The University of Calcutta, informally known as Calcutta University (CU), is a collegiate public state university located in Kolkata, West Bengal, India. It was established on 24 January 1857 and was one of the first institutions in Asia to be established as a multidisciplinary, Western-style university. Presently, the university's jurisdiction is limited to a few districts of West Bengal. Within India, it is recognized as a "Five-Star University" and accredited an "A" Grade by the National Assessment and Accreditation Council. The University of Calcutta was awarded the status of "Centre with Potential for Excellence In Particular Area" and "University with potential for excellence" by the University Grants Commission (India) (UGC).
The university has a total of fourteen campuses spread over the city of Kolkata and its suburbs. As of 2020, 151 colleges and 21 institutes and centres are affiliated with it. The university was seventh in the Indian University Ranking 2020 list, released by the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) of the Ministry of Human Resource Development (now Ministry of Education) of the Government of India.
Its alumni and faculty include several heads of state, heads of government, social reformers, prominent artists, the only Indian Academy award winner and Dirac medal winner, many Fellows of the Royal Society and five Nobel laureates—the highest number in South Asia—as of 2019. The five Nobel laureates associated with this university are: Ronald Ross. Rabindra Nath Tagore, C. V. Raman, Amartya Sen and Abhijit Vinayak Banerjee. The university has the highest number of students who have cleared the National Eligibility Test The University of Calcutta is a member of the United Nations Academic Impact.
History
Pre-independence
Dr. Fredrick John, the education secretary to the British Government in India, first tendered a proposal to them in London for the establishment of a university in Calcutta, along the lines of London University. In July 1854, the Court of Directors of the East India Company sent a dispatch, known as Wood's despatch, to the Governor General of India in Council, to establish universities in Calcutta (now Kolkata), Madras (now Chennai) and Bombay (now Mumbai).[3][4]
Calcutta University between 1850s and 1870s, by Francis Frith
The Calcutta University Act came into force on 24 January 1857, and a 41-member Senate was formed as the policy-making body of the university. The land for the establishment of the university was given by Maharaja Maheshwar Singh Bahadur, who was a Maharaja of Darbhanga. When the university was first established it had a jurisdiction from Lahore to Rangoon (now Yangon), and Ceylon, the largest of any Indian university.[5] Calcutta University became the first university located to the east of the Suez to teach European classics, English literature, European and Indian philosophy and Occidental and Oriental history.[6] The first medical school in Asia, the Calcutta Medical College, was affiliated with the university in 1857.[7] The first college for women in India, Bethune College, is affiliated with the university.[8] From 1836 to 1890, Government Science College, Jabalpur, the first Indian science college, was affiliated with the University of Calcutta.[9] The first university library began functioning in the 1870s. Joddu Nath Bose and Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay became the first graduates of the university in 1858, and Dr. Kadambini Ganguly and Chandramukhi Basu were the first Indian female graduates in 1882.[10][11][12] The first chancellor and vice-chancellor of the Calcutta University were Governor General Lord Canning and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Sir William Colvile, respectively. Ashutosh Mukherjee was the vice-chancellor for four consecutive two-year terms (1906–1914) and a fifth two-year term in 1921–23.
Calcutta Medical College in 1910
Initially, the university was only an affiliating and examining body. All the academic and teaching work was done in constituent colleges, which were the Presidency College (now called Presidency University), the Sanskrit College and the Bengal Engineering College (now called Indian Institute of Engineering Science and Technology). During that period, the Council Room of the Calcutta Medical College and Hospital and private residence of the vice-chancellor used to house the Senate meetings. The faculty councils generally met at the residences of the presidents of the faculties concerned, in the Civil Engineering College or in the Writers' Building. Because of the lack of space, university examinations were held in the Kolkata Town Hall and at other locations like Maidan using tents.[15]
In 1866, a grant of ₹81,600 (US$1,100) for the site and ₹170,561 (US$2,400) was sanctioned to construct the new building on College Street. It opened in 1873 and was called Senate House. It had meeting halls for the Senate, a chamber for the vice-chancellor, the office of the registrar, examination rooms and lecture halls. In 1904, postgraduate teaching and research began at the university, which led to an increase in the number of students and candidates. After almost sixty years, a second building, known as the Darbhanga Building, was erected in 1912 with a donation of ₹2.5 lakh (US$3,500) from Maharaja Maheshwar Singh Bahadur. It housed the University Law College, its library and some university offices and afforded space to hold university examinations on its top floor. In the same year, the Government of British India granted a sum of ₹8 lakh (US$11,000) for the acquisition of a market, Madhab Babu's Bazar, situated adjacent to the Senate House, and construction of a new building for the teaching departments began. It opened in 1926, and was later named the Asutosh Building, after Asutosh Mukherjee, vice-chancellor of the university in 1906–14. Between 1912 and 1914, Taraknath Palit and Rash Behari Ghosh, two eminent lawyers, donated assets totalling ₹25 lakh (US$35,000), and founded the University College of Science at Upper Circular Road (now known as Acharya Prafulla Chandra Road).[15]
Senate Hall of University of Calcutta, early 1910s
Post-independence
Before the partition of India, twenty-seven colleges from East Bengal (now Bangladesh) were affiliated with the university. In 1951, the Government of West Bengal passed the Calcutta University Act, which substituted the earlier act of 1904 and ensured a democratic structure for the University. The West Bengal Secondary Education Act was passed in the same year linking the university with the school leaving examination. Gradually the requirements of the university grew, and the Senate House was becoming incapable of handling them. After the centenary of Calcutta University, the building was demolished to make space for a more utilitarian building. In 1957, the university's centenary year, it received a grant of ₹1 crore (equivalent to ₹81 crore or US$11 million in 2019) from the University Grants Commission, which aided with the construction of the Centenary Building on the College Street campus and the Law College Building on Hazra Road campus. The Economics Department got its own building in 1958 near Barrackpore Trunk Road. In 1965, the Goenka Hospital Diagnostic Research Centre for the University College of Medicine was opened as the university health service. Until 1960, Senate House was one of the city's most prominent landmarks.[16] In 1968, the Centenary Building opened on the former location of the Senate House. Currently, it houses the Central Library, the Asutosh Museum of Indian Art, the centenary auditorium and a number of university offices. By the mid-1970s, it had become one of the largest universities in the world, with 13 colleges under its direct control and more than 150 affiliated colleges, as well as 16 postgraduate faculties.[17] In the year 2001, the University of Calcutta was awarded the 'Five Star' status in the first cycle of the University's accreditation by the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC). In 2009 and 2017, the NAAC awarded its highest grade of 'A' to the University of Calcutta in the second and third cycle of the University's accreditation. In 2019, the university's central library and 40 departmental libraries were opened to the public. They have over one million books and more than 200,000 journals, proceedings and manuscripts.
