Calcutta of the Kols, Kalighat or Khal-kata?

Sutanati together with Gobindapur and Kalikata was to grow up into the bustling metropolis of today.

It has been suggested that Khal-kata derived from the digging of the Maratha Ditch in 1742 is the source of the anglicised version of the name, while the Bengali Kalikata originated from Kali-kota, the home or abode of Goddess Kali at Kalighat or a corruption of Kalighatta or Kalishetra.

It could equally have been derived from Kol-ka-hata, the land of the Kols of Dravidian origin, but there is no record of this community having inhabitated lower Bengal, according to the authoritative Calcutta The Living City, a collection of articles edited by Sukanta Chaudhury, Professor of English, Jadavpore University and a writer on Calcutta.

Another explanation of the name suggests that the place was a kata a warehouse or klin for kali or unslaked lime.

Also it might have been a derivative of Kilkila an ancient province measuring 21 yojans equivalent to 160 square miles.

"Ironically, Kalikata or Calcutta was much less important an Sutanati or Gobindapur … It’s very unimportance, and consquent emptiness, afforded the British room to settle there", Prof Chaudhuri writes.

Full time urban historian and a Fellow of the Asiatic Society of Bengal P Thankappan Nair, in his article The Growth and Development of Calcutta says Sutanati and Gobindapur feature in old MAPS, like Thomas Bowrey’s of 1687 and George Heron’s of 1690, but Kalikata, situated between the two, finds no mention there.

“Calcutta had no legally defined boundaries before 1794. In popular parlance the name was confined to the Fort William region old, (1696) or new (1757), the rest being European ‘suburbs’ or `native town’.

The first attempt at definition came from Alexander Hamilton, an inhabitant and house owner, in 1708: “The Company’s Colony is limited by a landmark at Governapore (Gobindapur) and another near Barnagul (Baranagar) about six miles distant: and the Salt-Water Lake bounds it on the land side."

The earliest official description dates from 1754: “The Company’s Settlement of Calcutta is situated upon on a bow of the River Ganges the points of which are Salmons Garden to the Southward and Perrin’s Garden to the Northward. Our bounds extend inland in a kind of curve too, the greatest distance of which from the River is about a Mile and a Quarter.”

In 1774, Warren Hastings proposed the boundaries of Calcutta for policing purposes as `South–Carry Jurie, a village under Mathurapur thana); North – Palta, a village in Calcutta Pergunna; East–Baddacherry (Bidyadhari river); West–Ganges.

The Charter of the Supreme Court of Judicature at Fort William, set up in the same year, does not spell out the Court’s area of jurisdiction.

A 1799 judgement, however, cites the `Kidderpore Nullah’ as the southern boundary, completing the circuit of the Hooghly and the Maratha Ditch or Circular Road.

At last in 1794, the Governor-General Lord Cornwallis fixed the boundaries of Calcutta for municipaland judicial purposes practically as they were to remain till 1867.

A proclamation of Septemebr 11, 1794 gives a detailed account, which is adequately summarised inan Act of 1840:

"North, Marhatta Ditch, east, Circular Road (which wasconstructed along the Eastern portion of the Ditch): West, the Hooghly; and South, Lower Circular Road to Kidderpore Bridge and Tolly’s Nullah to the river, including the Fort and Cooly Bazar (Hastings)", according to Nair.