BENGALI DISLIKE

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 58, Issue 84, 19 January 1938, Page 5

BENGALI DISLIKE

AN HISTORICAL MONUMENT.

BLACK HOLE OF CALCUTTA.

“A STANDING INSULT.”

(Fnitedi Press Association—Copyright.) (Received This Day, 12.10 p.m.) CALCUTTA, January 18.

The latest instance of the Indian Nationalist movement to remove, historic British monuments, including the statue of General (afterwards Lord) John Lawrence, famous in the Mutiny days, from public squares in Lahore, is a newspaper agitation for the removal of the monument commemorating the Black Hole of Calcutta tragedy in 1756, which Zephanian Holwell, one of the 23 survivors, first erected over the unfinished trench into which the bodies of 123 dead were thrown. Holwell’s memorial was removed in 1821, but Lord. Curzori (then Viceroy of India), at his own expense, in 1902 erected a replica in -white marble on the same spot, within 20 yards of the site of the Black Hole, which is still preserved and unbuilt upon. Lord Curzon wrote a lengthy inscription, including the names of the dead: An extremist newspaper now revives the former allegation that the Black Hole story was a gigantic and colossal lie, rendering the monument a standing insult to the Bengalese.

The subject will shortly be raised in the Bengal Assembly.

“The Black Hole of Calcutta” was the popular name given, to an atrocity perpetrated by Suraj-ud-Dowlah, Nawab of Bengal during the Seven Years’ War. When he sacked Calcutta and seized Fort- William in 1756. Most of the English residents escaped, but some few, under the command of Holwell, remained, and were obliged to surrender themselves to the native prince. At his command they were all confined in a guard chamber, 18 feet long, with only two small windows high up. It was a stifling summer night and next morning only 23 of the prisoners were alive, 123 having perished. A vivid account of the incident is given in Macauley’s “Life of Clive.”