Netaji Subhas Road – The City Hub

Joydip Sur

Almost three decades have passed since my first visit to Netaji Subhas Road in the early ‘90s. But the memory of that visit is etched deep in my mind. My fingers firmly entwined with my dad’s, we walked on the crowded pavement of this grand thoroughfare hustling and bustling with activity and trade. I was awestruck with the sheer magnanimity of the place. I still am.

I almost jumped with joy on the prospect of revisiting this glorious road seeped deep in history and grandeur. Netaji Subhas Road (N.S. Road) is truly the nerve centre of Calcutta and can be compared to London’s City, New York’s Wall Street and Shanghai’s Bund.

But long before this thoroughfare was rechristened after Netaji, it was known as Clive Street named after Robert Clive. Major-General Robert Clive, 1st Baron Clive, KB, was a British soldier who established the military and political supremacy of the East India Company in Southern India and Bengal. He is credited with securing India and the wealth that followed, for the British crown. Together with Warren Hastings he was one of the key figures in the creation of British India. Royal Exchange building on Clive Street was the residence of Robert Clive.

Famous Bengali poet Dinesh Das has immortalised Clive Street in one of his poems:
Here, in a hundred snake-like veins,
Streams of people come and go.
Through these shrunken veins the blood,
Of the country must flow.
O mighty city’s beating heart,
O Clive Street of Bengal,
A thousand dumb veins freeze to make,
The cornerstone of your high hall.

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The Corporation, at its meeting held on Wednesday, August 13, 1947, took a unanimous decision to rename the entire length of Dalhousie Square West, Charnock Place and Clive Street up to Harrison Road (M.G. Road) as Netaji Subhas Road. This notification is mentioned in page 88 of the Calcutta Municipal Gazette dated August 30, 1947. Sudhir Chandra Roy Chowdhury who was then the Mayor of Calcutta took the initiative in renaming the street.

Almost a decade later, the Corporation, in a meeting held on August 9, 1957, decided to rename the stretch of road from Harrison Road (M.G. Road) junction up to the beginning of Maharshi Devendra Road also as Netaji Subhas Road. This notification is mentioned in page 412 of the Municipal Gazette dated August 17, 1957.

While Bose’s approach to Indian freedom struggle continues to generate heated debate, there is no denying of his burning patriotism and his tireless struggle to free India. Had he lived, Subhas Chandra Bose could have given a new turn to Independent India’s political history. But even in death he lives on in our mind and imprinted on the most important thoroughfare of the city.

N. S. Road stretches from Council House Street and Hare Street crossing in the south to Maharshi Devendra Road in the north. Indians and British who were here during the Raj Era heyday have written several interesting memoirs on N. S. Road.

It was home to all the cut-throat tactics, ruthlessness, success, fame, exclusivity, hypocrisy, snobbery and greed to be found in any money-grubbing environment. It still is much like it was, but what makes it different is that the process is essentially Calcuttan, one such memoir read.

The buildings, which provided as venues for melodrama, are mostly architecturally Gothic in design, adorned with beautiful Corinthian pillars on the exterior attributes an old world feel to the entire vicinity.

This street is credited to be the home of several high profile edifices. The Royal Insurance building, General Post Office (G.P.O.), Collectorate, Eastern Railway headquarters, Writers’ Buildings, Balmer Lawrie House, Gillander House, Coal India building, North British & Merchantile Insurance Company, Bengal Chamber of Commerce & Industries and Duncan House are some of the popular addresses on N. S. Road.

A striking feature about N. S. Road is that you will find a bank at every footstep (literally!). Some of the major banks that have their regional headquarters on this road are Reserve Bank of India, Bank of Maharashtra, Syndicate Bank, Standard Chartered and United Bank of India.

But as you walk past the N. S. Road and Mahendra Chandra Dutta Sarani crossing, this road takes on a whole new look. Suddenly, the British old world charm vanishes into thin air as you step into a world of sheer madness.

Dotted with countless stores on both the sidewalks, the stretch of N. S. Road from this point onwards till Rajakatra Market is a complete contrast from what one witnesses in its prior stretch. We see the end is near.

As we approach Maharshi Devendra Road the journey down memory lane comes to an end, but the after-glow remains.