ASIA / PACIFIC
Page 4 n THE ASIAN REPORTER
January 15, 2018
Strolling through Kolkata’s colonial past
By Denis D. Gray
The Associated Press
OLKATA, India — The British
left footprints across their
far-flung colonial empire from
Toronto to Yangon. But nowhere is there
as vast and varied a collection of heritage
architecture than in Kolkata.
Thousands of buildings — including
homes, churches, palaces, and even
synagogues — survive here from the days
of the Raj, when Britain ruled India.
This marvellously exuberant, madden-
ingly chaotic city began as a small trading
post in the 1690s, rose to become the seat of
British power, and now ranks as India’s
third largest city, a megalopolis of some 15
million people.
Unlike countries which opted to
eradicate the physical legacies of
colonialism, India has accepted them as
witnesses to history. The prime eradicator
of Kolkata’s past has not been politics, but
those whom preservationists call “land
sharks,” developers against whom they
wage a sometimes winning, sometimes
losing, battle.
To dip into Kolkata’s bygone era, my
wife and I stayed at the Oberoi Grand
Hotel, took afternoon tea at the still
oh-so-English Bengal Club, and best of all
signed up for a guided walk around
Dalhousie Square, the onetime epicenter
of the British Raj.
Dating back to the late 1880s, the
Grande Dame of Calcutta, as the Oberoi
and Kolkata were earlier known, was the
social hub of the colonial city. During
World War II, it was partytime head-
quarters for American soldiers. Today the
hotel is an oasis of tranquility amid the
surrounding vibrant street life, offering
palm-shaded courtyards, Victorian four-
poster beds, and service which viceroys
would find hard to fault.
The Bengal Club, another enduring
social fixture, has been catering to elites
since 1827, and the lovely premise strives
to keep the modern world at bay. One may
forget it is 2018 while sipping tea in a
politely hushed room named after the
prominent 18th-century British painter
K
Joshua Reynolds, one of whose works
hangs on its pastel yellow walls. The
colonials also tried to shut out a
dramatically changing India: Incredibly,
the club only opened its doors to Indians in
1959 — 12 years after independence was
won.
“It was from here that 200 British
officers ruled over 200 million Indians,”
remarked our guide, Ramanuj Ghosh,
pointing to what is now the 133-room home
of the state governor, where British
viceroys resided during most of the 238
years when Kolkata served as India’s
capital. Modelled on a stately home in
England, it was encased in six acres of lush
gardens and built in the Gregorian style.
What soon became obvious on our walk,
even to an untrained eye, was the
incredible architectural melange. The
Victoria Memorial, the city’s most
imposing colonial structure, is described
as designed in “the Indo-Saracenic
revivalist style which uses a mixture of
British and Moghul elements with
Venetian, Egyptian, Decanni, and Islamic
architectural influences.” Dedicated to the
memory of Queen Victoria, its vast art and
artifact collections include her childhood
piano and a writing desk.
Our four-hour stroll through 300 years
of history took us past the 1868 post office
COLONIAL KOLKATA. A popular café (top
photo) in Kolkata, India draws a steady flow of cus-
tomers for its famed “chai,” or spiced tea, and but-
tered toast. Kolkata is a paradise for lovers of local
street food. Pictured in the bottom photo is India’s
first supreme court, in Kolkata, which was completed
in 1872. (Denis D. Gray via AP)
and the Royal Insurance Building, still
busy today, where British officials would
ride their horses right up to their desks. At
the vast Writer’s Building, India’s still
notorious bureaucracy administered a
population which also included Greeks,
the Dutch, Armenians, and others.
Kolkata once was also home to some
6,000 Jews, though there are just a
handful living here today descended from
the Jews who settled here in the late 18th
and early 19th centuries. The city’s oldest,
now restored synagogue Neveh Shalome,
dates back to 1831.
Most of the buildings we saw, about
1,000, are on a protected heritage list. But
many others are decaying or have been
razed.
“Indian people want to preserve the
past. We don’t easily make way for the
new, but powerful market forces are work-
ing against this,” says Bonani Kakkar,
who heads People United for Better Living
in Calcutta, an environmental and
preservation group.
Developers, she says, approach owners
of dilapidated homes, offer them new
condos in exchange and then take them
down to build high-rises. The solution, she
believes, is to either “make people boast
that they live in old buildings” or to bring
them to life again by turning them into
B&Bs, art galleries, and music venues.
Philip Davies, an authority on colonial
architecture, notes that there are more
heritage buildings in the city than all of the
United States, but that Kolkata is a
“sleeping giant at the crossroads.”
“It is stumbling toward the future rather
than grasping the spectacular oppor-
tunities afforded by its heritage. Its
unparalleled heritage is crumbling from
neglect, and falling prey to random,
speculative development.” But he hopes a
brave new vision will save one of the
world’s great historic cities.
Aid group projects 48,000 births
in crowded Rohingya camps
By Julhas Alam
The Associated Press
HAKA, Bangladesh — An international aid
agency projects that 48,000 babies will be born
this year in overcrowded refugee camps for the
Rohingya Muslims who have fled to Bangladesh from
neighboring Myanmar.
Save the Children warned in a recent report that the
babies will be at increased risk of disease and
malnutrition, and therefore of dying before the age of five.
Most of the babies will probably be born at home in tents,
the agency said.
“The camps have poor sanitation and are a breeding
ground for diseases like diphtheria, measles, and cholera,
to which newborn babies are particularly vulnerable,”
said Rachael Cummings, the agency’s health adviser in
Cox’s Bazar, the nearest city to the camps. “This is no
place for a child to be born.”
More than 600,000 Rohingya, a minority group from
Rakhine state in western Myanmar, have fled what the
United Nations says is a campaign of ethnic cleansing by
the Myanmar military and Buddhist mobs since late
August last year. Many live in flimsy tents made of plastic
and bamboo in camps and makeshift settlements. Almost
60 percent are children, many of whom suffer from disease
and malnutrition, UNICEF has said.
A Bangladeshi official called the projection of 48,000
babies mind-boggling.
“Simply, this will be disastrous and terrible for us,” said
Priton Kumar Chowdhury, a deputy director of the
government’s social-services department in Cox’s Bazar.
“I can’t imagine it, and my brain does not actually know
how to deal with this.”
D
SACRED SWIMMING. A Hindu holy man offers prayers after taking
ritualistic dips at “Sangam,” the meeting point of Indian holy rivers the
Ganges and the Yamuna, on the auspicious day of “Paush Purnima” dur-
ing the annual ritual of Magh Mela in Allahabad, India. Hundreds of thou-
sands of devout Hindus are expected to take holy dips at the confluence
during the astronomically auspicious period of 45 days celebrated as
Magh Mela. (AP Photo/Rajesh Kumar Singh)
Hindus in India and Nepal
mark auspicious day
ALLAHABAD, India (AP) — Some 200,000 Hindu
pilgrims arrived at the confluence of two major Indian
rivers on the first major bathing day of a 45-day annual
ritual known as the Magh Mela.
Many stay in makeshift houses or tents in the northern
city of Allahabad, where the Yamuna river meets the
Ganges as well as the mythical Saraswati river. Hundreds
of thousands of Hindus are expected to take a dip in the
holy waters on astronomically auspicious days.
In neighboring Nepal, Hindus offered prayers along the
banks of the Hanumante river as the monthlong Madhav
Narayan festival started in the city of Bhaktapur. The
collaboration includes devotees reciting holy scriptures
and women fasting for a month to pray for the longevity of
their husbands.
CROWDED CAMPS. A pregnant Rohingya Muslim woman, Noor
Aysha, who crossed over from Myanmar into Bangladesh, holds her
10-month-old son Anamul Hassan inside her shelter in Thaingkhali refu-
gee camp, Bangladesh, in this October 21, 2017 file photo. An interna-
tional aid agency projects that 48,000 babies will be born this year in
overcrowded refugee camps for the Rohingya Muslims who have fled
to Bangladesh from neighboring Myanmar. Save the Children warned
in a recent report that the babies will be at increased risk of disease and
malnutrition, and therefore of dying before the age of five. (AP Photo/
Dar Yasin, File)
His department has identified more than 36,000
orphans in the camps, he said.
Save the Children based its projection on an estimate of
the number of pregnant women among the refugees.
Bangladesh has been negotiating with Myanmar to set
up a protocol for the voluntary return of the Rohingya, but
it remains unclear if and when they will go back, given
continuing concern for their safety in Myanmar.