Calcutta to Kolkata

Kalikata

Calcutta is an anglicised version of the Bengali name Kalikata. Some say that comes from Kalikshetra, “ground of the goddess Kali”. Others trace it to a settlement on the bank of a canal (khal), or to the Bengali words for lime (kali) and burnt shell (kata), since the area made shell lime.^[1]

The name is old. Kalikata appears in the rent-roll of the Mughal emperor Akbar, who reigned from 1556 to 1605, and in a poem by the Bengali poet Bipradas from 1495.^[2]

Three villages and a trading post

In 1690 Job Charnock, an agent of the English East India Company, set up a trading post on the Hugli river. Indian merchants had already settled three villages there, Sutanati, Kalikata and Gobindapore, which later became parts of Calcutta. In 1698 the English obtained the right to buy the revenue rights of the three villages, in effect owning them, and the area around Fort William became Calcutta.^[2]

Charnock was long called the city’s founder. In 2003 the high court in Kolkata ruled that, because people had settled the site long before he arrived, his role was not enough for him to be recognised as its founder.^[6]

2001

On 23 December 2000 India’s central government approved renaming the city Kolkata.^[3][4] It took effect on 1 January 2001. Signboards, street signs and postmarks were repainted, and offices changed their stationery. Bombay and Madras had already become Mumbai and Chennai.^[3]

West Bengal’s legislature then passed the West Bengal Capital City (Change of Name) Act, 2001, notified on 28 August 2001 and treated as in force from 1 January 2001. It says the change was made “in consideration of the historical, social and cultural aspects” of the state and its capital, and that “Calcutta” in any law is to be read as “Kolkata”.^[5]

“The name of the Capital City of the State of West Bengal, Calcutta shall on and from the date of commencement of this Act be known as Kolkata.”^[5]