It is a great pleasure to have been asked to write the foreword to Dr. Aditi Chatterji's new book on Kolkata. I have known Dr. Chatterji since 1986, when she first came to Oxford. She had an outstanding undergraduate record at Calcutta University where she took a First Class B.Sc. in Geography (Rank first in Calcutta University in Part I; ranked second in the university and first in Loreto College in Part II) in 1985. She was offered graduate places in both MIT and Oxford and chose Oxford to maintain her long family connection with the University.
Aditi made her mark with her book on the cultural geography of Indian Hill Stations: 'The Changing Landscapes on the Indian Hill Stations - Power, Culture and Tradition' as well as 'Contested Landscapes - The Story of Darjeeling". She has now moved down to sea-level, or just above it, with her new book which couples the study of ethnicity with that of the urban landscape. Kolkata is one of the great world cities, facing at the same time some of the greatest physical-ecological and human-ecological problems. Founded by the British on the "wrong" side of the Hooghly to put the river between them and the feared Marathas, eighty miles up a silting river, with an inadequate number of bridges, severed from its economic hinterland by 1947 Partition and nearly overwhelmed with the resulting flight of refugees, this city in the swamp has nevertheless survived and grown. In 1950 Kolkata with 4.4 million was the 10th world city in terms of size, by 1980 with 9 million it was ninth, by 2000 with 12.7 million it was 11th. Dr. Chatterji's book focuses on what is the mosaic, rather than the melting pot of Kolkata's vibrant ethnic mix. It is a fascinating story and I wish the book well.
Kolkata, earlier known as Calcutta, is a city of colonial origin with a chequered history of more than three hundred years. It is possible that Kolkata had emerged as a rural settlement even before Job Charnock came. However, the making of the city of Calcutta undoubtedly resulted from the economic and political forces associated with the East India Company. The city was the capital of British India until it was shifted to Delhi in 1911; thereafter, the city served as the capital of Bengal province and continued to be the business headquarters of British entrepreneurs in India. After Independence in 1947, the city became the capital of the state of West Bengal, formed by partition of the Bengal province and had to accommodate thousands of displaced people from East Bengal (now Bangladesh). For an enthusiastic reader, "Ethnicity, Migration and the Urban Landscape of Kolkata" is an exciting tour of various facets of Kolkata - its geography and history, its landscape and culture, its communities and civic organisations. Rich in information in the form of facts, figures and pictures, collected from secondary sources and from field surveys, the study unfolds before us the historical past as well the current scenario (of 2004-2006) of the city of Kolkata - its landscape, community and culture.
In the process of its growth, Kolkata had migrants of diverse origins, religions and ethnic backgrounds, as is true for any other city. Each stream of migrants had brought with them their own language, culture and identity, Although the city is usually visualised as a melting pot for the various streams of migrants, the assimilation and integration process is partial only. Each ethnic group tends to preserve their own identity, leading to segregation of communities in spatial and social terms, but at the same time each is integrated to the city life and often influenced by its dominant culture. This process is reflected in the formation of landscape, the mosaic of culture and traditions in the city. Urban culture in Kolkata city, as in any other metropolitan city, is not a single culture but a plurality of cultures and their interactions, which is eminently revealed by the findings of the field study.
Hindu (906)
Agriculture (103)
Ancient (1037)
Archaeology (692)
Architecture (554)
Art & Culture (880)
Biography (643)
Buddhist (545)
Cookery (163)
Emperor & Queen (508)
Islam (239)
Jainism (276)
Literary (869)
Mahatma Gandhi (364)
Send as free online greeting card
Email a Friend
Manage Wishlist