Job Charnock
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Job Charnock (d. 1693) is regarded by some as the founder of Calcutta, however a Calcutta High Court ruling in May 16, 2003 ruled that not to be the case (see below).
He went out to India in 1655 or 1656, apparently not in the East India Company's service, but he soon joined it thereafter. He was first stationed at Cossimbazar, and subsequently at Patna. In 1685 he became chief agent at Hughli, a Portuguese trading settlement on the river of the same name. Being besieged there by the Mughal viceroy of Bengal, he put the Company's goods and servants on board his light vessels and dropped down the river 27 miles to the village of Sutanati, a place well chosen for the purpose of defence, which occupied the site of what is now Calcutta. It was only, however, at the third attempt that Charnock finally settled down at this spot, and the selection of the future capital of India was entirely due to his stubborn resolution.
He was a silent morose man, not popular among his contemporaries, but always a faithful man to the Company, which rated his services very highly. He is said to have married a Hindu widow and they had three daughters. His tomb, with its latin epitaph, can still be seen in the graveyard of St. John's Church. It is the oldest building in Calcutta. His tombstone is made from a kind of rock named after him as Charnockite.
He instituted a practice (adopted across British-ruled India by 1812) that sati had to be completed in the presense of an official. Such practices had been required across the Mughal empire since the time of Humayun, though they were not always enforced. Charnock was involved in reducing the incidence of sati arguably in part because [he wed a woman whom he rescued from her first husband's pyre]. The official required to attend was to ensure that the widow was not under the age of 16, not pregnant, not the mother of children under three nor drugged. This implies both social and legal acceptance without those conditions, and the existence of incidences with those condistions. Of course, these officials were Indian and not British officials simply by sheer number. In 1829 the practice was banned, to be re-instated as legal after the Indian rebellion of 1857. (see Thankappan Nair, Job Charnock: The Founder of Calcutta (Calcutta: Engineering Press, 1977) or the Encyclopedia Britannica.)
The Calcutta High Court ruling (May 16, 2003) [1] based on the Expert Committe Report pronounced that a highly civilized society and an important trading centre had existed on the site of Calcutta long before the first European settlers came down the Hooghly. The place then called Kalikatah was also an important religious centre due to the Kali Temple at Kalighat. The first literary reference of the city is found in Bipradas Piplai's magnum opus Manasa Mangala which dates back to 1495. Abul Fazl's Ain-I-Akbari dating 1596 also mentions about the place. The Sabarna Roy Choudhury family was granted the Jaigirdari of Kalikatah by Emperor Jehangir in 1608.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Gupta, Subhrangshu. "[http://www.tribuneindia.com/2003/20030518/nation.htm#3 Job Charnock not Kolkata founder: HC Says city has no foundation day]" (HTML), The Tribune online edition, May 17, 2003. Retrieved on December 17, 2006. (in English)
- This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
- H.E. Busteed Echoes from Old Calcutta (Calcutta) 1908
- Bhabani Roy Choudhury Bangiya Sabarna Katha/ Kalishetra Kalikatah
