Kolkata :
Dutch history in India has been ‘e-mortalized’ by Presidency University and Netherlands Embassy, with the launch of a web portal documenting and geo-tagging the total area of the Dutch cemetery in Chinsurah. At the same time, ‘The Dutch East India Company in India’, a book by anthropologist Bauke van der Pol was released on Friday.
“This book looks at the larger picture of the Dutch in India, and Dutch trade relations with India have existed for far longer than those with say, America or Australia,” said van der Pol, who presented a comprehensive compendium of the Dutch East India Company heritage in India by guiding the reader through country houses, settlements, trading posts and cemeteries.
The website and the book was launched by Presidency University vice-chancellor Anuradha Lohia and the Honorary Consul of the Netherlands, Namit Shah. “The ‘Dutch Cemetery in Chinsurah’ database, that’s available online at www.dutchcemeterybengal.com, tells the story of a centuries-old colonial settlement that produced some of the key figures involved in the shaping of trade, polity and culture in the Indian subcontinent. Less well-known than its British namesake, the Dutch East India Company, Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie (VOC), once managed the vast inter-continental trade from 17th to 19th century through its settlements in coastal India. As a hub between the western trade capital Amsterdam and its Eastern counterpart in Batavia, Chinsurah occupied a key position in VOC and indeed, in Dutch history as well,” said Souvik Mukherjee of the English department, who headed the digital humanities project.
Mukherjee outlined the objectives of the project. “We photographed the gravestones and tombs in detail, accessed and digitized the research matter from offline sources. We also transcribed headstone inscriptions and inserted architectural, biographical, geographical, demographic, literary and historical metadata,” he said.
The Dutch anthropologist also gave a sneak peek into his next book, ‘Dutch on the Ganges’, scheduled to be released next year.
While explaining how the Dutch settled at Baranagar, van der Pol said, “It was a small settlement where big ships would anchor before heading out. It was also known to have a widely-known brothel, with beautiful ladies from Malaysia.”
He also gave a brief description of Prince Hendrik van Oranje’s three-month stay in Bengal back in 1837.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> City> Kolkata / TNN / November 07th, 2014