Bankipur was an ancient village on the Hugli river located in what is now

West Bengal West Bengal (, Bengali: ''Poshchim Bongo'', , abbr. WB) is a state in the eastern portion of India. It is situated along the Bay of Bengal, along with a population of over 91 million inhabitants within an area of . West Bengal is the fourt ...

, north of

Barrackpore Barrackpore (also known as Barrackpur) is a city and a municipality of urban Kolkata of North 24 Parganas district in the Indian state of West Bengal. It is also a part of the area covered by Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority (KMDA ...

, a little north of

Ishapore Ichapore or Ichhapur is a locality in North Barrackpur Municipality 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 (KMDA). Ichhapur Defence Estat ...

. It is now a suburb of Barrackpore and is not to be confused with Bankipur (Khejuri), a village located on the coast (at ).

History

Bankipur was famous as the principal settlement of the

Ostend Company The Ostend Company ( nl, Oostendse Compagnie, french: Compagnie d'Ostende), officially the General Company Established in the Austrian Netherlands for Commerce and Navigation in the Indies () was a chartered trading company in the Austrian Netherl ...

, the one great effort made by the

Austrian Empire The Austrian Empire (german: link=no, Kaiserthum Oesterreich, modern spelling , ) was a Central-Eastern European multinational great power from 1804 to 1867, created by proclamation out of the realms of the Habsburgs. During its existence, ...

to secure a foothold in

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

. The Ostend Company was formed in 1722–1723, and with a capital of less than a million sterling founded two settlements, one at Coblom (

Covelong Kovalam (Covelong) is a fishing village in Chennai, India, 40 kilometres south of Chennai, on the East Coast Road en route to Mahabalipuram. Covelong (Cabelon in French = Kovalam) was a port town developed in the 1720s by the Ostend Company on ...

) on the

Madras Chennai (, ), formerly known as Madras ( the official name until 1996), is the capital city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost Indian state. The largest city of the state in area and population, Chennai is located on the Coromandel Coast of th ...

coast between the British company at Madras and the Dutch one at

Sadras Sadras is a fortress town located on India's Coromandel Coast in Chengalpattu district, 70 km south of Chennai in Tamil Nadu state. ''Sadras'' is the anglicised form of the ancient town of ''Saduranga pattinam''. History and Etymology An i ...

, and the other on the Hugli between the British company at

Calcutta Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, the official name until 2001) is the Capital city, capital of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal, on the eastern ba ...

and the Dutch

Chinsura Hugli-Chuchura or Hooghly-Chinsurah is a city and a municipality of Hooghly district in the Indian state of West Bengal. It lies on the bank of Hooghly River, 35 km north of Kolkata. It is located in the district of Hooghly and is home t ...

. Both the British and Dutch were offended and in 1727, in order to obtain the European guarantee for the

Pragmatic Sanction A pragmatic sanction is a sovereign's solemn decree on a matter of primary importance and has the force of fundamental law. In the late history of the Holy Roman Empire, it referred more specifically to an edict issued by the Emperor. When used ...

, the court of

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

resolved to sacrifice the Company and suspended its charter. It became

bankrupt Bankruptcy is a legal process through which people or other entities who cannot repay debts to creditors may seek relief from some or all of their debts. In most jurisdictions, bankruptcy is imposed by a court order, often initiated by the debt ...

in 1784 and ceased to exist in 1793. But in the meantime in 1733 the British and Dutch convinced the Mughal general at Hugli to attack Bankipur. He attacked Bankipur and the garrison of only fourteen soldiers escaped and set sail for Europe. Thus imperial Austrian interests disappeared from India.

Footnotes

References

* ;Attribution *

History

Footnotes

References

Further reading