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Kolkata, reimagined: Can it regain the spirit of enterprise, and become the shining city on the Hooghly? December 15, 2020, 4:51 PM IST
The writer is a professor of communications and diplomacy at Norwich University, Vermont
In spite of Mumbai’s Bollywood glitter and New Delhi’s political whirligig, Kolkata has remained India’s cultural and intellectual capital since the Bengali renaissance in the 19th century. Few other cities in India have such a deep layer of a most privileged class of elites – artists, musicians, filmmakers, painters, poets, writers, economists and academics – whose overwhelming presence dwarfs everything else, including unfortunately, the entrepreneurial spirit of the people. Which has created a most damaging myth, a dangerous half-truth, as Sharmila Tagore lamented – an oft-repeated dirge – that Bengalis do not make good businessmen.