Talk:Kolkata/Archive 2

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I'm not arguing with anyone, nor do I wish to reply to this post. I only intend project my view. It is the British who built up cities like Calcutta, Bombay and Madras. Because of their urban planning, architectural wonders, administration and foresight, these cities are what they are today - Cosmopolitan & metropolitan. Compare it to non descript cities such as Ahemdabad and Jaipur, which cannot be termed as cosmopolitan.
Before the British arrived, Calcutta was a grassy hamlet and Bombay was made up of 7 little islands. If the British hadn't merged the 7 islands, Bombay would just be another hamlet on the Konkan coast. I think we should give credit to the British and not to some sleazy politicians who are just being xenophobic, bigoted and jingoistic. I still call my city Bombay irrespective of what others have to say. Nichalp 20:04, Apr 28, 2004 (UTC)

You say you are not looking to argue and yet you slap the most ludicrous of statements on to this page. The British architecture is no better than great Hindu or Islamic architecture preceding it. For the buildings which catered to British politicians we have a legacy of the draining of Indian resources by creating a railroad and export system to suck out Indian products and push back in English products, thus making India, a huge and rich land, dependent on a snot of an island in Europe! Britain succeeded only in impoverishing the nation, dividing it along communal lines. Before the British, incidents of Muslim-Hindu riots were at a low, and after their partitioning of Bengal, of their sectioning Urdu and Hindi, etc. etc. India was screwed by the arrival of the British, whether you have a strange backward Imperialist nostalgia, which sounds like an African-American reminiscing about the pre-Civil War slave days in the good old South. Note that sprawling metropolises like Lucknow and Hyderabad were gorgeous and actually boasted relative civil prosperity; before the Muslims several grand cities are known ruled by Hindu and Buddhist kings with far less internal strife than created by the British.

It cannot be estimated, even to millions, how much gold, silk, precious stones, manpower and misery was taken out of India by the British. Even the jewel in the British crown is Indian. Basically, British was a big goon who broke into someone?s house, held them at gunpoint, spit on their values and culture, and left with as much of a loot as he could take. During their stay, hundreds and thousands of Indians were forced into service of the British, formed into an army at the beck and call of British concerns and massacred at will. Indians, both Muslim and Hindu, were coerced into converting to Christianity and learning English, because without those conditions having been met, positions of even nominal power were off-limits. To decrease the cost of governing the country, the British created hundreds of puppet governments, led by the traditional Hindu and Muslim kings, to give the people of India the illusion of autonomy. Of course, as is well-documented, every court in India had a British advisor whose word was law. These were all administered to by emissaries of the queen of England. In 1857, Muslims and Hindus joined forces and fought against the British Rule. Indians call it a fight for Liberty, like that of the Americans and the French? of course, the British called it the Sepoy Mutiny.

Bengalis have been calling it Kolkata for years. If you're sorry to have seen the British leave that's fine, but your opinion is going to be met with mine (hence this monologue). Bombay can be Bombay, and Calcutta can be Calcutta, but it doesn't change the disgusting parasitic imperialism of the British overlords. All in all, the British did nothing good for India that would not have naturally come the twentieth century. India was left, in 1947, with extreme poverty, a crumbling infrastructure, political in-fighting fueled by British divide and conquer policy (attested to by British writers of the time) and a couple of missionaries. Any government left with this sort of a situation would be hard-pressed to correct the problems in a country already immense population-wise and diverse in terms of religion and cultures. Now, through pot-holes and bumps in the road, India is slowly picking itself up. --LordSuryaofShropshire 20:22, Apr 28, 2004 (UTC)

• I did not state that Indian architecture is anyway inferior to European. You have to appreciate the fact that beautiful fusion architecture is present in both Calcutta and Bombay such as Victoria Memorial, Victoria Terminus etc. Built by the British, who else?
• I DO NOT dispute the fact that India was milked of its resources.
• I'm not saying that the British were innocent of their crimes.
• I'm stating that infrastructure was better under colonial times. I'm not pro colonial, its only that politicans today haven't matched up the the british rule in terms of infrastructure.
• Learning English has its privileges today. If it wasn't for English we would be in the position China & Estonia are in. Trying to achieve "English parity' with India and the rest of the world.
• The roads used to be washed daily in the past. Has a road ever been washed?
• Slums have mushroomed after independance. Who's responsible?
• Roads have become narrower in cities due to uncontrollable hawkers.
• An article in the Times of India stated that there is no urban planning takinen today to find out the consequences of an action, as was done in british time. this was w.r.t. flyovers in Bombay. Any flyover is built without seeing to the future implications.
• Divide and rule is not a charecteristic of the British only. It was already divided before they arrived with infighting among the kingdoms. Remember one of the failures of the Mutiny of 1857? the Jats, Sikhs did not take part in the revolt.
• I believe that till 1857 the East India company ruled India. The Queen formally only took over after 1857, not before.
• After the railways were built, do you know that it took 50 years to build something as remarkable as what was built back then. I'm talking about the Konkan Railway Line. (Its acknowledged by the KR themselves, I'm not making it up).(what's the reason why?
• Except in Bombay (I dont know about Delhi) is there any conservation of architecture in India? (There's a beautiful gate in Lucknow, I've passed by it, unfortunately decrepitated.)
• Who founded the two cities and built it up? It didn't exist before the British arrived.
• Finally I wish to state that Even though they were Goons, a lot of positive things came about from the British (mis) rule, and that should not be overlooked.

Nichalp 09:40, May 4, 2004 (UTC)

Naming policy poll

→Raul654 has started a poll, asking if the most common english name or the proper local name should be used for locations. This city is listed as an example. The poll is at Wikipedia:Naming policy poll -- chris_73 07:52, 23 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Germans

Germans in Calcutta. Could someone elaborate?

Moved from Talk:Calcutta

I changed this to a redirect because too many links direct to here referring to the city. Not many people know of the name change. --Jiang 05:43, 24 Aug 2003 (UTC)

The name "change" made in 1999 didn't change the way the city is referred to in English, at least not yet: "Calcutta" gets 917,000 google hits; "Kolikata" gets 1230; "Kalikata" gets 1200. "Calcutta" appears in the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary (2003) and the others don't. -- Someone else 05:55, 24 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Should the page be moved here then? --Jiang

That would be my suggestion, but you might want to ask around. I don't really think the gambling term needs disambiguation, but obviously someone did... that could be done on the city's page, though, without a separate disambiguation page. -- Someone else 06:11, 24 Aug 2003 (UTC)

We've been through that whole discussion more than once - see talk:Kolkata and/or talk:Kyiv. Mkweise 06:24, 24 Aug 2003 (UTC)

The name change was to "Kolkata," which is the Bengali name for it and in use concordantly with the British one. It is well-known around the world in diplomatic circles but has not outstripped "Calcutta" in English currency. Kalikata/Kolikata was the original name of from which the latter two, Kolkata and Calcutta, derived. I have made mention of it in the intro since it is important and should not just be ignored, especially since naming convention has presided over "Calcutta"'s use as standard in the article anyway. --LordSuryaofShropshire 04:51, Jun 11, 2004 (UTC)

So, I'm still confused about the names "Kalikata" and "Kolkata". If "Kalikata" is not the Bengali name, what is it? Why did the city go from "Kalikata" to "Kolkata", and when did this happen? john k 05:50, 11 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Kalikata is the Bengali name, however it was in use back in the 16th century. It went to Kolkata because of usage, much like Chaucerian English changed in pronunciation to resemble more recognizable (to us) forms today. People used to pronounce a word like "was" as "vaaz" in the Middle Ages. Vowel shifts, regional incursions by different accents, have all contributed. In the same way, Kalikata morphed into Kolkata. The British, who changed names to suit their own accents, preferred Calcutta to Kolkata. --LordSuryaofShropshire 17:09, Jun 11, 2004 (UTC)

I'd like to add that there are two forms of Bengali... the highly literary, completely pure form whose grammar is very old, Sadhu Bhasha, and there is the more common, standard form spoken today, based on the "Calcutta"/"Kolkata" Bengali, known as Cholit Bhasha. Both are highly regarded when written properly in literature. Rabindranath Tagore set the standard for high literature in the modern strain. His own name is an example of the Kalikata - Calcutta trend. His name, and the form he always signed with in his writings, and that by which he is known by all Bengalis, is "Thakur," which means "God." Anglicization rendered it Tagore in English-speaking circles. Anyway, in his voluminous writings (preponderantly in Bengali) he always referred to Calcutta as "Kolkata," but there are times when he mentions "Kalikata" as well, a deliberate throwback to the original name. This is just some background on the name situation in Bengal. As for Kalikata, its first known usages were in tax records by Akbar and a mention by Bipridas, a 15th/16th century Bengali poet, in reference to the city now known as Kolkata/Calcutta. --LordSuryaofShropshire 17:16, Jun 11, 2004 (UTC)

Okay, thanks, that makes sense. Perhaps this should be laid out more clearly in the article. john k 17:37, 11 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I agree... perhaps a "History of the Name" section might be added, though the preliminary intro mentioning Kolkata as official can be retained. I'll see to it within the next week if nobody else crops up with ideas. --LordSuryaofShropshire 18:00, Jun 11, 2004 (UTC)

Yes, that Kolkata is now the official name should definitely be mentioned at the beginning. john k 19:34, 11 Jun 2004 (UTC)