The Hindu Business Line : Move to ‘kill’ Kolkata

The city of Kolkata is on the verge of a civic breakdown what with uncontrollable flooding during the rains, a deafeningly high rate of decibelisation, an asphyxiating level of air pollution, an impossible transport situation, and rapacious urbanisation.

Of course, all this is the result of ‘progress’ — of a sort that, according to a growing number of the city’s denizens, is changing the character of the city forever.

However, amidst all this penury in terms of a healthy and acceptable city-life, Kolkata still has its Maidan.

Green is a joy forever

The huge, rolling expanse of green right in the middle of it, not far from the river, is an attribute which has, silently, breathed life into an evolving (and some say dying) city, particularly over the past couple of decades.

As someone once said, a patch of green is a joy forever.

The Kolkata Maidan plays out this role with great distinction, the quite unbelievable point being that, somehow, its sanctity has been kept intact for the past 250 years, ever since it was created for the purpose of having a clear field of fire for the guns of the new Fort William, which replaced the old fort to the west of Writers’ Buildings following its destruction in the seige of the city by the forces of Shiraj-ud-dowlah in 1756.

In recent months, there has been one bit of disfigurement which has passed unnoticed but which has, nevertheless, nibbled off a minuscule bit of the Maidan towards the south-west, on St George’s Gate Road.

As far as one can remember, this is probably the only ‘substantial’ concrete structure put up on the periphery of the Maidan ever since the Metro Railway project came up along its eastern edge in the mid-1980s and the approach roads on the south-western side vis-a-vis the second Hooghly Bridge.

The looming threat

But now a more serious threat is looming on the horizon which, at all cost, must be fought tooth and nail by all lovers of Kolkata, not only for the sake of the city as it is today but also for the future generations who will live in it.

On Monday, a Minister told the West Bengal Assembly that the Left Front Government had urged the Defence authorities to allow a “state-of-the-art sporting complex” to be built on what is now the Race Course (to the south of Fort William).

The basic reasoning was that interest in racing is on the wane in the city and, more importantly, “the Maidan is not enough for the surge in demand for sporting space”.

A city to be proud of

According to Cotton, the race course “commenced in 1819”. It will be a disaster of the first order if, 190 years later, the whole of it (or even a part) is usurped for “sporting space” involving the construction of a complex.

Indeed, if the argument is so very pressing, why not have a ‘complex’ on the Maidan itself which, in fact, does not have one — and thankfully so. True, racing has become increasingly unpopular in Kolkata (some would say mercifully so), but it must be acknowledged that it is because of this form of gambling that the wide open space taken up by the course has remained unscathed for so long a time.

Let us keep it that way. The people of Kolkata owe it to posterity to hand over to the future what they have received from the past — an aspect of the city all of us are so very proud of.

RANABIR RAY CHOUDHURY

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