Faded Glory

Almost no conversation with my mother is complete without her bemoaning the fate of Kolkata and how she hold no hope for anything changing for the better in her lifetime. She is known to be prone to hyperbole as a good old fashioned Bangali should be, but reading this post on LinkedIn was a different perspective on the topic from someone who has deep roots in the city.

As the author says, Kolkata, once the beating heart of British India and a cradle of South Asian intellectual and commercial life, has experienced a dramatic arc of promise, stagnation, and disillusionment. The city’s rise was marked by grand ambitions, cosmopolitan culture, and economic opportunity, drawing migrants from across the country to its thriving streets. For families like the author’s, Kolkata symbolized a leap into modernity and hope, an urban refuge where dreams could flourish and contributions mattered. This was all likely true even when my grandparents' were young.

The seeds of decline were sown when the British shifted the capital to Delhi in 1912, but the decisive blows came from within. The post-independence power wielded by Kolkata’s Bhadralok elite and, later, three decades of Marxist rule. The combination proved highly toxic. Instead of progress, political leadership imposed red tape, labor unrest, and an aversion to industry, freezing the city in outdated ideology as other Indian metropolises sprinted ahead. The resulting economic decay, factories shuttering, unemployment soaring, and GDP growth trailing cities like Bengaluru and Hyderabad, turned Kolkata’s golden age into a relic. This is the Kolkata I have kwon for as long as I can remember. The decline was steady but relentless. My mother claims is has accelerated into free fall now. I cannot speak to the validity of her claims since I haven't lived there for decades.

These forces of neglect were compounded by violence and lawlessness, affecting not only the city’s physical landscape but also the lives of families who had invested generations of work and hope. Personal stories, such as the near-fatal assault on the author’s father, a revered business leader, underscore how a culture of disorder displaced the city’s former commercial ethos. Areas once bustling with legitimate trade fell prey to extortion, chaos, and political strongmen. This betrayal left many families, including the author’s, with little choice but to leave, seeking dignity and opportunity elsewhere.

Yet, amidst the decay, Kolkata clings to a bittersweet hope. Communal rituals like the Pujo celebrations briefly revive the city’s old spirit, even as nostalgia battles with present-day disillusionment. Even that is tenuous at best. Most people I know including my parents leave the city well before Puja and return once things quiet down after Dashami. They don't like how loud, crowded, chaotic and commercial the whole thing has become. This is not the Pujo they knew and loved. Today, Kolkata stands as a poignant testament to squandered potential, a metropolis weighed down by its own history, yearning for revival but mired in the consequences of leadership failures and societal complacency. Its story is both a warning and a plea, echoing the universal human struggle between promise and betrayal, memory and forgetting. Maybe there is a reason my mother cannot stop talking about the fate of this city where she was born and is still home to her.