DUTCH IN CHINSURAH
A digital resource for histories between the 17-19th century in Chinsurah

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We are grateful to the Embassy of Kingdom of the Netherlands for initiating this project and setting us off on this exciting journey to unravel the layers of history of Chinsurah.

We are grateful to all the citizens of Chinsurah who welcomed us into their homes and shared their insights about the town with us. We are also thankful to National Library Kolkata, National Archives New Delhi, British Library London, offices of the Additional Divisional Magistrate (Development) Hooghly-Chinsurah, Municipal Corporation of Hooghly-Chinsurah, Public Works Department, West Bengal for access to their maps and records which became a backbone for this study. We would like to thank in particular Sri Abid Hussain, A.D.M Chinsurah-District Hooghly; Sri Gouri Kanta Mukherjee, Chairman Hooghly Chinsurah Municipality; Sri Amit Ray, Vice Chairman Hooghly Chinsurah Municipality; Smt. Sukanya Ghosh, Urban Planner Hooghly Chinsurah Municipality; Sri Khar, Social sector PWD Hooghly Chinsurah; Sri Jayanta Mandal, Executive Engineer PWD Hooghly Chinsurah; Sri Saha, Engineer PWD Hooghly Chinsurah; Smt. Bulbul Basu, Record Room District Administration; Dr. Akshay Adhya; Principal Hooghly Mohsin College; Principal Hooghly Collegiate School; Principal Duff School; Principal Shome Training School; Sri Ganesh Nandy & members of the India Netherlands Friendship Society; Mr Dirk de Jong; Hooghly Sanskriti Parishad; Hooghly Chinsurah Sarvajanik Durga Puja Committee for helping us with the logistics on the ground. We are also grateful to Mr Bauke van der Pol, Author ‘The Dutch East India Company in India’ for sharing his historical inputs with us.

This project would not have been possible without the support and encouragement of our partners and collaborators at Presidency University in particular Dr Souvik Mukherjee, Department of English & Mr Milinda Banerjee, Department of History who provided us valuable advice at every stage of the project. We are also grateful to Dr Oeendrila Lahiri & Ms Payal Wadhwa for their tireless efforts of bringing this project to its final state over the last year.

And finally a big thanks to all our volunteers on the field who worked hard to make this project a success.

Aishwarya Tipnis Architects
January 2015