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The Black Hole of Calcutta

• Message 1.Β 

  Posted by hereisabee (U2342191) on Monday, 20th June 2011

  Today is the day when in 1756 this most notorious of events in school history books took place. The other year there was an interesting article in the Ashmolean Magazine, as ever I did not keep that issue, however it all revolved round a coin that had been discovered of that period. The details escape me but it cast doubt on the accuracy of the events which was recorded from the testimony of just one person rather than a corroborative account. Perhaps someone knows more?
  

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• Message 2

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  Posted by rhmnney (U14528380) on Monday, 20th June 2011

  In Calcutta its claimed that the incident never happened, however soldiers have told me that they had visited the site in Calcutta. Who said, "There's one born every minute". Also told in elementary school there are enough pieces of wood sold from the Cross (the Big one) to build every country's wooden warships, and those yet to come.

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  Posted by jenny (U14149730) on Tuesday, 21st June 2011

  "In Calcutta its claimed that the incident never happened,"
  
  Is this an 'official' view of the current Indian government?
  
  if so, it's a big mistake (worse than a crime, a blunder), as it immediately makes one suspect that the country cannot accept anything more politically sophisticated and realistic than an Orwellian 'Two legs bad, four legs good' take on history (with the 'natives' having four legs and the 'evil colonials' having two....)
  
  I wonder to what extent the incident coloured future relations between Europeans and 'natives'.....ie, how much did it contribute to the dangerous 'Heart of Darkness' myth about the 'intrinsic savagery' of non-Europeans (a view which, of course, got its comeuppance at Auschwitz....)

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  Posted by White Camry (U2321601) on Tuesday, 21st June 2011

  As usual, the Gospel According to St. Wiki has a page on the subject.
  
  
  
  

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  Posted by rhmnney (U14528380) on Tuesday, 21st June 2011

  jenny I do not have the 'official' view of the current Indian government.
  
  one must remember the Victors write the 'Official History', and as its taught.
  
  you have stated an Opinion, which should never be in a discussion of history trying to verify facts.
  
  Sgt. Friday of Dragnet, "Stick to the facts Mam".
  
  The 'Sepoy Mutiny' for the British, was the 'First Struggle for Freedom and Independence' for Indians. Depends on who's ox is getting gored, and all that kind of stuff.
  
  Of the wartime landing of Hess in Scotland I have read three, 'Official Accounts' and they all differ, even eyewitnesses. I would not put trust in official accounts.
  If it fits use it.
  
  Doubtful if one will know the true facts of the alleged, 'Black Hole of Calcutta'.

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• Message 6

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  Posted by hereisabee (U2342191) on Tuesday, 21st June 2011

  Thanks WhiteCamry for the link, clearly there is much to doubt, still what is one coin either. I remember the significance was to do with the embossed head of the Mogul ruler and date on the coin.
  
  Now the Calcutta Cup was named, because it was made from the melting down of Mogul silver coins?
  

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  Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Tuesday, 21st June 2011

  I find the Wiki version rather typically revisionist and the question of numbers largely irrelevant for the period .
  
  (a) By English standards of the time a the mindless or deliberate killing of people was called a "massacre" when the casualty figures were no more than a dozen or so. Hence the Boston Massacre in the build up to the American Declaration of Independence, or the Peterloo Massacre during the post-war discontent during the depression in Lancashire after Waterloo. In both cases- as in the Black Hole of Calcutta incident what was shocking that that the killing was done by forces of government reflecting a failure in that duty of care that is incumbent upon all of those entitled to exercise military force in time when this is an unfortunate necessity.
  
  The Amritsar Massacre of 1919 followed outrages in Amritsar when a handfull of British bankers and such were murdered and the banks set on fire, and more significantly when a British missionary, Miss Sherwood, had been gang-raped and left for dead. Only one. But one was one too many for Governor O'Dwyer.
  
  (b) My own prefered history of India was written and produced by a group of Indian Professors of History in 1947 for advanced study within the newly Independent India, at a time when such historians had living knowledge of the reality of British India. And their treatment of the development of Calcutta and this incident has very much the ring of truth.
  
  Towards the end of the Seventeenth Century, when Bengal had a great cotton textile industry and the British East India Company were very anxious to open up both Britain and Europe to the Indian export trade, the Nawab of Bengal granted the Company the right to build a factory based around five small villages up branches of the Hooglie River. This very quickly developed into the thriving city of Calcutta (now one of the largest cities in the world). But by the time of Suraj Ad Dowlah the terms on which the Company held what had originally been worthless real-estate no longer seemed to reward the Nawab adequately for having this great economic powerhouse within his realm. So by finding a pretext on which to go to war against the Company he hoped to participate in the kind opf pattern of warfare, pillage and spoliation that was endemic within the Indian sub-continent. This was often connected to the fact that much of the ruling elite in the Sub-continent were descended from Muslim Conquerors from the outside, with the post-independent situation reflecting the fact that the Muslims of the sub-Continent were either the fabulously rich ruling elite, or the rank and file Muslim soldiers who were rewarded with small peasent holdings, and the possibility of the "spoils of war" from time to time.
  
  Incursions like the great one by the ruler of Afghanistan in the first half of the eighteenth century made such a military establishment an unavoidable necessity, until the Sepoy forces that the Company recruited to protect its factories from pillage and spoliation were able to show that the British Company would now normally prove more effective. But the French encouraged Native Princes to join in their struggle against the British and the Napoleonic era saw some of the worst exploits of pillage, rape and despoliation in the Mahratta Wars. After this the settlement achieved by the Wellesly Brothers removed the right of "subsidiary allies" to make war on their own account.
  
  And going back to Suraj Ad Dowlah no doubt having seized Calcutta rather like the Sudanese pirates, he could hope to negotiate a good deal for its return to the Company.
  
  Cass
  
  

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