B.B.D. Bagh | |
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Neighbourhood in Kolkata (Calcutta) | |
![]() The Writer's Building at B.B.D. Bagh | |
Coordinates: 22°34′19″N88°20′56″E / 22.572°N 88.349°E | |
Country | ![]() |
State | West Bengal |
City | Kolkata |
District | Kolkata |
Metro Station | Mahakaran |
Kolkata Circular Railway | B.B.D. Bagh |
Municipal Corporation | Kolkata Municipal Corporation |
KMC ward | 45 |
Elevation | 36 ft (11 m) |
Population | |
• Total | For population see linked KMC ward pages |
Time zone | UTC+5:30 (IST) |
PIN | 700001, 700062 |
Area code | +91 33 |
Lok Sabha constituency | Kolkata Uttar |
Vidhan Sabha constituency | Chowranghee |
Binoy-Badal-Dinesh Bagh, shortened as B. B. D. Bagh, formerly called Tank Square and then Dalhousie Square (1847 to 1856), [1] is the administrative, financial and commercial region and one of the central business districts of Kolkata, capital of the Indian state of West Bengal. It is the seat of Government of West Bengal and houses all three branches of it. The area consists Writers' Building, the official state secretariat building, Raj Bhavan, the residence of Governor of West Bengal, Vidhansabha Bhavan, the building housing the West Bengal Legislative Assembly and also the Calcutta High Court.
Memorials |
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B. B. D. stands for three young Indian independence activists — Benoy Basu, Badal Gupta and Dinesh Gupta [2] — who on 8 December 1930 assassinated the Inspector General of Prisons, N.S. Simpson, in the balconies of the Writers' Building of the then Dalhousie Square. The square had been named after Lord Dalhousie, Governor General of India from 1847 to 1856. At different times it has been called ‘The Green before the Fort’ and the Tank Square. [3]
As we enter the town, very expansive square opens before us, with a large expanse of water in the middle, for public use… the square itself is composed of magnificent houses which render Calcutta not only one of the best town in Asia but one of the finest in the world. One side of the square consists of a range of buildings occupied by persons in civil employments under the Company, such as writers in public offices. [4]
Louis de Grandpré, A Voyage in the Indian Ocean and to Bengal (1803)
The B.B.D. Bagh area is near the Hooghly River in the western part of Central Kolkata and is a square built around the old Lal Dighi tank. The old fort built by the British was near where the General Post Office now is. The area was in the heart of Kalikata or the White Town in old Calcutta.
B.B.D. Bagh (or Dalhousie Square as it was formerly known) was created as the center of the British East India Company's trading post along the banks of the Hooghly River. Between the river and the tank (now known as Lal Dighi), lay the original Fort William. In the summer of 1756, Nawab Siraj ud-Daulah of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa launched an attack on the British town for the company's decision to strengthen the fortifications around it. The survivors of the attack were sent to a garrison within the fort which spurred an incident infamously known as the Black Hole of Calcutta. The British soon retook the city after the Nawab retreated from the forces of Robert Clive. Within a year, the British East India Company's forces had taken all of Bengal and Calcutta, along with the square, was established as the commercial and political center of British India.
Over the next one and a half centuries, the square grew in importance and influence. It was named after Lord Dalhousie, the Governor-General of India. After the fall of company rule in India, Writers' Building became the secretariat of the Viceroy of India. A number of corporations and institutions opened offices and headquarters in and around the square, giving it its role as the central business district of the city. In 1912, the capital of the British Raj was officially moved to New Delhi, but the majority of the financial and political institutions in the area remained until the late 1920s.
During the first half of the 20th century, the Indian Independence Movement began to reach its peak and took a violent turn in Bengal. On the eighth of December 1930, three revolutionaries, Benoy, Badal and Dinesh, stormed the building and fatally shot the Inspector General of Prisons, N.S. Simpson. The three attempted to commit suicide. Although Binoy and Badal succeeded in doing so, Dinesh was hospitalized and later hanged by the British officials.The square was renamed B.B.D. Bagh in their honor after Indian independence. In 1947, the political establishments were officially handed over to the government of India and the government of the newly formed state of West Bengal. Over the next few decades, Kolkata would go through rapid economic decline, but B.B.D. Bagh would remain the heart of East India.
B.B.D. Bagh is still the commercial [5] and political center of all of East India and many of the business and political institutions from the colonial era still exist. The centerpiece is the Writers' Building which is the secretariat of the Government of the State of West Bengal and houses the office of the Chief Minister of West Bengal. To the west lie the General Post Office, the Royal Insurance Building, the eastern office of the Reserve Bank of India, the headquarters of the Eastern Railway, head office of the Kolkata Port Trust and a number of other government offices. The native name of the area is 'Office Para'. To the north lie the Royal Exchange Building which houses the Bengal Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Calcutta Stock Exchange, the Standard Chartered Building and many financial establishments. The eastern end also houses a number of offices till Chittaranjan Avenue. The south area of the square is home to the Raj Bhavan, which is now the residence of the governor and the former residence of the viceroy and governor-general of India. A number of former British colonial administrative offices, including the former foreign and military secretariats, the Treasury Office, the Telegraph Office and Kolkata Town Hall can be found here. This area is also a major commercial district with the offices of HSBC at Hong Kong House and the Great Eastern Hotel.
B.B.D. Bagh can still be considered one of the best remnants and concentrated zones of British colonial architecture in the world. The square is also characterized by other historical landmarks including St. John's Church, which was one of the first buildings in Kolkata and is modeled on St. Martin-in-the-Fields in London's Trafalgar Square. The church is home to beautiful stained glass windows and paintings as well as the mausoleum of Job Charnock, the man who founded modern Kolkata. B.B.D. Bagh also has a statue of famous philanthropist Maharaja Lakshmeshwar Singh of Darbhanga (1858–1898), sculpted by Edward Onslow Ford.
Overall, the square sees thousands of people arriving from all over the Kolkata metropolitan area to the offices and businesses that have characterized the area for the last three centuries since the establishment of Kolkata.
Dalhousie Square was included in the 2004 and 2006 World Monuments Watch by the World Monuments Fund due to "decades of neglect". [6] After this listing the international financial services company American Express provided funding through WMF for the square's preservation. A number of buildings in the area have also been listed as heritage buildings and have gone through extensive restorations to bring back the charm of the square. The centerpiece, Writers' Building, has been temporarily vacated to give way for a massive restoration of the building, which has fallen into disrepair in many areas.
Sealdah Railway Station is one of India's major railway terminals serving the city of Kolkata. It is the second largest railway station in India and West Bengal in terms of platforms, tracks and overall daily passenger holding capacity. The other main railway stations in the Kolkata metropolitan area are Howrah, Shalimar, Kolkata and Santragachi. Over 1.5 million passengers use the station daily. It is an important suburban rail terminal. Kolkata Metro Line 2 passes through Sealdah with the new underground Sealdah metro station.
Esplanade is a neighbourhood of Central Kolkata, located at the heart of city with being the city's Central business district. This is a conventional esplanade because the Ganga river (Ganges), also known as Hooghly river, flows nearby and it is adjacent to the large fields of Maidan extending up to Fort William.
Benoy Krishna Basu, Benoy Basu, or Benoy Bose was an Indian revolutionary against British rule in India, who launched an attack on the Secretariat Building; the Writers' Building at the Dalhousie square in Kolkata, along with Badal Gupta and Dinesh Chandra Gupta.
Dinesh Chandra Gupta or Dinesh Gupta was an Indian revolutionary against British rule in India, who is noted for launching an attack on the Secretariat Building - the Writers' Building in the Dalhousie square in Calcutta, along with Badal Gupta and Benoy Basu.
Badal Gupta, real name Sudhir Gupta, was an Indian revolutionary against British rule in India, who is noted for launching an attack on the Secretariat Building - the Writers' Building in the Dalhousie square in Calcutta, along with Benoy Basu and Dinesh Gupta.
The Writers' Buildings or Mahakaran, often shortened to just Writers', is the official secretariat building of the state government of West Bengal in Kolkata, India. The 150-metre long building covers the entire northern stretch of the Lal Dighi or Red Lake at the centre of historic B.B.D. Bagh, long considered as the administrative and business hub of the city.
Raj Bhavan is the official residence of the Governor of West Bengal, located in Kolkata, the capital of West Bengal. Built in 1803, it was known as Government House during the Company rule in India and the British Raj.
The General Post Office, Kolkata is the central post office of the city of Kolkata, India, and the chief post office of West Bengal. The post office handles most of the city's inbound and outbound mail and parcels. Situated in the B. B. D. Bagh area, the imposing structure of the GPO is one of the landmarks in the city.
Kalikata was one of the three villages which were merged to form the city of Kolkata in India. The other two villages were Gobindapur and Sutanuti. Job Charnock, an administrator with the British East India Company is traditionally credited with the honour of founding the city. He settled in the village of Sutanuti.
Calcutta Tramways Company (CTC) was a state-run company that operated trams and buses in and around Kolkata in West Bengal, India. The Kolkata tram is the only operating tramway in India and is the oldest electric tram in India, operating since 1902.
Lalbazar is a neighbourhood in Central Kolkata, earlier known as Calcutta, in the Indian state of West Bengal. It is part of the central business district adjoining B.B.D. Bagh area. The headquarters of the Kolkata Police is located here and is popularly known by the same name.
Bagbazar is a neighbourhood of North Kolkata, in Kolkata district in the Indian state of West Bengal. The area, under Shyampukur police station of Kolkata Police, has been, along with neighbouring Shyambazar, the citadel of the Bengali aristocracy. Bagbazar has played an active role in growth and development of Kolkata.
Netaji Subhas Road, previously known as Clive Street, is an important thoroughfare in Central Kolkata that runs predominantly north to south in the B. B. D. Bagh neighborhood of Kolkata.
Ward No. 46, Kolkata Municipal Corporation is an administrative division of Kolkata Municipal Corporation in Borough No. 6, covering parts of Chowringhee, Esplanade East, Dharmatala, Janbazar, Lalbazar, Bowbazar and Maidan neighbourhoods in central Kolkata, in the Indian state of West Bengal.
Mahakaran, is a metro station on Line 2 of Kolkata Metro, located in B.B.D. Bagh. There are many British heritage buildings near the station with the Lal Dighi adjoining it. The tracks leaving the station towards Howrah go underneath the Hooghly river through the biggest underwater metro tunnel of India. The station was completed and opened on 6 March 2024. The station, though comparing without platform screen doors, my look similar to any Line-1 underground station, but it is actually very different as it is designed with world class facilities and murals that pay tribute to the locality and Indian freedom fighters. The nearest railway station is B.B.D. Bagh railway station. Just before the tunnel enters the underwater segment, lies a ventilation shaft on the Kolkata bank of Hooghly River, which is the deepest of its kind in India, at 44 metres (144 ft) below ground level.
The Currency Building is an early 19th-century building in the B. B. D. Bagh central business district of Kolkata in West Bengal, India. The building was originally built in 1833 to house the Calcutta branch of the Agra Bank. In 1868, it was converted for use by the Office of the Issue and Exchange of Government Currency, an office of the Controller of the Currency under the British Raj. From 1935 until 1937, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) used the building as its first central office. The building remained in use, and was used at one time by the Central Public Works Department (CPWD) as a storehouse. Authorities decided to demolish it in 1994.
8/12 Binay Badal Dinesh is a 2022 Bengali-language historical drama film directed by Arun Roy, produced by Kan Singh Sodha based on the historical attack on Writers' Building by three Bengal Volunteers in 1930. The film was released on 26 January 2022 under the banner of KSS Productions and Entertainment.
Lal Dighi, also called the Tank Square or Dalhousie Square is a man-made water tank in Kolkata, India.