Dum Dum

Dum Dum is a city and a municipality in the Kolkata Metropolitan Area of North 24 Parganas district in the Indian state of West Bengal. It is a part of the area covered by Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority. The Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport locally known as Kolkata Airport, is situated at Dum Dum. Dum Dum area was divided into three parts governed by three separate municipalities named as South Dum Dum, Dum Dum and North Dum Dum.

Etymology

During the 19th century the area was home to the Dum Dum Arsenal, a British Royal Artillery facility. It was here that, in the early 1890s, Captain Neville Bertie-Clay developed a bullet with the jacket cut away at the tip to reveal its soft lead core, known informally as a dum-dum or more correctly as an expanding bullet. The previous name of Dum Dum was "Domdoma".
Some resources claim that the Persian word damdama, which means "mound" or "elevated battery", is the source of the word Dum Dum.

History

In the history of Bengal, Dum Dum holds a very significant place. Dum Dum was sparsely populated before the British came there. The area was slightly elevated. On 6 February 1757, an accord was signed at Dum Dum by the Nawab of Bengal to allow the British to build forts at Calcutta, Dacca and Kashim Bazar. In 1783, a cantonment was established at Dum Dum. Military barracks were built and civilians started coming in to provide essential services to the military personnel. A Cantonment Board was formed to provide civic amenities. On 9 February 1822, the foundation stone was blessed and laid for Saint Patrick’s Chapel. On Good Friday in 1823, the chapel was dedicated and inaugurated with Irish priest M. Murphy as its chaplain. The ordnance factory was established at Dum Dum in 1846. The St. Stephens Church, a Roman Catholic Church Weslyan Chapel and a hospital for treatment of European were established in the central hub of Dum Dum Cantonment of old Dum Dum. It may be noted that both South Dum Dum Municipality and North Dum Dum Municipality were established in 1870 thereby somewhat defining administratively the different parts of an earlier undefined Dum Dum area. subsequently, Dum Dum was enlarged by the amalgamation of Kadihati municipality in 1883.
Dum Dum was once a separate subdivision from 1861 to 1896. During the early years of the cantonment the British waged several imperial wars, out of which the wars in Burma, Nepal, the Deccan and Afganisthan were costly in blood and lives. Two monuments were erected to commemorate their memory. The Afghan War Memorial was built in Dum Dum in 1841 after the British lost the first Anglo-Afghan war. During the 1857 disturbances the Indian sepoys posted at Dum Dum were affected and Mangal Pandey was hanged from a tree at Dum Dum. Dum Dum Cantonment was closed down and the Cantonment Board was replaced by Dum Dum Municipality in 1929. The temporary set back to Dum Dum arising from abolition of the cantonment and departure of British troops, was partially made up with the shifting of Jessop & Co. from Howrah to Dum Dum in 1928 and establishment of the Gramophone Company at Dum Dum in 1929. Bengal Flying Club, established in 1920, had a small fleet of single engine moth planes. The independence movement led to the sudden development of the Central Jail, where many top leaders and more numerous unknown patriots were lodged. The old military barracks made way for multi-storied jail barracks. The environment quite often reverberated with the chanting of Vande Mataram.
With the partition of Bengal in 1947, "millions of refugees poured in from erstwhile East Pakistan." In the initial stages bulk of the refugees were non-agriculturists. A few of them made their own arrangements, but "it was squatters who made the East Bengali refugees famous or infamous". Squatting ranged from the forcible occupation of barracks to the collective take-over of private, government and waste land. "This happened as early as 1948 with middle class refugees in the Jadavpur area: first on government land and then on private property, leading to violent clashes. Having won the battle, the elated squatters named their colony 'Bijaygarh', the Fort of Victory." By 1949, there were 40 such colonies in Jadavpur, Kasba, Santoshpur, Garia and Behala, in the south-eastern part of the city, and 65 in the Dum Dum and Panihati zone in the north. Subsequently squatters colonies also came up along the west bank of the Hooghly and by 1950, there were 150 such colonies. It has to be borne in mind that the squatters were in a way "self-settlers" in the absence of adequate official arrangements for rehabilitation. Within a very short time the refugees not only found a place to stay but developed a society with markets, schools, temples and sometimes even colleges, hospitals and recreational centres. Efforts have been made in more recent years to regularise land/property rights in the refugee colonies.

Geography

Location

Dum Dum is located at. It has an average elevation of 11 metres.
Dum Dum is bounded by North Dum Dum on the north and partly on the west, Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation areas on the east and South Dum Dum on the south and partly on the west.
Dum Dum consists of localities such as Airport 1 No. Gate, Airport 2 No. Gate, Airport 2.5 No. Gate, Motilal Colony, Rajbari Colony, Gora Bazar, Mall Road, Kumarpara, Italgacha, Badra, Nalta, Manikpur, Kamalapur, Radha Nagar, Arabinda Sarani and Central Jail.
96% of the population of Barrackpore subdivision lives in urban areas. In 2011, it had a density of population of 10,967 per km² The subdivision has 16 municipalities and 24 census towns.

Police station

Dum Dum police station under Barrackpore Police Commissionerate has jurisdiction over Dum Dum Municipal areas.
NSCBI Airport police station under the Bidhannagar Police Commissionerate has jurisdiction over the parts of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport.

Post Offices

Dum Dum is a vast locality with many Postal Index Numbers:
Dum Dum has a delivery Head post office, with PIN 700028 in the Kolkata North Division of Kolkata district in Calcutta region. Other post offices with the same PIN are Ordnance Factory, Kumarpara, Kamalapur and Rajabagan.
Kolkata Airport has a non-delivery sub post office, with PIN 700052 in the Kolkata North Division of Kolkata district in Calcutta region.
Italgacha has a delivery sub post office, with PIN 700079 in the Kolkata North Division of Kolkata district in Calcutta region.
Mall Road has a delivery sub post office, with PIN 700080 in the Kolkata North Division of Kolkata district in Calcutta region. The only other post office with the same PIN is Jessore Road.
Rajbari Colony has a delivery sub post office, with PIN 700081 in the Kolkata North Division of Kolkata district in Calcutta region.

Demographics

Population

Per the 2011 Census of India, Dum Dum had a total population of 114,786, of which 58,566 were males and 56,220 were females. Population below 6 years was 8,259. The total number of literates was 97,997. As of 2001 India census, Dum Dum had a population of 102,319. Males constitute 52% of the population and females 48%. Dum Dum has an average literacy rate of 82%, higher than the national average of 59.5%: Male literacy is 85% and female literacy is 78%. In Dum Dum, 8% of the population is under 6 years of age.

Kolkata Urban Agglomeration

The following municipalities, census towns, and other locations in Barrackpore subdivision were part of Kolkata Urban Agglomeration in the 2011 census: Kanchrapara, Jetia, Halisahar, Balibhara, Naihati, Bhatpara, Kaugachhi, Garshyamnagar, Garulia, Ichhapur Defence Estate, North Barrackpur, Barrackpur Cantonment, Barrackpore, Jafarpur, Ruiya, Titagarh, Khardaha, Bandipur, Panihati, Muragachha New Barrackpore, Chandpur, Talbandha, Patulia, Kamarhati, Baranagar, South Dum Dum, North Dum Dum, Dum Dum, Noapara, Babanpur, Teghari, Nanna, Chakla, Srotribati, and Panpur.

Economy

Industry

The following industrial units are located in Dum Dum:

Ordnance Factory Dum Dum is a modern factory with unique high precision machining systems such as laser cutting, CNC-operated injection moulding and CNC machines for carrying out stringent quality products. The factory was initiated when Robert Clive recaptured Calcutta from Siraj ud-Daulah, the Nawab of Bengal, in 1757. It became the first development centre for defence stores in India established by the Royal forces. When the Gun & Shell Factory was established at Cossipore it worked in tandem with the Gun & Shell Factory at Dum Dum. After the disastrous First Anglo-Afghan War, the first ammunition factory in British India was set up here. It produced expanding bullets, which came to be known as "dumdums" after the city where they were manufactured. The 1857 mutiny was sparked by inputs from this factory. The site was also used as a jail and many freedom fighters were hanged here. Hearsay includes the Santal leader Kanhu Murmu. The ammunition factory was shifted to Pune in 1869, but the ordnance factory continued to function at Dum Dum.
Jessop & Company, located at Dum Dum, was a leading engineering company since 1788, when Breen & Company was founded in Calcutta. In 1820, Henry and George, sons of William Jessop, acquired, on behalf of Butterley Company, Breen & Company. Butterley Company was founded in Derbyshire, England. Butterley Company and Breen & Company merged to form Jessop & Company in 1820. The company was a pioneer in the engineering field and had many feathers in its cap. During 1815–1840 it built the first iron bridge in India, across the Gomti at Lucknow. It floated the first steam boat in Indian waters in 1819, manufactured the first steam roller for Indian roads in 1890, and produced the first electrical multiple unit coach for Indian railways in 1959. In 1973, the company was taken over by the Government of India and in 1986, it became a subsidiary of the holding company Bharat Bhari Udyog Nigam. In 2003, as part of the strategic disinvestment of the NDA government, the Kolkata-based Ruia Group, headed by Pawan Kumar Ruia, took charge of loss-making Jessop. Pawan Kumar Ruia has successfully turned around Jessop.
The Dum Dum recording studio of Saregama, a part of the factory with production facilities, was established in 1928. It holds "around 30,000 master tapes of original Indian music recorded by the company since Gauhar Jaan sang raga Jogiya in Kolkata and became the first Indian voice to be recorded on shellac disc in 1902." In the studio "text and photographs of artistes from Hindustani and Carnatic classical, Hindi and south Indian playback, devotional and Bengali music, who have recorded with the company, are also exhibited along with a copy of the original agreement that Tagore signed with the company before cutting his first musical record at the Dum Dum studio in 1928." The tapes are in at least 19 major Indian languages. The collection includes speeches of Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and Subhas Chandra Bose. In the world of music the list is too long for elaboration here but it includes the voice of Kazi Nazrul Islam. Saregama of the RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group, under the chairmanship of Sanjiv Goenka, were the successors to the Gramophone Company India, which was among the first overseas branches of the British record firm Electric and Music Industries.