The Black Hole of Calcutta refers to a disputed atrocity during a 1756 battle in Calcutta, India. Indian troops under Siraj Ud Daulah, the Nawab of Bengal captured Fort William on June 20, 1756. There they imprisoned the garrison of British soldiers in a 14×18 dungeon overnight.
The Incident
The commander John Zephaniah Holwell wrote an account of the incident in which he claims of 146 prisoners, 123 suffocated. His story was widely accepted at the time in Britain and used for anti-Indian propaganda.
The following account from a 1911 encyclopedia shows how long-lived his story was.
- The dungeon was a strongly barred room and was not intended for the confinement of more than two or three men at a time. There were only two windows, and a projecting veranda outside and thick iron bars within impeded the ventilation, while fires raging in different parts of the fort suggested an atmosphere of further oppressiveness. The prisoners were packed so tightly that the door was difficult to close.
- One of the soldiers stationed in the veranda was offered 1,000 rupees to have them removed to a larger room. He went away, but returned saying it was impossible. The bribe was then doubled, and he made a second attempt with a like result; the nawab was asleep, and no one dared wake him.
- By nine o'clock several had died. and many more were delirious. A frantic cry for water now became general, and one of the guards, more compassionate than his fellows, caused some to be brought to the bars, where Mr. Holwell and two or three others received it in their hats, and passed it on to the men behind. In their impatience to secure it nearly all was spilt, and the little they drank seemed only to increase their thirst. Self-control was soon lost; those in remote parts of the room struggled to reach the window, and a fearful tumult ensued, in which the weakest were trampled or pressed to death. They raved, fought, prayed, blasphemed, and many then fell exhausted on the floor, where suffocation put an end to their torments.
- About 11 o'clock the prisoners began to drop off fast. At length, at six in the morning, Siraj-ud-Dowla awoke, and ordered the door to be opened. Of the 146 only 23, including Mr. Holwell (from whose narrative, published in the Annual Register for 1758, this account is partly derived), remained alive, and they were either stupefied or raving. Fresh air soon revived them, and the commander was then taken before the nawab, who expressed no regret for what had occurred, and gave no other sign of sympathy than ordering the Englishman a chair and a glass of water. Notwithstanding this indifference, Mr. Holwell and some others acquit him of any intention of causing the catastrophe, and ascribe it to the malice of certain inferior officers, but many think this opinion unfounded.
Holwell and three others were sent as prisoners to Murshidabad; the rest of the survivors obtained their liberty, and the corpses were thrown into a ditch. The Black Hole was later used as a warehouse, and an obelisk, 50 feet high, was erected in memory of the supposed victims.
Contoversy
The main controversy about the incident is the number of British soldiers confined inside the room. As described above, Holwell claimed the number to be 146. However, later accounts and analysis proved the number to be exaggarated. In 1915, British scholar J.H. Little published an article entitled, "The Black Hole--The Question of Holwell's Veracity". In this article, Little argued that Holwell was an unreliable witness and veracity of his account is questionable. However, other scholars including Indian scholar Brijen Gupta disagreed with Little's strong belief, but downplayed Holwell's account as well. In any case, the following facts do cast a shadow of doubt over the incident:
- As argued by Little, after the deaths in the Battle of Plassey and the subsequent evacuation and desertion, 146 British prisoners could not have been left in Siraj's hands three hours after the surrender.
- Bholanath Chunder, a Bengali landlord, opined that a floor area of 267 square feet could not contain 146 European adults. In order to prove this, Bholanath fenced round an area 18 feet by 15 with bamboo stalks and counted the number of his Bengali tenants who could be crammed into it. The number was found to be much less than 146, and a Bengali villager's body occupies much less space than a British gentleman's.
- Finally, it is nowhere admitted nor proved that a list was made of the British soldiers surrendering at the fort, and not even a count of heads was made. At the same time many escaped secretly between the surrender and the time of putting the prisoners in the 'Black Hole'. Even Holwell was offered by a friend the chance to escape. Therefore, the true number of deaths in the so-called 'Black Hole' was considerably less.
At the wake of the Indian independence movement, the presence of the controversial monument in Calcutta was deeply resented. Subhash Chandra Bose, an influential congress leader, started a movement for the removal of the disputed monument. Indian National Congress, Muslim League joined efforts in the anti-monument movement. As a result, the disputed monument was removed from Dalhousie Square in July, 1940.
External links and references
- The Straight Dope: Is the black hole of Calcutta a myth? "So what's the truth? Here's the best that can be established. The East India Company garrison in Kolkata had been building up the defenses at Fort William in preparation for eventual war with the nearby French forces. Nawab Sirai-ud-daulah took this action as a threat to his rule, given that the East India Company had tried to prevent him from taking the throne in the first place. The Nawab gathered his forces together and took Fort William. The captives numbered 64 to 69 people, and they were placed in the cell as a temporary holding by a local commander. But there was confusion in the Indian chain of command, and the captives were unintentionally left there overnight. No more than 43 of the garrison at Fort William was unaccounted for afterwards; therefore, at most 43 people died in the Black Hole."
