ABSTRACT
This chapter studies one very important phenomenon of the time – namely a revolution on the bank of the Ganga. A community of fishermen and small traders had converted their potentialities to form themselves into one of the major species of mankind that could ally itself with the process of Empire-building in India. Without this man-power base, the English would not have been able to grow Calcutta into a major urban centre parallel to the metropolis of London. We have noted the pattern of changes in the course of the river Ganga and how it affected the settlement pattern on the riverbank. The emergence of a new business and capitalist class, the coming of the Renaissance and the birth of a collaborating humanity have been seen as parallel developments toward one formation, the city, and that has been studied in this chapter.
