohun Roy therefore stands out against the dawn of the new awakening in India as the prophet of the new age," (Emphasis mine - S.T.)

Links to related articles: 'Introduction to Rammohun Roy: His Role in Indian Renaissance, by Soumendranath Tagore Chapter1: Rammohun and the Indian Renaissance, by Soumendranath Tagore Adapted from 'Ideas that have moved the city', by Samaren Roy

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8.  Chronological record of events taking place in Bengal and Calcutta from early 16th century.

1533: The first Europeans, the Portugese, come to Bengal 1540: Portugese establish the first European trading post at Hugli. 1570: Birth of Lakshmikanta Gangopadhyay, founder of the Sabarna Roy Choudhury family, the first zamindars of Calcutta. Soon after his birth, his mother dies and his father, Kamdev Gangopadhyay, hailing from Halisahar in North 24-Parganas, left for Benares for yogic sadhana, leaving the new born child in the care of the priests and milkmen in the Kalighat temple complex, which was built by Raja Basanta Roy. The child - Lakshmikanta - was taken home by Rani Kamala, the younger wife of the Raja, to their Sursoona home and brought up by the family and given traditional education and training in military affairs. 1585: Lakshmikanta, as priest, performs the Durga Pauja of Raja Basanta Roy in the 'Atchala' of Barisha. 1594: Emperor Akbar appoints Man Singh Viceroy of East India, who chooses Rajmahal for his capital. 1605: Death of Akbar; Jahangir becomes the new Emperor. 1612: Man Singh sent again to Bengal to suppress the revolt of Barobhuyians of Bengal led by Raja Pratapaditya, uncle of Basanto Roy. On his way Man Singh meets Kamdev Bhattacharji and becomes his disciple. After his victory over Pratapaditya. Man Singh confers on Lakshmikanta the zamindary of five parganas: Magura, Khaspur, Kalikata, Paikan and Anwarpur and part of Hetegarh and confers upon him the title of "Majumdar" 1628: Shah Jahan ascends the throne at Delhi 1639: Shuja appointed Viceroy in East India 1650: The English East India Company establish their first trading center at Hugli 1652: The English Company gets a firman from Shuja to trade 1656: Job Charnock first comes to Bengal, serves for a while in Cossimbazar, is then sent to Patna. He later returns to Cossimbazar as head of the English Kothi. 1658: Aurangzeb defeats his brothers, including Shuja, in the succession struggle and becomes the Emperor; All the English settlements and factories are brought under Fort St. George in Madras. 1660, June: Mir Jumla appointed Subedar of Bengal; Vanden Broock & Dondlaz publishes a map of Calcutta 1664 March: Shaista Khan appointed Subedar of Bengal on Mir Jumla's death 1679: Shaista Khan appointed Subedar of Bengal for the second time 1686: Job Charnock flees to Hugli; Moghul Army takes possession of the Cossimbazar kothi of the East India Company. After about two months stay at Hugli, Job Charnock comes to Sutanati. 1688: Job Charnock flees from Sutanati and goes to Balasore. 1689: Ibrahim Khan appointed Subedar of Bengal 1690, September 3rd: Job Charnock returns to Sutanati, the third and final arrival. Start of the metropolis; The Company receives the Royal Charter granting it monopoly of Eastern Trade for 15 years on 31.12. 1690. 1693, January 10: Death of Job Charnock. Tomb built 80 years later in the compound of what is now known as St. John's Church. 1698: Azimushan appointed Viceroy of Bengal and takes up residence at Burdwan. 1698, November 10: Transfer of zamindary rights of three villages: Sutanati, Kalikata and Govindpur, by Sabarna Roy Choudhury to the East India Company, Calcutta becomes a Presidency of the East India Company, and Charles Ayer (son-in-law of Job Charnock} becomes the first Governor, subordinate to Madras. Mayor's Court established; Mayor and Alderman appointed; Fortification of the warehouse in village Kalikata begins. 1700-1707: The English turn the warehouse into the old Fort William. Azimushan, later Emperor, lays the foundation stone of Belvedere (now National Library) at Alipore. Ralph Sheldon appointed the first Zamindar of Calcutta. 1701: Murshid Quli Khan appointed Dewan of Bengal, later transferred to the Deccan 1707, February 20: Death of Aurangzeb 1709, June 5: St. Annes Church (later destroyed in 1756) consecrated with the reading of a message from the Lord Bishop of London 1710: Murshid Quli Khan returns to Bengal as Dewan 1712: Death of Bahadur Shah. Jahandar Shah succeeds as Emperor at Delhi  1713: Farrukhsiyar (son of Azimushan) becomes Emperor at Delhi 1716: Santosh Roy Choudhury of Sabarna Roy Choudhury family comes to Barisha from Birati in North 24 Parganas and settles there; English mission at the court of Farrukhsiyar; St John's Church built 1717: Murshid Quli Khan appointed Nawab Nazim of Bengal; Start of the Nizamat 1719: Farrukhsiyar assassinated 1720: Portugese Church built in Calcutta 1724: Armenian Chirch built 1727: Shuja-ud-din Mohammad Khan succeeds Murshid Quli Khan as Nawab Nazim of Bengal 1730: Gobindaram Mitra builds a Navaratna temple on Chitpur Road (taller than the present Octerlony monument) 1733: Bihar included in the Subah of Bengal; Alivardi Khan appointed Deputy Subedar of Bihar 1737, September 30: Cyclone plays havoc in the city. The top of the Navaratna Temple in North Calcutta is blown off 1739, March: Sarfaraj Khan succeeds his father Shuja-ud-din as Nawab Nazim 1740: Nadir Shah sacks Delhi; Horse coach introduced in Calcutta but only for the members of the Governor's Council 1740, April 9: Alivardi Khan succeeds Sarfaraj Khan as Nawab Nazim. Sarfaraj killed by Alivardi in the battle at Giria  1742: Digging of the Marattha Ditch as a defensive moat for the three villages 1748: Death of Emperor Mohammed Shah 1749, January 13: First orders issued to maintain Calcutta's drainage system 1751: Zamindary of the entire 24-Parganas district, north and south of Calcutta, transferred to the East India Company 1752: Holwell appointed Zamindar of Calcutta; Roger Drake appointed President of Calcutta 1756: Siraj-ud-dowla succeeds Alivardi Khan as Nawab Nazim of Bengal on the latter's death; Unsuccessful attempt by Ray Rayan Rajballav Sen (1693-1763) to secure the marriage of his minor widowed daughter; Maharaja Krishnachandra Ray of Krishnagar organizes counter-conference of Pandits denying scriptural sanction of widow remarriage. 1756, June 17: Storming of Calcutta and East India Company's fort by Siraj-ud-dowla; Ahmed Shah Abdali invades Delhi 1756, October 16: Siraj defeats Shaukat Jung, his rival claimant for Nawab Nazim, in the battle of Manihari. Shaukat Jung is killed 1757, January 2: The British recapture Calcutta 1757, February 9: Siraj signs a treaty with the English 1757, March 23: The English capture Chandannagore 1757, June 1-3: Conspiracy meeting at Jagat Seth Mahtabchand's house; Participants include Maharaj Krishnachandra Ray, Umichand and others; decision taken to help the British oust Siraj and instal Mir Jafar as Naab Nazim in his place. Rani Bhavani opposes the move 1757, June 4: Watts gets the agreement signed by Mir Jafar. The agreement states that Mir Jafar will act as a dummy Nawab for the British 1757, June 23: The Battle of Plassey is fought 1757, July 2: Mir Jafar installed as Nawab Nazim following the assassination of Siraj; Eviction of residents of village Kalikata for the construction of the new Fort William by the East India Company. Those evicted include the Tagores, the Ghoshals of Bhukailash and Munshi Nabakrishna Deb's family 1760: Mir Jafar quits as Nawab Nazim under pressure from the British; His son-in-law, Mir Kasim, is installed as Nawab Nazim; Mir Jafar takes up residence in Alipore 1761: Start of the Bengal Army 1762, July 12: Deforestation of the area between Chowringhee and the Ditch 1763: Mir Kasim removed from the position of Nawab Nazim; Mir Jafar reinstalled 1764: Battle of Buxar 1765: Grant of Dewanee of three Moghul Subahs, Bengal, Bihar and Orissa to the East India Company; Najm-ud-dowla, son of Mir Jafar, succeeds as Nawab Nazim 1767: First burial at the Park Street cemetry 1772, April 13: Warren Hastings appointed Governor-General of Bengal 1774, August: Calcutta becomes the capital of British possessions in India, having authority over Bombay and Madras; Hastings becomes Governor-General; Supreme Court of India constituted 1775: Maharaja Nandakumar, last important member of the Moghul bureaucracy is hanged; Foundations of Calcutta Theatre 1779: Durrell Seminary; Women's School founded by Mrs Durrell (probable ancestor of Lawrence and Gerald Durrell) 1780, January 29: First appearence of Hicky's Bengal Gazzette 1780, August 17: Warren Hastings' duel with Philip Francis, a member of the Council; Red Road laid out as a promenade 1781: Start of the Calcutta Madrassah; Oriental bias in education; A new system that centralized the revenue administration operations in Calcutta 1783: William Jones arrives as judge of the Supreme Court 1784, January 15: Founding of the Asiatic Society by William Jones 1785: A scavenger's office opened to clear the forests around Calcutta; Warren Hastings resigns as Governor of Bengal on February 1, 1785. 1786: Foundation of the Botanical Gardens at Howrah; Lord Cornwallis becomes Governor General 1789: East India Company prohibits the people of Bengal from producing salt on June 3, 1789; Indigo is planted in Bengal for the first time on October 29, 1789 1791: Founding of the Sanskrit College at Benares; Ramjoy Dutt School started in Colootola where Ramkamal Sen studied 1794, January 16: First horse-race at Akra, near Calcutta 1795: First Bengali theatre founded by Lebedev, a Russian 1799 - 1803: First Calcuttan, Mirza Abu Taleb (1752-1806) visits England and Europe and brings back the idea of progress 1800, March: Karmakar cuts Bengali type faces for printing; Fort William College set up 1803: Conversion of Marhatta Ditch into Circular Road 1804, June 2: Governor-General forms Committe to keep Calcutta clean; Rammohun Roy (1774-1833) publishes his first book, Tuhfat-ul-Muwahiddin (Gift of Monotheists) in Persian; plea for an adoptive society in preference to the prevailing ascriptive 1806: Two Tagores, Dwarkanath and Prassannakumar, come out of Sherbourne Seminary for English boys; Missionaries allowed into Calcutta; Tipu Sultan's sons arrive in Calcutta. 1807, March 31: First steamship built in Kidderpore 1808: First hore-race in Calcutta 1809: New temple to goddess Kali built at Kalighat by Sabarna Roy Choudhury family 1810: Dhurrumtala Academy founded by David Drummond; Henry Louis Vivian Derozio (1809-1831) is a student. 1813: Christian missionaries permitted to teach in Company territories 1814: Rammohun Roy comes from a small town to live in Calcutta; Town Hall built 1815: Atmiya Sabha founded by Rammohun Roy (emphasis on conscience) 1817, January 20: Establishment of Hindoo College on Upper Chitpur Road at the house of Gourchand Basak; Alao in 1817, the map of the Suburbs of Calcutta between Baranagore, Salt Water Lake and Garden Reach was prepared. 1819: First daily newspaper, The Calcutta Journal, started; Race course laid out on the maidan; The banyan tree at the junction of Bowbazar Street and Circular Road, which Job Charnocjk used as a resting place, cut down by a notification of the Governor-General 1822, April 22: The first Persian Weekly, Meerut-ul-Akhbar, published 1823: Calcutta Sanskrit College founded; Hindoo College shifted to a part of the building. 1826: New building of Sanskrit College, Hindoo College accomodated in a part of the building; Henry Derozio appointed teacher in the Hindoo College; First steamer service started between Calcutta and Chinsurah, later extended to Buxar (1838) and Gauhati (1844); First Hindi Language newspaper - Oodunt Martand - published in Calcutta on May 27 from 37, Amratala Lane - edited by Jugal Kishore Shukla 1827, February 1: Bengal Club for Europeans founded in Calcutta 1828, August 20: Rammohun Roy forms Brahmo Sabha (shift in Rammohun Roy's emphasis from conscience to monotheism); Derozians establish "Academic Association"; Vidyasagar (1820-1891) comes to Calcutta to study 1829, August 20: Abolition of the practice of suttee enacted; Golf Club started in Calcutta (reportedly second oldest in the world) 1830, January 30: Trust deed of the first Brahmo place of worship executed by Rammohun Roy - open to all denominations; Rammohun Roy leaves for England 1831, April 25: Derozio dismissed from Hindoo College 1831, December: Death of Derozio; beef-eating at K M Banerjee's (1813-1885) house; Start of open defiance of taboos; Young Bengal Journal, Jnananveshan (in Bengali) started by Dakshinaranjan Mukehrjee (1814-1873) 1832: Maheshchandra Ghosh, Derozian and close friend of K M Banerjee, embraces Christianity 1832, October 17: Krishnamohan Banerjee embraces Christianity 1833: Death of Rammohun Roy and burial at Bristol 1835: English system of education introduced following Macaulay's recommendations; Medical College of Calcutta opened on February 20, 1835 1836, August 31: Calcutta Public Library established 1837: Historic Grand Trunk Road started; Victoria becomes Queen of England 1839: Tattabodhini Patrika (in Bengali) founded; Chowringhee Theatre burns down; Calcutta Mechanics Institute founded - the name is later shanged to Calcutta Lyceum. 1840: Brahmo Samaj revived by Debendranath Tagore (1817-1905) to ultimately become the Brahmo Samaj three years later 1841: Sans Souci theatre at park Street, financed by Dwarkanath Tagore (1794-1846); Esther Leach fatally burnt here on November 22, 1843 1842, January 9: Dwarkanath Tagore sails for England in his own steamer, the India, accompanied by his physician, Dr Macgowan, nephew Chundermohan Chatterjee, aide-de-camp Paramanad Moitra, three Hindu servants and his Muslim cook 1842: Foundation of Loreto School at Middleton Row (Much later, Mother Teresa came to one of its branches at Sealdah as a teacher); Madhusudan Dutta (1824-1873) and his friends drink in public at Wilson's Hotel (now Great Eastern Hotel); Derozion Journal, The Bengal Spectator, refers to Parasar hymn permitting widow remarriage 1843, February: Madhusudan Dutta embraces Christianity; Brahmo Samaj founded by Debendranath Tagore. Radhanath Sikdar (1815-1870) discovers Peak XV on the Himalayas as the highest point on earth's surface 1845: Rev K M Banerjee (Derozian) begins publishing his encyclopaedia which continued till 1951 1845, March 8: Dwarkanath Tagore leaves on his second trip to England, accompanied by his youngest son, Nagendranath, his nephew, Nabinchandra Mukherji and four medical students, two of whom were supported by his scholarships 1849: First female school (Bethune) opened with a gift of land and cash by Dakshinaranjan Mukherjee, a Derozian 1850: First telegraph line to Diamond Harbour established - Shibchandra Nandi was the engineer; The Brahmo Samaj under Debendranath Tagore accepts Akshaykumar Datta's (1820-1886) plea to abandon belief in the infallibility of the Vedas 1851, January: Iswarchandra Vidyasagar appointed Principal of Sanskrit College at Calcutta 1851, June 20: Establishment of the Geological Survey; Jnanendramohan Tagore embraces Christianity 1852: First Kayastha student admitted to Sanskrit College (Previously, admission was restricted to Brahmins and Vaidyas) 1853: Vidyasagar starts campaign for widow remarriage, relying on Parasar hymn; Telegraph line between Calcutta and Agra  1854: Government Art College established 1854, December 15: Foundation of the Association of Friends for the Promotion of Social Improvement with Debendranath Tagore as President; Kisorichand Mitra and Akshaykumar Datta as Secretaries and Raja Satyacharan Ghoshal (Bhukailash), Pearychand Mitra, Harishchandra Mukherjee, Chandrasekhar Dey, Rajendralal Mitra, Digamber Mitter, Gourdas Basak and others as members of the committee 1855: Vidyasagar's pamphleteering campaign for widow remarriage under various pseudonyms; Derozians demand a general marriage law with modern features; Dakhineswar temple built - Ramakrishna Paramahansa (1834-1886) its first priest. 1856: Widow remarriage Act passed 100 years after Rajballav Sen's unsuccessful attempt; Kisorichand Mitra (1822-1873) and Digamber Mitter(1817-1879), both Derozians, organize a reception for Michael Madhusudan Dutt on his return from Madras 1856, December 9: First widow remarriage under the new Act attended and financed by Vidyasagar 1857: The Sepoy Mutiny breaks out; Metalling of Grand Trunk Road 1857, November 1: Calcutta University constituted; Hindoo College renamed Presidency College and opened to all; Publication of Bengali Journal, Som Prakash, edited by Dwarkanath Vidyabhusan, an associate of Vidyasagar; Pearychand Mitra (1814-1883) publishes Alaler Gharer Dulal ubnder the pseudonym, Tekchand Thakur. 1859: Archaeological Survey established; Michael Madhusudan Dutt's Sharmistha staged at Belgachia Villa; Indigo planting disputes in Bengal 1860: Age of Consent Bill fixing 10 years as the lowest age in regard to girls for consummation of marriage passed; St. Xaviers College established; Dinabandhu Mitra (1830-1873) publishes Nil Darpan 1861: Michael Madhusudan Dutt's Meghnad Kavya published; Satyendranath Tagore and Manmohan Ghosh leave for England to study law ignoring proscription of sea travel; Council of three Indians (all feudal potentates) to advise the Viceroy 1862, July 1: Calcutta High Court inaugurated; Inauguration of Indian Museum at Calcutta in its new building; Younger Brahmos celebrate the first inter-caste marriage in Samaj secretary - elders refrain from attending 1864: Bankimchandra Chatterjee's (1838-1894) first novel, Rajmohan's wife, published 1865: Bankimchandra Chatterjee publishes Durgeshnandini ; Brahmos born after 1840 object to services being conducted by Brahmins wearing the sacred thread; Split in the Brahmo Samaj; Keshub Chnadra Sen (1838-1884) breaks away and forms Navavidhan Samaj 1866: Younger Brahmos begin a campaign against caste distinctions being continued among Brahmos which leads to a proverb that blames three Sens of destroying the caste system (Wilsen, Istisen and Keshubchandra Sen; the first being the bar where young men consumed liquor and forbidden food, the second the railway station implying the railways where men of all castes were seated in the same compartment, and the third the Brahmo reformer) 1867: Rajnarain Bose (1826-1899) along with Nabagopal Mitra, Satyendranath Tagore and Gnanendratah Tagore organize the Hindoo Mela; Beginnings of the Hindu Revivalism; Dr Mahendralal Sircar (1833-1904) publishes his prospectus for an institute to carry on scientific research 1869: First General Post Office set up; Bengali play, Sadhabar Ekadashi, staged by Ardendhusekhar Mustafi at the National Theatre; The foundation stone of the Victoria Memorial is laid by the Prince of Wales on January 4, 1869. 1870: Oxford and Cambridge opened to non-Anglicans. Anandamohan Bose (1847-1906) - the first to avail the opportunity to secure admission (earlier, Indians had gone to study law and medicine, and to London University for general education); Tap water introduced to Calcutta (but orthodox residents resent the service); Dakshinaranjan Mukherjee (Derozian) demands a Provincial Legislature, and that the number of elected officials should equal that of officials; Beginnings of political activity; Father Lafont starts a tiny laboratory at St Xaviers; Lafont joins Mahendralal Sircar in the latter's effort to found the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science. 1871: Abolition of purdah. Young Brahmos take their wives out of the purdah, and the screen separating women from men removed. They also demand that there should be no discrimination between sexes in matters of education. 1872: The Native (later called Civil) Marriage Act passed - The Act requires parties to inter-caste marriage declare themselves to be non-Hindus. The legislation and the declaration renders the Widow Remarriage Act of 1856 obsolete without repealing the Act 1872, December 7: First Bengali public theatre inaugurated by Ardhendusekhar Mustafi; Nil Darpan staged. 1873: Horse-drawn trams start plying in Calcutta; Michael Madhusudan Dutt's Sharmistha staged on the public theatre. 1874: New Market, later named Sir Stuart Hogg Market in 1903, inaugurated 1875: Rabindranath Tagore's (1861-1941) first poetical work, Bhanusingher Padabali, published. Toru Dutt (1856-1877) publishes her English transaltion of French poems under the title, A sheaf gleaned from the French fields 1876: Dr Mahendralal Sircar and Father Lafont establish the Indian Association of Science; The Indian Association organized with Anandamohan Bose as the first Secretary; Zoological Gardens established at Alipore 1878: The name Indian Association of Science changed to Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science; Second split in the Brahmo organization led by Sivanath Sastri (1847-1919) 1879, March 4: Bethune College for Girls established 1880, April 5: Bengal Engineering College shifts to Sibpur in Howrah; PN Bose's (1855-1935) paper on Siwalik fossils published in the Geological Magazine 1881: Asutosh Mukherjee's (1864-1924) paper published in the Cambridge Messenger of Mathematics 1882: Identification of cholera germ by Koch in Calcutta; Bankimchandra Chatterjee's novel, Anandamath, published 1883: Illbert Bill: Europeans in India object to the Bill and force amendments. The demonstration - the last by Europeans in the country - is the most massive in Calcutta, where the largest number of them live. The Bill is drafted by Biharilal Gupta, one of the three from Calcutta who got into the ICS. It aims at making Europeans and Indians equal in the eye of the law. A O Hume issues circular to the graduates of Calcutta University for organizing themselves politically 1884: Lecture Hall built at the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science; Jagadishchandra Bose (1858-1937) publishes article in the Journal of Asiatic Society of Bengal (JASB) 1885: W C Bonnerjee presides over the inaugural session of the Indian National Congress 1886: Second session of the Indian National Congress held at Calcutta and presided over by Dadabhai Naoroji 1890, Februay 13: Start of the first Botanical Survey 1891: The Age of Consent Bill to raise the marriageable age for girls from ten to twelve is not approved by the Indian Legislative Council (in spite of suport by Vidyasagar); Vizianagram Laboratory founded at the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science; Factory Act 1892: Legislatures for India and Bengal constituted, with mainly feudal potentates as Indian representatives; Indian Council of Art 1893: Swami Vivekananda (1863-1902) addresses the first World Parliament of Religions at Chicago in the USA 1894: Beef eating and sea travel accepted as an individual's choice by a Committee of Legislators 1897: Jagadishchandra Bose demonstrates transmission of radio waves first at Calcutta and then in London 1899, April 17: Ronald Ross - Indian by birth and British by origin - discovers presence of malaria parasites in Anopheles mosquito in the P. G. Hospital Laboratory 1902: First electric trams run in Calcutta and Ronald Ross receives Nobel Prize 1905, October 16: First partition of Bengal; Lord Minto becomes Governor General; Rammohun Library established on March 18, 1905; Death of Debendranath Tagore, the founder of the Brahmo Samaj 1906: Publication of Rabindranath Tagore's novel, Gora, underscoring the need for rehabilitating Brahmos into the Hindu fold 1908, May 2: Aurobindo Ghosh (1872-1950) and others arrested in the first Political Conspiracy case in Calcutta; Brahmos open a school for untouchable Namasudras 1910, February 11: Aurobindo Ghosh retires from politics and leaves for Pondicherry; Later, the first aeroplane takes off from the Maidan on December 28, 1910 1911, July 29: Mohun Bagan defeats English East York, the first Indian Football team to win the I.F.A. shield 1912, April 1: India's capital shifted from Calcutta to New Delhi and first partition of Bengal revoked. Bihar and Orissa separated from Bengal; Earlier, the Calcutta Improvement Trust is formed on January 2, 1912  1913: Rabindranath Tagore awarded Nobel Prize for Literature - the first Indian to receive the Nobel award 1914: Foundation stone of the University College of Science laid at 92 Upper Circular Road; First Indian Science Congress held at Calcutta, presided over by Asutosh Mukherjee 1914, August 6: First World War starts; Jugantar Party of Bengali revolutionaries reorganized under the leadership of Jatin Mukherjee. 1915, April: M N Roy (1884-1954) visits Batavia to contact German agents for shipment of arms to Bengal for an armed insurrection 1915, August: M N Roy as representative of Jugantar Party leaves on his world quest for arms and aid for Indian revolutionaries to overthrow British rule in India. 1915 September 9: Death of Jatin Mukherjee in an armed encounter with British police at Balasore 1917: U N Brahmachari discovers Urea Stebamine as a specific for Kalaazar; Jagadishchandra Bose establishes Bose Research Institute; C V Raman appointed Palit Professor of Physics at the University College of Science in Calcutta 1918: End of First World War 1919, May 27: Rabindranath Tagore returns his Knighthood in protest against the Jallianwallahbagh massacare 1920: Rowlatt Act announced 1923: Meghnad Saha's Spectral Analysis  1924: Satyendranath Bose's new statistics forms basis of Bose-Einstein equation; Death of Asutosh Mukherjee 1925, March 31: First Blind School established at Behala, Calcutta 1931: C V Raman awarded the Nobel Prize for his research work at Cacutta; Saratchandra Chatterjee (1876-1938) publishes Sesh Prasna; First Round Table Conference for India's Dominion Status begins in London; The first Bengali 'talkie' - Jamai Sashti - is screened on April 11, 1931  1934, May 1: First cricket Test match played in Calcutta - India vs England; match is drawn 1935: New Constitution of India promulgated 1936: Manik Banerjee (1908-1956) publishes Padmanadir Majhi and Putul Nacher Itikatha 1939, September 3: Second World War starts 1940: Shyamadas Chatterjee successfully experiments with nuclear fission at the Bose Institute 1941, January: Subhas Bose escapes to Germany 1941, February 28: Howrah Bridge is opened 1942, August: Congress launches "Quit India" movement; First Japanese air raid on Calcutta on December 20, 1942 1943, October: The Bengal Famine; Three and a half million people die of starvation; Lord Wavell becomes Governor General 1946, August 16: The Great Calcutta killing, following Muslim League's call of "Direct Action" 1947, August 15: India gets Independence and Bengal gets second Partition, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru in India'd first Prime Minister 1950: Republic Day - January 26, 1950; Mother Teresa forms the Missionaries of Charity on October 7, 1950 1956, August 7: First electric crematorium set up at Keoratala burning ghat   1962, September 29: Birla Planetarium opened to the public 1975, August 9: The first 'Doordarshan' transmission from Calcutta 1977, April 7: The first jumbo jet flies into Dum Dum Airport 1982, March 31: Sealdah flyover inaugurated 1983, June 6: The first color television transmission from Calcutta 1984: The first soccer match is played at the Salt Lake Stadium on January 25; The first Metro Rail run between Esplanade and Bhawanipur on October 24 THIS IS AN ONGOING COMPILATION; PLEASE SEND IN YOUR ENTRIES IF WE HAVE MISSED ANY, AND TELL US IF THERE ARE ANY ERRORS IN OUR COMPILATION. THANK YOU.

REFERENCES: 1. Calcutta: Society and Change: 1690 - 1990, by Samaren Roy; Rupa & Co publishers, 1991. 2. Atlas of the City of Calcutta and its environs: National Atlas and Thematic Mapping Organization, Ministry of Science & Technology, Govt. of India.

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