Black Hole of Calcutta

By Avijit Nandi Majumdar

This is the site of the infamous Black Hole, dating back to June 1756. The door opens and a rickety flight of stairs goes down into a small hole or a tunnel. History says the place was an alleged guard house as mentioned by British army officer during that period John Holwell. According to information of the incident reported by Holwell, Nawab Siraj-ud-daulah's army attacked the first Fort William, as the site where the GPO stand now was known at that time, in June 1756. The Britishers were overpowered and many escaped through the river Ganges. The 50000 strong Siraj's army captured quite a few Indian and British soldiers including Holwell and kept them inside the 14 feet by 18 feet room. Crammed into that hot, stuffy, small room, the prisoners were given neither food nor water, and when the doors were opened in the morning, most of the captives had died of suffocation and heat exhaustion, claimed Holwell. Subsequently, after the defeat of Siraj-ud-Duwalah in the battle of Plassey, the first Fort William was  shifted to the maidan. The GPO was only designed in 1864 by Walter Grenville, but the land on which it stands was actually the site of the first Fort William, the one which Nawab Siraj-ud-Daulah attacked in June, 1756. We are in the same month 265 years later, the intense heat and humidity bring to mind a tragedy forever associated with that attack, the ‘Black Hole of Calcutta’.