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Home ● Sitemap ● Reference ● Last updated: 11-March-2009
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If there
are any technical problems, factual inaccuracies or things you have to add,
then please contact the group
under info@calcutta1940s.org
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Governing the second largest city of the British
Empire had never been a easy task.
The chronic shortage of tax revenue and a climate
which put enormous strain on civic infrastructure made life difficult for the
co-operation.
The cities rapid growth, ethnic diversity, drastic
social inequalities
and the competing interests of Industry trade and
civil society further made consensus nearly impossible.
The 30 and 40s the increasingly radical agitation
for independence and the increasing communal tensions reduced Calcutta City
Politics to a state of near anarchy.
To that were added since 1939 the strains of the
war effort, Japanese bomb attacks, and the effects of the great famine of '43,
all of which pushed the cities infrastructure as well as the nerves of its
citizens and administrators to near breaking point.
And even when the war was won, the post war years
were marred by even more violent communal tensions, economic problems as well
as the general uncertainty preceeding partition.
With independence a new era dawned.
How would Calcutta govern itself in a free India,
with all its new opportunities.
But also, how would the city and its government
cope with the sudden influx of refugees and the decline of it empire based
economy.
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Unless you intend running for office all you need to know is that the Municipal Administration is seated in the Corporation of Calcutta which consists of 93 Councilors and 5 Aldermen, or a total of 98 in all.
(source: “The Calcutta Key” Services of Supply Base Section Two Division, Information and education Branch, United States Army Forces in India - Burma, 1945: at: http://cbi-theater-12.home.comcast.net/~cbi-theater-12/calcuttakey/calcutta_key.html)
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Home ● Sitemap ● Reference ● Last updated: 11-March-2009
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If there
are any technical problems, factual inaccuracies or things you have to add,
then please contact the group
under info@calcutta1940s.org