Introduction

Calcutta, which was the second city of the British Empire, had its origin in intense
commercial activity in the 18th century. The city’s development and expansion seemed to
have almost coincided with the emergence of the British as a paramount power in India,
as it gradually became a magnet for commercial, social and political activities, both
indigenous and colonial. The city had always provided a canvas for an interesting study
in urban development and much has been written about, spoken about and argued about
the origins and historical development of Calcutta. This study is an attempt to add to the
existing corpus of literature by examining Calcutta as an urban space, but with a focus on
the bazaars as centres of growth and as social entities primarily in the early colonial
period, i.e., second half of the 18th century to roughly the early years of the 19th century.
As Walter Hamilton had put it----
‘In Bengal, a bazar is a daily market where things in common use are regularly
sold, and it is not unusual to have them in a haut, where a number of petty
venders, besides the established shop-keepers frequent them.’1
The bazaar--- a site of economic exchange; of distribution of the daily necessities of life;
of negotiations and bargains; a meeting place for people belonging to multiple orders of
the society from far and wide--- was indeed, a milieu inhabited by various social and
economic classes. While it represented the economic condition of the region and of the
people, its history allows a glance into the lives of the upper tier of the Bengali
commercial classes who took up the roles of the farmers or owners of the bazaars. In
addition, it also provides a rather curious insight into the lower orders of the society who
frequented the market place as petty shopkeepers, vendors or even as customers. Through
the bazaars we can also peep into the workings of the underworld. The ‘bazaar’,
therefore, represented a complex and diverse social space and can be studied at different
layers of experiences. Its rather heterogeneous character invariably left its own distinctive
mark on the physical space it occupied and on its surrounding environs which tended to
develop and expand under its direct or indirect impact.

1
Walter Hamilton, A Geographical, Statistical, and Historical Description of Hindostan and The Adjacent
Countries, Vol. I, London, 1820, in P. T. Nair (ed.) Calcutta in the 19th Century (Company’s Days), Firma
KLM Private Limited, Calcutta, 1989, p.239.

1
 The periodisation in question takes into consideration several factors. The fact
that the story begins from the 1760s is related to the political history of the region of
Bengal. It was a time when, post-Buxar, the English East India Company had been able
to establish predominance over the province of Bengal and Calcutta emerged as the seat
of their political and fiscal power. It is essentially the story of Calcutta under the aegis of
the Company. Tracing the tale of the bazaars from this time on to the early years of the
19th century provides significant insights into the socio-economic conditions of Calcutta
of the times. Early 19th century comes as the exit point as by then the Company was
slowly but firmly taking over the reins of the urbanisation process in their first capital in
India. Through the establishment of the Lottery Committee (1817) and the eventual
foundation of the Municipal Corporation (1876), the colonial state tried to re-arrange the
public space of the city according to western concepts and civic sensibilities. It was
perceived by contemporary European observers as the beginning of ‘modernity’ in the
city. As a result, the ‘traditional urbanism’ 2 represented by the bazaars and their intricate
networks that had provided ample stimuli for urban expansion, specially in the native part
of the town (the northern part) throughout the 18th century, was relegated to a more
passive role. The dynamism that one can thus associate with the bazaars of Calcutta of
this period was gradually sidelined in the following century signaling a rupture in their
existence and urban role. In fact, it should be noted that the indigenous hats and bazaars
of early colonial Calcutta can indeed be seen purely as functional entities, enjoying a
separate identity from the world of ‘modern’ business and industry dominated by the
Europeans. And the indigenous economy functioned through the sophisticated and
complex network of bazaars which had its own institutions and forms of organisation.
Indeed the part of the world of commerce and credit which the official reports referred to
as the “bazaar” had a large degree of autonomy and a certain dynamism as well. 3 It is this
distinctiveness of the world of bazaars, their essential indigenousness that requires to be
emphasised in order to underline its importance in the historical evolution of Calcutta;
and hence the term is kept within quotes in the title of this work not only to highlight its
centrality with respect to the present study but also to stress on its uniqueness.

2
Pradip Sinha, Calcutta in Urban History, Firma KLM Private Limited, Calcutta, 1978, p.xi.
3
Rajat K. Ray (ed.) Entrepreneurship and Industry in India, 1800-1947, Oxford University Press, New Delhi,
1992, p.11.

2
 It is often argued that it was from these bazaars that the Indian industrial
capitalists emerged in the late 19th century. The bazaar in this capacity, as an economic
unit and as a part of a vast economic network within the larger colonial Indian economy,
has been studied by historians like Rajat K. Ray4 and Sabyasachi Bhattacharya5. Pradip
Sinha’s6 pioneering work has successfully linked the story of the bazaars with Calcutta’s
early urban growth and expansion and has also looked at the changing social geography
from the mid-18th to the mid-19th century. S. N. Mukherjee’s7 work also traces the
composition of the elite and the ‘politics’ among them in the 19 th century. Sumanta
Banerjee8 has dealt with the cultural history of both the elite and the subaltern of 19th
century Calcutta and in more recent times has discussed crime and criminality in the city
of the same period. In more recent years Partho Datta9 has linked the changing urban
space of Calcutta to the colonial interventions in the name of ‘planning’ and
‘improvement’ and has shown how it affected even the social dimensions within the city
life in the 19th and early years of the 20th century. None of the above works however, has
taken up the issue of the bazaars separately and from a socio-economic and cultural
perspective, especially for the period that the present study is concerned with. Among the
many scholars who wrote in the vernacular about the history of colonial Calcutta like
Sukumar Sen10, Radharaman Mitra11 or Benoy Ghose12, it was only Atul Sur who in his
Kolkatar Chalchitra dedicated a chapter to Calcutta’s bazaars. But he merely gave an
account of the bazaars which were then in existence and their possible locations over the
centuries. 13

4
Rajat K. Ray, ‘The bazaar: indigenous sector of the Indian economy’ in D. Tripathi (ed.) Business
Communities of India: A Historical Perspective, Manohar, New Delhi, 1984 and Ibid.
5
Sabyasachi Bhattacharya, ‘Regional Economy (1757-1857)--Eastern India 1’ in Dharma Kumar (ed.) The
Cambridge Economic History of India, 1757-1970, Vol.2, Orient Longman, Delhi, 1982.
6
Pradip Sinha, Op.cit.
7
S. N. Mukherjee, Calcutta: Myths and History, Subarnarekha, Calcutta, 1977.
8
Sumanta Banerjee, The Parlour and the Streets Elite and Popular Culture in Nineteenth Century Calcutta,
Seagull Books, Calcutta, 1988; Crime and Urbanization Calcutta in the Nineteenth Century, Tulika Books,
Delhi 2006 & The Wicked City Crime and Punishment in Colonial Calcutta, Orient Blackswan, Delhi, 2009.
9
Partho Datta, Planning the City Urbanization and Reform in Calcutta c.1800-c.1940, Tulika Books, New
Delhi, 2012.
10
Sukumar Sen, Kalikatar Kahini, Ananda Publishers Pvt. Ltd., Calcutta, 2010 (Fourth Reprint).
11
Radharaman Mitra, Kalikata Darpan, Subarnarekha, December 1980, Calcutta.
12
Benoy Ghose, Kolkata Shaharer Itibrittya, Vol. I, Bak Sahitya Pvt. Ltd., Kolkata, 2010 (Sixth Edition) &
Vol. II, Bak Sahitya Pvt. Ltd., Calcutta, 1909 (Fourth Edition).
13
Atul Sur, Kolkatar Chalchitra, Sahityolok, 1st Baishakh, 1390 (B. S.), Calcutta.

3
 Soumitra Sreemani14 in his Anatomy of a Colonial Town Calcutta 1756-1794 in
two particular chapters for the first time dealt with the bazaars in considerable detail. One
chapter titled ‘Bazar in Calcutta’s Morphology’ describes the bazaars of the city as they
were, their locations, types, ownership, conflicts, etc. for the period he is concerned with.
The other chapter titled ‘Tax, Toll and Police’ deals with the bazaars as the most
important source of revenue, though very briefly. Sreemani is right in pointing out that
the story of Calcutta and its bazaars can be submitted to both the theoretical propositions
that--- a bazaar attracts a settlement; and a settled population necessitates a bazaar. Yet
the bazaars have a story of their own, the detailed textures of which raises questions
about some of his conclusions. In the first place, Europeans did not receive a preferential
treatment in the disbursement of sanads for establishing private bazaars and the
distinctions he made between the European owned bazaars and an Indian owned bazaar is
untenable except as two forms of ownership. Moreover, he argues that the sanads,
granted unequivocally by the Company for bazaars, were actually selective ‘favours’ and
amounted to ownership thus making the sanads vitally important for all those who were
‘eager to acquire ownership of properties in the town’.15 The story of the private bazaars
in fact had greater complexities, in which a sanad of the government as a legal security
had little relevance in the ownership of private bazaars usually set up in private
properties. The apparent confusion and blurring of clear distinctions between the way the
public bazaars and the private owned bazaars were managed renders the basic argument
redundant. Again, Sreemani also calls the system of monopolies prevalent in the bazaars
as the kutkinadari system but in my understanding the under-renting of the farm of the
bazaars, by the Head Farmers or the ones who acquired the farms in the public auctions
conducted by the Company to the kutkindars, was called the kutkinadari system. The
monopolies were usually controlled and regulated by the latter and were not the system
itself. Like these and in case of several other points have I disagreed with Sreemani’s
conclusions. But the most important point where my work differs from Sreemani’s is that
while the latter has looked at the bazaar as a mere part of the bigger story of Calcutta’s
urban development, the present study attempts to understand them as distinct entities,

14
Soumitra Sreemani, Anatomy of a Colonial Town Calcutta 1756-1794, Firma KLM Private Limited,
Calcutta, 1994.
15
Ibid., p.83.

4
neither a mere economic unit nor merely a catalyst of urbanisation, but enjoying a distinct
socio-cultural existence. The very objective of the present exercise is to concentrate
completely and entirely on the story of the bazaars. A recent book by Jyotirmoy Sen16
titled Atharo O Unish Shatake Kolkatar Bazar (The Bazaars of Calcutta of 18th and 19th
Centuries), is an improvement over his earlier article with the same title and attempts at
understanding the bazaars, their establishment and their role in urban growth in the 18th
and 19th century. The sources for the latter period are predominantly the corporation
records, while for the earlier period they are not clearly stated. The narrative on the 18th
century at its best is sketchy, lacking in details, and without proper historical
interpretations and perspective. The corporation records are used primarily to understand
the unhygienic conditions of the bazaars and municipal measures taken to ‘improve’ them
in the 19th century.
The present thesis tells the story of the bazaar as ‘a place’ of business, residence,
social gathering, communication, cultural milieu and an administrative unit. The main
sources for the story have been gathered primarily from archival documents pertaining to
revenue, trade and the judiciary; the available maps; contemporary European accounts
and travelogues; and the various academic and scholarly works on the city. The
identification of the main features of the early colonial Calcutta bazaars is the primary
objective of the study and the proposed story needs to be traced through the alleys of
economic and urban significance before it reaches its main ‘social’ or ‘cultural’
denouement. Therefore, the entry point is the history of the beginnings of Calcutta as a
settlement and its emergence as a colonial town or a city. This would be an attempt to
situate the story of Calcutta in the context of urban history and the role of the bazaars
therein. As N. R. Ray has pointed out, “These (bazaars) served as media of exchange of
population on the one hand, and on the other promoted the growth of clusters of new
homesteads and their establishments in their immediate vicinity”.17

16
Jyotirmoy Sen, ‘Atharo O Unish Shatake Kolkatar Bazar’ in Anushtup, Year 45, 2nd Number, Calcutta,
2011 as well as his recently published book of the same name published by Alokananda Publishers,
Kolkata, June 2014.
17
Nisith Ranjan Ray, Calcutta The Profile of a City, K. P. Bagchi & Company, Calcutta, 1986, p.36.

5
 II
The first chapter deals with the origins and growth of Calcutta as a point of entry
into locating the bazaars in the cartographic impressions about Calcutta, linking it with
the history of Calcutta’s expansion. The maps used in this case are, e.g., the 1742 military
plan of the settlement on the eve of Siraj-ud-daula’s siege; the 1756 plan of Calcutta by
Lieutenant Wills also before Siraj’s invasion; a 1760 or 1764 revenue survey map of
Captain Cloud Martin; the map by Lieutenant Colonel Mark Wood in 1784 & 1785; the
map by A. Upjohn in 1792 & 1793; and John Augustus Schalch’s map of 1828. The
study of the maps would help us in establishing the importance of the bazaars as agents of
‘traditional urbanism’ and being the principal nucleus around which localities developed
in the early colonial period. Apart from establishing the importance of these bazaars in
the urban morphology of the city, the chapter also provides an account of the bazaars as
they were in the 18th century. From the observations of various travelers to the city during
the period concerned, a picture, however hazy, emerges with the predominant perception
of the native bazaars. The western distaste for the crowded busy native bazaars was more
than apparent in these writings. This kind of cultural depiction of the bazaars can then be
linked to the racial profiling of a colonial city. They became the main features of the
economy and the lifeline of the ‘Black’ or the native part of the town as distinct from the
‘White’ or the European section of the town. Moreover, the very indigenous nature of the
bazaars and their ‘medieval’ infrastructure ‘necessitated’ reform and ‘modernistaion’.
Two aspects are highlighted here---one relates to bazaars on public roads perceived as
disorderly and unauthorised thus requiring control; and second is linked with straw huts
within the bazaars as the main source of devastating fires to be replaced by tiled roofs and
brick walls. These attempts on the part of the colonial government to exert authority on
the bazaar can be interpreted as points of rupture, as briefly mentioned before, from
where the committees and municipalities took over the task of making a ‘city’ out of
Calcutta thus pushing the bazaars and their spontaneous uninhibited stimuli for
urbanisation to the sidelines.
The control of the colonial rulers did not remain confined here but extended to all
aspects of the bazaars----most importantly its revenue and since the main purpose of the
colonial rule in India was maximisation of revenue, it was only inevitable. The second

6
chapter deals in detail with the means by which the Company tried to exploit this space
and the administrative structure that came into being to serve this purpose. The Company
by acquiring the zamindari rights of the Sutanuty, Dihi Kalikata and Gobindapur also
came to ‘own’ the bazaars that lay within these settlements. These bazaars came to be
defined as the ‘Public’ bazaars. The Public Bazaars (twenty in number) in the late 18th
century were Burra Bazaar, Sutanuty Hat and Bazaars, Charles Bazaar or Shyam Bazaar,
Bazaar Hatkhola, Ram Bazaar, Sova Bazaar, Bytakhana Bazaar, Bow Bazaar, Lal Bazaar,
Dharmatala Bazaar, Arcooly Bazaar, Machua Bazaar, Kasaitala Bazaar, Colootala
Bazaar, Jaun Bazaar, Hat Jaunnagar, Hat Rajernagar, Colimba (Colinga) Bazaar, Simla
Bazaar and Simla Road Bazaar. In the later years this list was modified by way of both
inclusions and exclusions. The Company for proper management of these bazaars in the
early years of their rule had to depend on their native intermediaries. The bazaars were
regularly farmed out to the highest bidder in public auctions. The Company constantly
experimented with the time and forms of the leases trying to find the best suitable way.
For instance, the tenures were of different nature, including the right acquired in public
auction. But perhaps the most noteworthy of the grants in terms of its social ramifications
was the perpetual type or the mokurery bundabast or the sanad mahals. These were given
in perpetuity against a fixed annual rent. One such grant was given in 1774, when Ram
Bazaar was handed over to Kasinath Datta in perpetuity for a fixed rent of sicca Rs.750.18
But probably the most interesting example of this type of farming is the case of Raja
Nabakrishna Deb and his several bundobast with the Company. For example, he first
received the grant for Sova Bazaar on 20 th July 1774 in perpetuity for a jumma of
Rs.50019; then in 1778 he received the Talukdari of Sutanuty in exchange of Noapara,
against an annual rent of Rs.1237-13-120; again in 1789 there was an exchange between
the two parties over lands in Ichhapur.21 Such settlements usually amounted to the
farmers acquiring the role of zamindars within their holdings often defying the greater
imperial authority of the English. Thus, over the years one can identify a struggle within

18
Proceedings of the Calcutta Committee of Revenue, 24th October, 1774, West Bengal State Archives,
Kolkata.
19
Proceedings of the Committee of Revenue, 4th November, 1776, West Bengal State Archives, Kolkata.
20
Dated 28th April 1778. The Honorable East India Company to Rajah Nobkissen Attested Copy Grant of the
Tallookdarry of Sootalooty &c., courtesy Sri Alok Krishna Deb of Sova Bazaar Rajbari.
21
Proceedings of the Board of Revenue (Miss.) between 1788-1790.

7
this realm for power between the colonial authority and the farmers, frequently involved
in negotiation and compromises.
Coming back to the administrative structure of the bazaars, the Purchasers in the
public auctions first had to provide a responsible security in order to procure the farm.
This was to ensure that the Company was able to acquire the proposed jumma without
any deficit. In the initial years the Head Farmers or the Purchasers used to under-rent
their bazaars to kutkinadars who carried out further under-renting. Such hierarchical
levels of tenant-ship often led to problems of deficit on one hand, and consequent
oppression on the ryots or the bazaar people who paid the actual revenue, on the other.
The Company thus abolished the kutkinadari system in 1784. Apart from these men there
were the officers of the Company’s revenue department, namely, Etmamdars or Shiqdars
or Chokmundars or Sejwals who supervised the collection of the ground rent and the
various other duties of the public bazaars and through whom the Head Farmer paid his
dues. They collected directly in cases where the bazaars were made part of the khas
collections. This structure was further supported by what was described as the bazaar
establishment managed by the Aumeens or Sarkars who acted as general superintendents
of the various businesses conducted in the bazaars specially collections; the Muhuris or
the writers; the Peons or the messengers; Kotwals or Chowkidars as guards or men
responsible for the security of the life and property of the bazaar people; etc. These men
were appointed and paid by the Government, who in fact derived the expenses from the
revenue of the bazaars themselves.
As the Company farmed out their public bazaars at regular intervals in the above
arrangement, there were certain mahls or mahals which were also farmed out within the
same bracket. Mahals like these included the boat & sloop mahal (sale of boats or such
vessels, etc.); ganja mahal (marijuana); pan & sooparee mahal (beetle leaves & nuts);
abkary mahal (spirituous liquor); etc. They were monopolies which were manipulated by
the ijaradars and the kutkinadars and the trading in these sectors was thus restricted to a
select few. The Company obviously repeatedly tried to abolish this system as it affected
their collections.
It was revenue that prompted the Company to devise the above ways and means
to control the economy of the bazaar, a reason why the main source of information about

8
such bazaar revenue is a report given by the then Acting Collector of Calcutta J. H.
Harrington in 1788. 22 According to the report, the jumma (assessment) of the bazaars was
inclusive of the following heads as part of the khas collections from the lands of Calcutta-
-- Ground Rent; Muttcheriffa or a professional tax imposed on the lower castes like
artisans, primary producers, service providers, etc. (till its abolition in the 1790s); and
Chowkidary or the police tax introduced by the British. Going by the report there were
many other ancient taxes that were a part of the jumma as well. Most of these were
eventually abolished by the Government as they did not amount to much, while proving
oppressive for the impoverished caste groups. The jumma, on the other hand, was raised
by the farmers mainly from what were referred to as the ‘bazaar duties’. Two of the most
important duties in this bracket were the Tohbazaaree or Towbazaaree and a Tola. The
tohbazaaree was a kind of daily duty imposed on all goods exposed to sale in the open air
or stalls or tohbazaaras in a bazaar or on the streets or on Company’s ground. It was a
rent on the place of the sale. The tola or dan tola (to collect something as an endowment)
was a daily duty paid by the ‘Bazar Ryots’ or the vendors on all articles sold in the
Government bazaars. The latter was left for the farmers to assess and was also often
collected in kind. These bazaar duties were not standard or uniform but varied from one
bazaar to another but it contributed enormously to the overall revenue generation within
the urban limits of Calcutta for the colonial government.
The biggest threat to the Company’s regular source of revenue from these ‘public’
bazaars came from the ‘private’ bazaars. The third chapter takes up the issues of conflict
between the public and the private. This establishes the bazaars as the most significant
properties of contestations given the frequency and nature of the disputes in the period
concerned. Information in this regard comes from an extensive use of the huge number of
litigations to these effects recorded by the British which have never been used in this
manner before.
The private interfered with the public in different forms, for instances, in the form
of infringement upon the land of the bazaar, or imposition of illegal taxes, or
manipulation of the public auctions, or taking over the shops within the bazaars or not

22
Proceedings of the Board of Revenue (Miss.), 29th April, 1788, West Bengal State Archives, Kolkata.

9
allowing traders frequent the other bazaars by various means including violence.
Sometimes the Head Farmers themselves used the public bazaars to build their own
private ones. And the greatest threat to the public came from the establishments of these
private bazaars. The private bazaars very notably did not collect the established bazaar
duties which no doubt lured the traders. Various other incentives were also provided to
them to set up a shop in the private bazaar. These private bazaars may be divided into two
categories----i) those which were first proposed to the Company, then approved and
issued a sanad or a grant by the latter against an annual fixed rent or hustabood; i.e. the
‘authorised’ bazaars and; ii) those which did not seek any prior approval and did not hold
any sanad to the same effect and whose owners enjoyed absolute control over its affairs
and revenue; i.e. the ‘unauthorised’ bazaars. It was the uncontrolled growth of the latter
in the later years of the 18th century that alarmed the Company. The resultant efforts on
the part of the British Government to control such efforts to safeguard the interests of the
public bazaar led to a huge number of litigations between the two parties. These cases are
integral to my understanding of the way the bazaars emerged as precious landed
properties zealously protected by their owners. These also provide insight into the power
dynamics within the space of the bazaar settlements and the various identities emanating
from them.
The cases in addition also provide an idea as to the ownership of the bazaars
which included wealthy Bengalis as well as Europeans. The European ownership like that
of Tiretta, Sherburne and Short, again provided a challenge to the indigenous structures
of the bazaars as they tried to improve upon it in various ways, e.g., by the erection of a
walled, pucka bazaar with tiled shops, proper drainage system, separate slaughter house,
etc. Though the Company provided all the support for the successful erections for the
above bazaars, the frequency and sheer number of private bazaars that cropped up within
Calcutta in the first few years of the 1780s forced the English eventually to regulate these
impulses on the part of the rich individuals (both native and European) through a number
of measures which could be seen evolving throughout this time. By the time we reach the
19th century, the Government had become extremely strict in dealing with such practices.
Permissions for new bazaars were issued very sparingly compared to a more flexible
approach in the earlier century. What is more interesting is the process of negotiation that

10
was often initiated between the ‘private’ and the ‘public’ in the later years where both
often compromised with each other in order to survive---- sometimes the private
compromised by becoming a part of the public revenue structure (paying an annual sum
against a sanad or the authorised bazaars), while the public sometimes compromised by
allowing private intervention within their space for survival (in cases of Burra Bazaar,
Simla Bazaar, Dharmatala Bazaar, private land and enterprise was indulged in order to
improve or revive these bazaars and improving their chances against the private
competition). Again, the negotiations were not limited between the public and the private
but the ‘private’ themselves often fought among each other to protect their respective
interests, e.g., when the bazaars of two individuals was set up in the same locality,
interests were bound to collide. In such cases the Company played the role of the
mediator and tried to establish norms by which the private bazaars were established and
regulated. Such regulations did not however, ensure the end of disputes or establishment
of ‘unauthorised’ private bazaars but did reduce them (both cases and bazaars) in
numbers and frequency.
This story of the bazaars is followed up in chapters four and five by the stories of
the ‘bazaar people’. They include the farmers and the owners at the top and the traders,
vendors, hawkers, coolies, night-guards, below them. The upper tier was represented by
those nouveaux riches who first traded with the Europeans, and then traded on their
behalf as their banians and dewans. They accumulated great wealth for themselves and
established their credentials as the family-founders and fortune-makers of the city.
Initially this class of intermediaries ventured into the business of the bazaars as farmers
of the existing public bazaars; but once they realised the immense potential that these
markets held in terms of acquiring greater social and economic influence, they became
more adventurous and ventured into establishing private bazaars of their own. It was in
this capacity that they had to constantly negotiate their position with the colonial masters
in terms of enjoying the right of being an urban landlord within the city of Calcutta
complete with a bazaar and a bazaar settlement of their own. This class of bazaar owners
was aware of the importance of the rural landed estates, but they also invested heavily in
urban properties in the form of these bazaar settlements by peopling their lands with
primarily shopkeepers as tenants. The bazaars thus emerged as one of the most popular

11
‘business’ and entrepreneurial ventures on the part of the Bengali elite. Moreover, the
inability of this class to disassociate themselves from land, landlordism and aristocracy
ensured that they were attracted towards the bazaars primarily because the latter provided
the perfect geo-commercial space to establish an essentially urban zamindari as well as
avail of great commercial profits. Thus emerged a class of comprador-landlord-rajas who
emerged as mythical kings within their settlements wherein they often took up roles in
defiance of the imperial authority itself. It follows that the partnerships between the
colonial power and their intermediaries then were far from being steady and stable. The
instability can be explained in terms of the times that they lived in. Eighteenth century
can be considered as a crucial period with respect to the various historical changes that
were taking place in Bengal. The transition from the old to the new zamindaries; social
positions being defined more by wealth than caste; socio-cultural interaction between the
natives and the English colonisers; were features of the initial years for the Company
trying to find a strong foothold on a foreign soil. All of this contributed to volatile times
when all the actors met each other the half-way and came up with uneasy and crude
alliances. The Company may have come to believe that they were the absolute masters of
the land but for the natives, scope for negotiation always remained open. Therefore, such
transitional circumstances often led to situations where neither the intermediaries nor
their masters were willing to give up on whatever they were able to acquire as part of
their respective ‘zamindaries’ leaving room for confusions, and consequent conflicts.
This is reflected in a long running confrontation between the Company and their
‘favourite’ banian Raja Nabakrishna Deb over distribution of power and authority within
the Talukdari of Sutanuty. Such conflicts are a reflection of the times these men lived in
and provide a better understanding of their equation with the colonial rulers at such early
stages of foreign rule in this country which seems to be more than a mere partnership
between the ‘master’ and the ‘servant’.
These settlements also emerged as centres of a hybrid culture which blended the
legacy of an Indo-Persian culture with western accretions as the wealthy Bengalis began
to promote the babu culture represented by the akhrai culture which was more
specialised in its structure heavily influence by the Persian Nawabi traditions. More
common and popular preoccupations like theatre or jatra, a branch of performing arts

12
very popular among the lower classes often incorporating street songs about working
class occupations, also emerged, alongside Bai natch imported from the Muslim courts of
Murshidabad and Luknow. Patronage of various forms of this culture can be attributed to
the wealth of a class which attempted to earn a high social status through various means.
It has been argued that their attempts at reproducing the heritage that they had usurped
often led to ‘sanskritisation’ of their habits.23 Patronage of the Brahmins, baitakhi gaan
(as such musical concerts were held in the baitakhana or the drawing room of the patron)
or the akhrai culture were indeed expressions of this form. It goes without saying that
such cultural patronage was intimately linked with a sense of rivalry among these men to
ensure their relative importance in terms of social prestige and respectability within their
own social sphere as well as in the eyes of the colonial masters. The caste identities of
these families only complicated matters and brings us to the dals or caste groups and their
daladali. The family-founders found it extremely prestigious to be a dalapati of such dals
and the role of the comprador-landlord-raja now seems to be complete with a significant
responsibility pertaining to caste now lying on their shoulders.24
As far as the bazaar settlements were concerned the above men formed only a
fraction of the ‘bazaar people’. The main players were the traders, the merchants, the
artisans, the vendors of various kinds, the retailers, who set up their shops (permanent or
temporary) in the said bazaars and earned their livelihood. It was they who provided the
bazaars with their essential characteristic. We can divide these men into different
hierarchical categories. First, there were those big traders who traditionally dealt in cotton
cloth, silk etc. in the Burra Bazaar and were often involved in long distance trade. This
group eventually gave out to the Marwaris and the other non-Bengali merchants by the
end of the 19th century. Second, there was the dokandar who owned a shop or a stall of
daily necessities and other variety of articles, which was often an extension of his
residence itself. They were usually second hand retail vendors who bought their goods
from the wholesalers and their caste and their profession was not usually inter-related.
Third, there were those greater numbers of petty traders who did not reside in the bazaar
area but frequented it daily to sell off their perishable wares. These vendors were the

23
Ramakanta Chakrabarty, Nidhubabu O Tar Tappa, Punashcha, Calcutta, 2001, p.29.
24
S. N. Mukherjee, Op.cit.

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tohbazaaries. Their places of residence usually lay outside the limits of the cities and
they were usually cultivators or husbandmen, fishermen, etc. by profession and caste.
Fourth, there were the artisans who exposed their work for sale in these bazaars like the
potter, cobbler, carpenter, weavers, and other artisans. Their specialisations were usually
determined by their caste but inter-mingling of caste identities was not uncommon among
these professions specially in the 19th century. Fifth, there were also those traders who
monopolised the production and sell of certain articles like betel leaf and nut, tobacco,
etc. Sometimes their caste identities determined for them their specific monopoly but
usually in terms of production and not retail. Sixth, there were the feriwalas or hawkers
or the itinerant trader, who were not attached to any one particular bazaar, but roamed
around the city with their portable wares shouting out for purchasers of their goods.
Finally there were the mudeees the local grocer, who held shops all over the city on
untenanted lands and not necessarily always within a bazaar area. This categorisation is
based on social parameters and not necessarily economic concerns and also needs to be
read within a broad framework. The last category who frequented the bazaars but not as a
trader would be the lower class unskilled labour force that provided certain basic services
towards the functioning of the bazaars. They were the boatmen, coolies, sweepers and
night-guards. Many immigrants from the neighbouring states of Orissa and Bihar could
be found engaged in these professions. In such a commercial set up women can also be
located. They appear mainly as vendors of daily necessities (fruits, vegetables, fish, etc.)
in the maternal form of a Bhikarir Ma or a Chidamer Ma or a Gobindar Ma as well as
hawkers. It seems that the structural organisation of the larger commercial milieu of the
bazaar was very much dependent on the standard Hindu caste based social organisation
and various customs and traditions. This ensured that the bazaar remained closely linked
with the Indian community and its various habits and behaviour remained distinct from
the European market and its ‘rational’ ways.
The bazaars were also scenes of various criminal activities. Sumanta Banerjee has
divided criminals in 18th–19th century Calcutta into two groups---- the first group
constituted by the urban upper class included the British administrators, European
traders, their indigenous agents in the form of the dewans and the banians, and the
Bengali zamindars; and the second set of criminals were drawn from the unorganised

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impoverished classes within the city. They were the thieves, robbers and dacoits who
with time became fraudsters and swindlers not hesitating in duping the unsuspecting
consumer in the bazaar. The Machua Bazaar and the Bow Bazaar and the latter’s brothels
were also marked out by the police as places frequented by the members of the
underworld.
Finally, the present study has taken into consideration the social relations between
the bazaars their masters and the inter-personal relationships between the bazaar people
and their clients. It would be interesting to look at the possibilities of discontinuities in
these relations which must have contributed to the long term fate of the bazaars; and also
strains of continuation that ensured these spaces to retain some of their unique features
despite repeated impositions of western conceptions of a market place. The latter point is
significant in the context of India’s long history of cultural encounters. Since Wellesley’s
Minutes of 1803 for the civic improvements of Calcutta, the colonial intervention in the
urban space of the city and the subsequent ‘planning’ of the city by the Lottery
Committee eroded the multi-faceted role that was played by the bazaars in the growth of
Calcutta. In the name of improvement the colonial state began to overrun the social space
of the city challenging the traditional community life, which in the present context, was
embedded in the bazaar settlements. It follows, further, that such intrusions, the
introduction of western education and various other changes that accompanied it slowly
but eventually turned the attention of the patrons of the bazaars to matters more western.
Their affinity for tradition gave way to tastes which were new and influenced by the
western culture. Associations and political establishments became their new sources of
identities replacing the bazaars and their landed space; the patronage shifted from the
jatras and akhrai to more modern Bengali theatre and a general disassociation from the
more folk forms of entertainment. Therefore, it seems that the old bazaars now ‘under
attack’ from the colonial town planners lost their roles as function as stimuli for urban
growth. But what it did not lose was its basic ways and functions. The economic aspect of
this space was still significant and continued to be so. This ensured its survival within the
increasingly changing urban topography of Calcutta. This continuity can be traced in
present times as well in the form of the many bazaars that regularly sit and disperse
during fixed hours across the city. Thus, tracing the story of the bazaars from the early

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colonial period to the present times, one can trace both points of rupture as well the
features of continuity which stand out in their representational forms. And all of this
forms a significant part of the growth of Calcutta from a mere settlement by the river to
the first capital of British India, often proudly proclaimed by the British rulers as the
‘Second City of the British Empire’.

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