Calcutta Port Tour

Our first stop was the Marine Club, and the building spoke of a glorious era parties and celebrations. Established in 1925 it has 100 rooms. Now run down and merely a boarding house it had once upon a time a dance hall, a Billiard Room, Swimming pool, and the one stop for most sea farers. The Stella Maris Church stands tall beside it on Nimak Mahal Road, the origin of the name not known.

The British government abolished slavery in 1833-1834, but introduced a sophisticated form of slavery as indentured labour where young people were recruited to work in the sugar, cotton and tea plantations and railway projects in British colonies in different parts of the world.

Kolkata port was a major departure point for the labourers. The labourers were mainly recruited from neighbouring Bihar (then part of the Bengal presidency) and the United Province (present Uttar Pradesh) of British India. Great Britain had sent about two million indentured workers from India to its colonies between 1834 and 1920. Their primary destinations were: Guyana, Trinidad, Fiji, Mauritius and Suriname.

We visited the two memorials erected in the memories of those migrants in the Kolkata port area in the last decade – Indenture Memorial, established on 15 January 2011, and Suriname Memorial unveiled on 7 October 2015.

While the first one is dedicated to the indentured labourers in general, the memorial established in 2015 is dedicated to the labourers of the former Dutch colony of Suriname on the east Atlantic coast. This monument is in the form of a statue of a couple carrying a sack of belongings each, known as the Mai Baap (mother-father) statue; and is a replica of the original monument of the same name in Paramaribo, the capital of Suriname.

Near the Memorial dedicated to the Indentured labourers is also a clock tower, built in 1899, that was meant to guide “ships in transit” to set their time, says an inscription. Brian Paul Bach adds The Clock Tower was dedicated to the Duke of Connaught (Arthur, Queen Victoria’s youngest son), who was there in person and gave a speech.

We can find the mention of such labourers as protagonists in Amitava Ghosh’s Sea of Poppies, writings of V S Naipaul and other books. Descendants of early Indian migrants did trace their roots back to this place and the perilous journey their ancestors undertook from this very jetty which transformed lives of future generations.

Many books have been written even by women on the plight of separation, anxiety at leaving dear ones to find occupation and food, starved due to the recurring famines in their homeland. The records sadly are inaccessible though some records of the persons who left for foreign shores are available in the British and American Library.

We always tend to undermine the contributions that migrants make as cheap labourers. Unfortunately, they remain poorly paid, undocumented and rarely acknowledged. The Ghat needs to be cleaned and converted to an appropriate memorial and the records made public for the people to trace back their roots effortlessly.

The Garden Reach Jetty had some Bangladeshi ships docked to collect their cargo. Also known as the “Bhoot Jetty” many years ago every morning a crane positioned here was found turned inexplicably. Arinjit of our group added interesting trivia. The Hooghly navigators are considered the best in the world due to the erratic currents of the river. This stretch also has the only unmanned system. We learnt about the Flags of convenience and the protocols of lowered flags at sub]ndown and flags lowered when two ships crossed each other.

We stopped at the Swing Bridge and the mechanism was fascinating to say the least. It swings sideways to create two channels. It faces the Bascule bridge which folds vertically.

A morning well spent despite the traffic snarls and delays due to the ongoing Marathon in the city.

Content input Sabir Ahamed

The map of area @brian Paul bach