The story of the Black Hole of Calcutta was once as familiar to schoolchildren as the battle of Hastings or the Gunpowder Plot. On 20 June 1756, after a fierce battle lasting several days, in which the British defensive force of 515 men had held out against an Indian army numbering tens of thousands, 146 survivors — men, women and children — were locked into a room that measured 14 ft by 18 ft. The room had only two small, high, barred windows for air. The monsoon had not yet broken and the temperature would not have fallen below 100 F all night. When the door was opened in the morning, all but 23 had died from suffocation and thirst.
Calcutta’s prosperity had exemplified the mutually advantageous balance of trade and power that existed between the British East India Company and India’s Mughal emperors. In exchange for supplying coffee, tea, snuff and exotic fabrics to Britain’s burgeoning middle class, the Mughal court received the bullion with which to finance their territorial campaigns. As Dalley notes, the British were not the first to colonise India. The Mughals (derived from the Persian word for Mongol), descendants of Ghengis Khan, had accomplished that as early as 1526. In 1756 a hot-headed local ruler, Siraj-ud-daulah, made the mistake of deciding to drive the foreign traders out of India. Sabre-rattling by local rulers was not uncommon; it was usually stilled by increased tribute money from the European merchants. In this case, whether through arrogance or lethargy, the Company’s governing body failed to make any provision for defending the city of Calcutta.
According to Lord Curzon, the Indian viceroy, who in 1902 built a monument to the victims of the Black Hole in Calcutta, their heroic self-sacrifice ‘cemented the foundations of the British empire in India’.
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