Kolkata district (formerly known as Calcutta district) is a district in the Indian state of West Bengal. It only contains the entire city proper of Kolkata, the capital city of the state and therefore it is a city district. It is the smallest district in the state and also the most densely populated district. Being a city district, the district itself is its own headquarters; it does not have further subdivisions like mahakumas or blocks that exist in all other districts of the state nor does it have a district magistrate.
History
During seventeenth century Sutanuti was a major wool-trading center where had flourished the Basak, Sett, and a group of Portuguese merchants. In Dihi Kalikata, Armenian traders commanded significant influence.Birth of a Colonial City: Calcutta. Ranjit Sen The first historical notice regarding Kolkata was found in Ain-i-Akbari of Abul Fazl in 1596. According to it, that Kalighat was a place within Saptagram, an old port on Hooghly River. With the decline of the once flourishing Saptagram port, traders and businessmen, such as the Basaks, the Sheths and others, started venturing southwards and settled in or developed places such as Gobindapur. They set up a cotton and yarn market at Sutanuti. Chitpur was a weaving centre and Baranagar was another textile centre. Kalighat was a pilgrimage centre. Across the Hooghly, there were places such as Salkia and Betor. Kalikata was a lesser known place. While both Sutanuti and Gobindapur appear on old maps like Thomas Bowrey's of 1687 and George Herron's of 1690, Kalikata, situated between the two, is not depicted.Cotton, H.E.A., Calcutta Old and New, 1909/1980, pages 1, 11, General Printers and Publishers Pvt. Ltd.Cotton, H.E.A., Calcutta Old and New, 1909/1980, page 3
Around early March 1698, the East India Company (EIC) proposed to the Roy Choudhurys that Dihi Kalikata be subrented to them. The offer was rejected since then-Zamindar (anon.) of the Roy Chowdhurys feared permanently losing the properties to a far-powerful client. This led the EIC to negotiate for the rent-rights outright and at the Mughal quarters; one Nathaniel Walsh was dispatched to Prince Azim-ush-Shan, then-Viceroy of Bengal Subah. The negotiations proved successful. The zamindari rights, for Dihi Kalikata, Sutanuti and Govindapur, had been transferred to the Company paying Choudhury total of 2000 Rupees. Subsequent to the fall of Siraj-ud-daulah, the last independent Nawab of Bengal, the English purchased 55 villages in 1758 from Mir Jafar. These villages were known en-bloc as Dihi Panchannagram.
After the Treaty of Allahabad, the East India Company was granted Diwani rights (the right to collect taxes), in 1765, in the eastern province of Bengal-Bihar-Odisha. In 1772, Kolkata became the capital of East India Company's territories, and in 1793, the English took full control of the city and the province. Development of Kolkata's infrastructure started and in the early 19th century, the marshes surrounding the city were drained. In the 19th century, Kolkata was the epicentre of the epoch-changing socio-cultural movement, the Bengal Renaissance. The 20th century unfolded historical events in Kolkata – the Swadeshi movement, the first partition of Bengal along communal lines, shifting of the national capital from Kolkata to Delhi in 1911 – and Kolkata emerged as an important hub of the independence movement. With the experience and memories of the Bengal famine of 1943, the Great Calcutta Killings, the final partition of Bengal, and independence of the country, Kolkata moved on to a new era of challenges, with millions of refugees pouring in from neighbouring East Pakistan (later Bangladesh).
Before partition of Bengal, Kolkata had offered education and job opportunities to the people from East Bengal. Kolkata had taken in about a quarter of a million East Bengali migrants long before partition. After partition of Bengal, the number of refugees moving in from East Bengal were so high that large stretches of rural or semi urban habitation were transformed into towns, the density of population, particularly in areas with high refugee population, jumped by leaps. The outer limits of Kolkata were extended. The entire process of urbanisation was hastened. In the fifties 25% of the population of Metropolitan Kolkata were refugees. In 1975, a CMDA report suggested that there were 1,104 squatter colonies in West Bengal, out of which 510 were in Calcutta Metropolitan District. In 1981, a refugee rehabilitation committee set up by the state government put the figures for refugees in the state at 8 million. The break up for Kolkata is not available. The central government had decided that 25 March 1971 was the cut off date for entry of refugees from former East Pakistan into India and so, all those coming in after that date are either immigrants or infiltrators – there were no more refugees, at least officially/legally.
The socio-economic conditions that led to the growth of Kolkata, were urbanising a much larger territory. Right form the 16th century, a number of townships, based on trade and commerce, had sprung up along both banks of the Hooghly. None of these townships withered away as Kolkata gained supremacy, rather they got integrated with the core of the city. In 1951, census operations in West Bengal first recognised a continuous industrial area stretching from Bansberia to Uluberia on the west bank of the Hooghly, and from Kalyani to Budge Budge on the east bank. It was ultimately recognised as the Kolkata urban agglomeration, with the city as its core.Chakraborty, Satyesh C., "The Growth of Calcutta in the Twentieth Century", in “Calcutta, The Living City” Vol II, Edited by Sukanta Chaudhuri, Pages 4–6, First published 1990, 2005 edition,
Kolkata has always been a city of migrants. They are the people who have made the city so large. In the first half of the 20th century the largest group of migrants were the working-class people from Bihar. After 1947, they were overtaken in numbers by the refugees from East Pakistan. A comparatively lesser number of people from the surrounding areas have migrated to the city, because a huge population commutes to the city for work and returns to their villages. They are not counted in the census data for Kolkata. The promise of a better quality of life may have been an initial attraction for the migrants, but bulk of the poorer sections soon realised that poverty in Kolkata was as severe and dehumanising as in the villages they left behind. However, many of them found opportunities of income in the urban economy. Some of them managed a place in industry, because of the preferential treatment they got as a result of people in their community vouching for them. A 1976 survey revealed that the proportion of workers from outside West Bengal were 71% in the jute industry, 58% in textile mills and 73% in iron and steel units. The Chamars from the Hindi heartland, many of whom work in the leather industry, have been here for more than a century. As per the 1951 census, only 33.2% of Kolkata's inhabitants were city-born. The rest, including a small group of foreigners, were migrants. 12.3% came from elsewhere in West Bengal, 26.3% from other states in India and 29.6% were refugees from East Pakistan.Chatterjee, Partha, "Political Culture of Calutta", in “Calcutta, The Living City” Vol II, Edited by Sukanta Chaudhuri, Page 29, First published 1990, 2005 edition, Bandyopadhyay, Raghab, "The Inheritors: Slum and Pavement Life in Calcutta", in “Calcutta, The Living City” Vol II, Edited by Sukanta Chaudhuri, Page 79, First published 1990, 2005 edition, Chatterjee, Nilanjana, "The East Bengal Refugees: A Lesson in Survival", in “Calcutta, The Living City” Vol II, Edited by Sukanta Chaudhuri, Page 70, First published 1990, 2005 edition,
This brings us on to another aspect of the city. The slum population has grown at a much faster rate than the total city population, thereby indicating a growing ratio of the impoverished working population of the city. "Geographically, Calcutta is in a unique position vis-à-vis the whole of eastern India. The growth and prosperity of the region must involve Calcutta. How it will grow… is the great question to be answered."Ghosh, Ambikaprasad Ghosh, assisted by Chatterjee, Kaushik, The Demography of Calcutta, in “Calcutta, The Living City” Vol II, Edited by Sukanta Chaudhuri, Page 57, First published 1990, 2005 edition,
P. Thankappan Nair writes, “The six square miles within the Maratha Ditch (the original core of Calcutta) thus came to have the world’s highest density of population in that age. It was a heterogeneous population, sinking differences of caste, creed and colour under the sheer compulsion to interact and survive together. The compulsion has grown stronger ever since, as has the spirit it fostered. Hence Calcutta did not disintegrate when the capital was shifted to New Delhi in 1912. It has kept growing and living by the ever-renewed confidence and vitality of its inherent human forces.”Nair, P.Thankappan, The Growth and Development of Old Calcutta, in Calcutta, the Living City, Vol. I, p. 23, Edited by Sukanta Chaudhuri, Oxford University Press, 1995 edition.
Geography
Kolkata district lies between 22.037’ and 22.030’ North latitude and 88.023’ and 88.018’ East longitude. It occupies the east bank of the Hooghly in the lower Ganges Delta. The alluvial plain has an average elevation of 6.4 metres (17 feet) above mean sea level. A large part of the district comprises land reclaimed from wetland. The existing East Kolkata Wetlands has been designated a “wetland of international importance” by the Ramsar Convention.
Kolkata district is bounded by the North 24 Parganas district on the north and on the east, South 24 Parganas district on the south and Howrah district, across the Hooghly, on the west.
In terms of area, it is the smallest amongst all the districts of West Bengal but has the highest density of population. It is the only district in the state with cent per cent urban population. It has the lowest Scheduled Caste (5.38%) and Scheduled Tribe (0.24%) population in the state. Kolkata district is the only district in the state with a negative growth rate (−1.7%) for the 2001–2011 decade. Kolkata district has the second highest literacy rate (86.3%) in the state.
Kolkata metropolitan area, extending over an area of 1851.41 km2, is one of the six metropolitan areas in India. It includes the entire Kolkata Municipal Corporation area.
The Kolkata district collector is responsible for several citizen centric services which are neither being provided by the KMC nor Kolkata Police.
Demographics
Population
According to the 2011 census Kolkata district has a population of 4,496,694, roughly equal to the nation of Croatia or the US state of Louisiana. This gives it a ranking of 35th in India (out of a total of 640). The district has a population density of . Its population growth rate over the decade 2001–2011 was −1.88%. Kolkata has a sex ratio of 899 females for every 1000 males, and a literacy rate of 87.14%. Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes make up 5.38% and 0.24% of the population respectively.
Language
+ Kolkata city linguistic diversity as per (2011 census)2011 census censusindia.gov.in Languages Population Bengali 2,763,291 Hindi 1,034,363 Urdu 586,234 Oriya 26,158 Gujarati 25,667 Punjabi 15,913 English 8,932 Nepali 8,089 Tamil 6,508 Telugu 5,330 Malayalam 4,434 Sindhi 3,724 Others 28,607 Total 4,496,694
Bengali is the most spoken language, with 61.45% of the population. Another 22.19% speak Hindi and 13.04% Urdu. Odia, Gujarati, Punjabi, Marwari and Bhojpuri are also spoken by more than 10,000 people.