History

The discovery of the nearby Chandraketugarh,^[5] an archaeological site, provides evidence that the area has been inhabited for over two millennia.^[6] The city's documented history, however, begins with the arrival of the British East India Company in 1690, when the Company was consolidating its trade business in Bengal. Job Charnock, an administrator with the Company was traditionally credited as the founder of this city.^[2] However, recently experts have endorsed the view that Charnock was not the founder of the city.^[7]

In 1702, the British completed the construction of old Fort William,^[8] which was used to station its troops and as a regional base. Kolkata (then Calcutta) was declared a Presidency City, and later became the headquarters of the Bengal Presidency.^[9] Faced with frequent skirmishes with French forces, in 1756 the British began to upgrade their fortifications. When protests against the militarisation by the Nawab of Bengal Siraj-Ud-Daulah went unheeded he attacked and captured Fort William, leading to the infamous Black Hole incident.^[10] A force of Company sepoys and British troops led by Robert Clive recaptured the city the following year.^[10] Kolkata was named the capital of British India in 1772, although the capital shifted to the hilly town of Shimla during the summer months every year, starting from the year 1864.^{[11][dead links]} It was during this period that 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 between 1797–1805, was largely responsible for the growth of the city and its public architecture which led to the description of Kolkata as "The City of Palaces".^[12] The city was a centre of the British East India Company's opium trade during the 18th and 19th century; locally produced opium was sold at auction in Kolkata, to be shipped to China.^[13]

By the early 19th century, Kolkata was split into two distinct areas—one British (known as the White Town), the other Indian (known as Black Town).^[14] Even at the time, the poverty of the 'Black Town' shanties was considered shocking. The city underwent rapid industrial growth from the 1850s, especially in the textile and jute sectors; this caused a massive investment in infrastructure projects like railroads and telegraph by British government. The coalescence of British and Indian culture resulted in the emergence of a new Babu class of urbane Indians — whose members were often bureaucrats, professionals, read newspapers, were Anglophiles, and usually belonged to upper-caste Hindu communities.^[15] Throughout the nineteenth century, a socio-cultural reform, often referred to as the Bengal Renaissance resulted in the general uplifting of the people. In 1883, Surendranath Banerjee organised a national conference — the first of its kind in nineteenth century India.^[2] Gradually Kolkata became a centre of the Indian independence movement, especially revolutionary organisations. The 1905 Partition of Bengal on communal grounds resulted in widespread public agitation and the boycott of British goods (Swadeshi movement).^[16] These activities, along with the administratively disadvantageous location of Kolkata in the eastern fringes of India, prompted the British to move the capital to New Delhi in 1911.^[17]

The city's port was bombed twice by the Japanese during World War II.^[18] As food stocks were being diverted to feed Allied troops, millions starved to death during the Bengal famine of 1943.^[19] In 1946, demands for the creation of a Muslim state led to large-scale communal violence resulting in the deaths of over 2,000 people.^[20] The partition of India also created intense violence and a shift in demographics — large numbers of Muslims left for East Pakistan, while hundreds of thousands of Hindus fled into the city.^[21]

Over the 1960s and 1970s, severe power shortages, strikes and a violent Marxist-Maoist movement — the Naxalites — damaged much of the city's infrastructure, leading to an economic stagnation.^{[22][dead links]} In 1971, war between India and Pakistan led to the mass influx of thousands of refugees into Kolkata resulting in a massive strain on its infrastructure.^[23] In the mid-1980s, Mumbai overtook Kolkata as India's most populous city. Kolkata has been a strong base of Indian communism as West Bengal has been ruled by the CPI(M) dominated Left Front for three decades now — the world's longest-running democratically-elected Communist government.^[24][25] The city's economic recovery gathered momentum after economic reforms in India introduced by the central government in the mid-1990s. Since 2000, Information Technology (IT) services revitalized the city’s stagnant economy. The city is also experiencing a growth in the manufacturing sector.^[26]