CENSUS OF INDIA 1981 SERIES-23 WEST BENGAL Part X (8) TOWN SURVEY REPORT KRISHNAPUR Investigation and Drafting: Gour Chandra Bagcbi Editing and Guidance : Sukumar Sinha TOWN SURVEY REPORT KRISHNAPUR Assistance in Investigation and Tabulation: Sri Samarendra Nath Mondal Assistant Compiler Preparation of Maps Sri Subir Kumar Chatterjee Draftsman Photography ~ Sri Arunabha Datta Investigator Sri Manas Kumar Mitra Computor FOREWORD Apart from the decennial enumeration of population, the Indian Census is steeped in the tradition of undertaking a variety of studies of topical interest. In fact, the publications brought out in connection with the earlier censuses contained verita~le mines of informa­ tion on racial, cultural, linguistic and anum ber of other aspects of hfe of the people of this country. With the advent of freedom, however, the scope and dimension of these , special studies had to be restructured in a manner that would provide the basic feedbacks on the processes of development taking place in different spheres of life of the people especially under planned development. Thus, in connection with the 1961 Census, a massive programme was launched inter-alia to conduct socia-economic survey of about 500 villages ·selected from different parts of the country. The main objective of this study was to know the way .of life of the people living in Indian villages which accounted for 80 per cent of the total population as per 1961 Census. There was, however, an imperative need to extend the area of the study to urban centres as well, to provide a complete coverage of the people living in diverse socia-economic condition. It was with this objective in view ancillary studies on town were launched as part of the social studies programme in connection with the 1971 Census. The programme of social studies taken up in connection with the 1971 Census, was continued without any major change at the 1981 Census as well. A study on traditional rural based handicrafts was, however, added as a new item under the social study projects of the 1981 Census. For the conduct of urban study, 64 srp.aU and medium towns were selected from different parts of the country following the criteria such as (a) size, (b) demographic features, (c) funFtional characteristics, (d) specific industry or occupation dominating the economy, (e) location, (f) concentration of different castes and commu­ nities and (g) other social and cultural phenomenon like temple town, health resort, etc. The research design, tools for data collection and formats for data tabulation and report writing required for urban studies were originally formulated by Dr. B. K. Roy Burman, the then Deputy Registrar General, Social Studies Division. His successor, Dr. N. G. Nag took considerable pains to revise all the formats to make them more comprehensive. Dr. K. P. Ittaman, the present Deputy Registrar General, heading Social Studies Division, coordinated these studies at different levels as well as rendered necessary guidance to the Directorate of .Census Operations for their successful consummation. Shri M. K. Jain, Senior Research Officer with the able assistance of Investigators, Shri R. K. Mehta 'and his colleagues did a commendable job in scrutinising the reports and communicating the comments thereon to the Directorates. I am grateful to all of them. The present report is the outcome of a study on Krishnapur town undertaken by the Dlrector of Census Operations, West Bengal. I am indebted to Shri Sukumar Sinha Joint Director and his colleagues in the Census Directorate for their painstaking efforts i~ bringing out this report. New Delhi, V. S. VERMA The 1st of June, 1988 Registrar Geneml. India The present monograph recounts the unadorned tale of the silent birth of an un­ known town without the trauma of a pang but strangely enough, without also any fanfare from the people all around. Everyone was then rapturously watching the future rise of a new rich city out of the salty waters of the marshy area beside. Dreamy eyes were glued on the foundation of the city to be born, tenderly hoping for a cosy nook there. But, people, more prosaic and realistic, calculating and materialistic, did not wait for the day to be rudely awakened from their dreams. Instead, they fixed their ravenous attention on the tiny village undergoing the metamorph03is into an urban entity long before the second area was consecrated as a township which again, one may not believe, had partially accelerated the birth and growth of the former one earlier. The rendition about Krishnapur town on which the present monograph is based cannot ignore, on the one hand, the emergence of Bidhan Nagar Township, popularly known as Salt Lake City, and on the other, the history and background of the city of Calcutta and its sprawling urban continuum, which together in Census parlance go in the name of Calcutta Urban Agglomeration covering five (now six) districts including Calcutta and encompassing 107 towns of all sizes (area-wise and demographically) and of different status, statutory and non-statutory in 1981. Incidentally, both Krishnapur town and Bidhan Nagar Town­ ship, in the present North 24-Parganas district, constitute the suburbia of Calcutta City, being located in the Calcutta Urban Agglomeration. Both the non-municipal towns belong­ ing to' the category III size (with population ranging between 25,000 to 49,999) are each other's neighbours. While Bidhan Nagar Township with a planned origin under the nursing care of the State Government formally came into being in 1981 adjoining Calcutta, Krishnapur town adjoining Bidhan . Nagar Township had cast off its rural scales in 1971 and grew up unattended and uncared for. Ironically enough, the people from Calcutta and other urban areas rushed to both the towns but the inmigrants to the two were of different classes and breeds. Bidhan Nagar Township attracted the rich, the profes­ sionals and the higher income-groups and became the cynosure of people all over India and even of non-resident Indians abroad. Krishnapur with its core rural fishermen and farmers, middle and low income groups from Calcutta and other nearby towns scribbled the modest scroll of its humble beginning. \Vhy this happened is another story. The semina] question is why and how the new towns originated and also, what the relationship 9f these towns with each other and with the primate city of Calcutta is at present and wil1 be in the days to come. To answer the questions one has to look back into the past history of Calcutta, once the diadem on the crown of British India and analyse the burgeoning growth of the levia­ than-like Calcutta Urban Agglomeration. Interestingly however, Calcutta City too grew from three marshy villages which had once been the abodes of tawny aboriginal fishers. 'hunters, wood-cutters and falconers'. According to Hamilton, the estimated' popUlation of Calcutta was 12,000 in 1710 and the same rose to 470,835 in 18911. Thereafter, the city never paused. It sheltered in course of ahout nine decades the prodigious population of 3,305.006 in 1981. The city had donned the distinctive cap of a metropolitan city with population of one million or more for the first time in 1911. Within three decades tht; city - - 1 Cenf'US of India, 1901, Vol. VII. Calcutta. Town and Suburbia. Part-I, ShQrt History of Calcut~a by J}, . .K. Ray. Bengal Secretariat Pre~s. Calc\ltta. 19021 pp. 59-60, - 9 Census/88-1! (x) attained the population size of two million plus and after three more decades reached the three million mark. But from 1961 onwards the decadal growth-rate substantially declined from 24.50 per cent in 1941-51 to 8.48 per cent in 1951-61, and from 7:5'':1 .per cent in 1961-71 to 4.96 per cent in 1971-81. In contrast, the Calcutta Urban Agglomeration did not only enlarge its area and population-size but also registered substantially much higher decadal growth-rate than that of Calcutta. It may logically lead to the .qJuestiion if 'the seat >of economic and social power 'of 'Calcutta .had shifted to some other f)1ace wi~hin the Calcutta Urban A·gglomenition so as to set in operation the phenomenon, .to unclerstand which 'one has to analyse the situation a Httle more deeply. 'iIlhe 'Seeds ·(!)f ·urbanisation .in the colonial model were broadcast by the British along the riV6fine cont:Be of the H l\gli ·on both the banks, though Caloutta ruled as the doyen not sim]!lly with its .ftalmting prestige as the capital of the British Raj in India till 1911, but also with its :pr.ime Ilm:p0rtance as a trading port-town through whioh the exports and imports succoured the ·ma.pttime British colonial trade and the mercantilist imperialist pGwer. Therefore, the advent .of It·he industrial towns in the immediate neighbourhood of 'Calcutta and the br..aohia:ti0ll of a number of administrative and trarnng towns beyond, articulating the v.ast I1U't411 hinterland to the urban frame-work, was a logical sequence of events emanating from British policy. The contours of the urhan areas around Calcutta had cast the die to u.ltimately provide the skeletal support to the Calcutta Urban Agglomeration of 1'971 and ,1'981. That Calcutta dominated the scene if, substantiated by the demograpbic '}!>roiile .<if ·the Mea. In 1'901 only 25 towns including Calcutta (ont of 107 towns of 1-98'1) -in -eVA '(Ca1cutta Urban Agglomeration) had a population of 151,008 to which Calctrtta City"s contribution was to the extent of 61.84 per cent. In 1961 Calcutta City acconnted for only 48.92 per cent of CUA's popu1ation which had registered a decadal po,Pu1atrOll growth-rate of 28.14 per cent (195]-61) against Calcutta City's 8.48 per cent.