Gobindapur, Kolkata

Gobindapur (Bengali: গোবিন্দপুর) was one of the three villages which were merged to form the city of Kolkata (formerly Calcutta) in India. The other two villages were Kalikata and Sutanuti. Job Charnock, an administrator with the British East India Company is traditionally credited with the honour of founding the city. While Kalikata and Sutanuti lost their identity as the city grew, Gobindapur was demolished to make room for the construction of new Fort William.

When the Portuguese first started to frequent Bengal, around the year 1530, the two great centres of trade were Chittagong, which the Portuguese called Porto Grande or Great Haven, in the east and Satgaon, which the Portuguese called Porto Piqueno or Little Haven in the west. Tolly’s Nallah or Adi Ganga was then the outlet to the sea and ocean-going ships came up to around where Garden Reach is now, then the anchoring place for ships. Only country boats operated further up the river. Possibly the Saraswati river was another watery life line. It started drying up from the middle of the sixteenth century. The Portuguese built a new port at Hugli in 1580.

Towards the beginning of the 16th century, there was a person name Gobindasharan Dutta Chaudhury, who belonged to a kayastha zamindar of Andul Dutta Chaudhury Family was returning by boat from a pilgrimage. He dreamt of goddess Kali asking him to dig the barren land on the bank. He did so and discovered enormous qualities of wealth hidden underground. He stayed back and founded the place. It is said that the name of the place Gobindapur was named after him.

There is another story regarding the foundation and naming of the village. Towards the end of the sixteenth century, the Indian merchant-princes of Port Piqueno were forced to seek another market for their trade. Most of them settled down in Hugli but four families of Basaks and one of Sheths, determined to profit by the growing prosperity of Betor, founded the village of Gobindapur, on the east bank of the river. Gobindaji was the family deity of the Sheths and Basaks, and so they named the village Gobindapur.

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