The white town of Calcutta under the rule of the East India Company

This paper will be concerned with the channels through which knowledge of the west passed to Indians in Calcutta; it will not attempt any assessment of the uses made of this knowledge or of the controversies surrounding the Bengal Renaissance. It will argue that private self-indulgence by individual Europeans made a greater contribution to Indian awareness of the west than public policy. Any attempts made by the East India Company to propagate western knowledge, through educational grants after 1813, the founding of colleges or official encouragement of the use of English, probably had less practical effect than the largely accidental diffusion of western culture by the British elite of the white town of Calcutta. The whites of Calcutta lavished money and effort on creating for themselves the amenities of what they regarded as civilized British urban life on a scale that left abundant pickings for Indians who were minded to take advantage of their prodigality. A significant number of Indians were so minded.