# Is the black hole of Calcutta a myth? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [May 19, 2007, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-black-hole-of-calcutta-a-myth/404741 "2007-05-19T17:17:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![coolcasanova](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c77e96/32.png) [@coolcasanova](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coolcasanova)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2007, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-black-hole-of-calcutta-a-myth/404741/1 "2007-05-19T17:17:05Z")
I just read thro the article dated 09-Oct-2001 - Is the black hole of Calcutta a myth?.. [http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mblackhole.html](http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mblackhole.html) Thanks for the info that was provided in the article … but the kind of presentation given about the Indians of 1757, by calling them savages, is this the way your website presents an article in a public medium… Before presenting your views, kindly look into the reality of the words being published… To know more about India, kindly look into the website [http://india.indymedia.org/en/2003/06/5355.shtml](http://india.indymedia.org/en/2003/06/5355.shtml) Am not propogating that Indians are the best, But just leaving a humble request that we are not savages. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Borgia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_borgia/32/156_2.png) [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2007, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-black-hole-of-calcutta-a-myth/404741/2 "2007-05-19T17:22:16Z")
Where does that article call Indians savages? ---
**Author:** ![Rodgers01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b19c9b/32.png) [@Rodgers01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rodgers01)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2007, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-black-hole-of-calcutta-a-myth/404741/3 "2007-05-19T17:24:20Z")
Your misreading the article – the implication is not that the author thinks the Indians were savages, but that that’s how the British viewed them at the time. Don’t worry; there’s not much anti-Indianism here. ---
**Author:** ![Rodgers01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b19c9b/32.png) [@Rodgers01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rodgers01)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2007, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-black-hole-of-calcutta-a-myth/404741/4 "2007-05-19T17:25:25Z")
[QUOTE=Larry Borgia] Where does that article call Indians savages? [/QUOTE] Here [QUOTE=Article] Suddenly, rather than being traders in India, the East India Company was the de facto ruler–an incident most Britons looked upon with great favor, possibly out of revenge for the Black Hole, or the belief that with British rule, the savages of India could be civilized. [/QUOTE] ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Borgia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_borgia/32/156_2.png) [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2007, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-black-hole-of-calcutta-a-myth/404741/5 "2007-05-19T17:33:02Z")
[QUOTE=Rodgers01] Here [/QUOTE] Right, but as you point out, that’s just reporting a British attitude. If I say “Hitler thought Jews were evil” I’m not calling Jews evil, I’m just reporting what Hitler thought. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2007, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-black-hole-of-calcutta-a-myth/404741/6 "2007-05-19T18:45:14Z")
As noted, Staff Member **John Corrado** was presenting the view espoused by the British, not using a label as an objective description of the Indian people. I will further note that we actually have a Forum dedicated to responses to and [Comments on Staff Reports](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/forumdisplay.php?forumid=6). I doubt that you will get any debate over the fact that Indians are not savages, so I am going to move this thread to that Forum. Welcome to the SDMB. Edited to Add: (Even the “view espoused by the British” neds to be understood in the context of the times–mid eighteenth century, early twentieth century–that the issue was portrayed or reviewed and should not necessarily be considered the view of a typical educated Briton, today.) ---
**Author:** ![John\_W.Kennedy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_w.kennedy/32/1031_2.png) [@John\_W.Kennedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_W.Kennedy)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2007, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-black-hole-of-calcutta-a-myth/404741/7 "2007-05-20T00:00:34Z")
To judge from _Bride & Prejudice_, it is only emigrés who regard their fellow Indians as savages. ---
**Author:** ![TPWombat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbce88/32.png) [@TPWombat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TPWombat)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2007, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-black-hole-of-calcutta-a-myth/404741/8 "2007-05-20T13:40:49Z")
I dont know of any Brits myself who think that Indians are savages. In many ways you guys have the same mindset as us. Dont forget there are many Indians or descendants of Indians living in Britain so you aren’t exactly exotic to us. (And the official favourite meal of Brits is not Fish and Chips as many non Brits believe but is Curry I kid you not) ---
**Author:** ![Lust4Life](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ecc23a/32.png) [@Lust4Life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lust4Life)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2007, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-black-hole-of-calcutta-a-myth/404741/9 "2007-05-20T13:42:39Z")
[QUOTE=TPWombat] I dont know of any Brits myself who think that Indians are savages. In many ways you guys have the same mindset as us. Dont forget there are many Indians or descendants of Indians living in Britain so you aren’t exactly exotic to us. (And the official favourite meal of Brits is not Fish and Chips as many non Brits believe but is Curry I kid you not) [/QUOTE] Sorry mods that was one of mine ,didnt know that wombat hadn’t logged out. ---
**Author:** ![SiXSwordS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/49beb7/32.png) [@SiXSwordS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SiXSwordS)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2007, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-black-hole-of-calcutta-a-myth/404741/10 "2007-05-22T17:01:58Z")
If there is an offensive section in the article I think it is: “…the damned [wogs](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wog)” (Note that there are no quotation marks around the term in the article.) The sentence — Whipping and other physical abuse on antebellum southern plantations was considered by overseers to be a good way to keep the niggers in line. — would be considered incredibly offensive. Even if it were only meant to demonstrate the attitude of contemporary slaveholders. If the point is to indicate the way that Britons of the time thought about the people of India, then that could easily have been spelled out. ---
**Author:** ![John\_W.Kennedy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_w.kennedy/32/1031_2.png) [@John\_W.Kennedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_W.Kennedy)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2007, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-black-hole-of-calcutta-a-myth/404741/11 "2007-05-22T19:40:00Z")
“Wog” isn’t even a word in the US, offensive or otherwise. ---
**Author:** ![SiXSwordS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/49beb7/32.png) [@SiXSwordS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SiXSwordS)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2007, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-black-hole-of-calcutta-a-myth/404741/12 "2007-05-22T19:58:35Z")
Neither are puta, chingada or cabron… what’s your point? ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2007, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-black-hole-of-calcutta-a-myth/404741/13 "2007-05-22T20:45:54Z")
[QUOTE=John W. Kennedy] “Wog” isn’t even a word in the US, offensive or otherwise. [/QUOTE] Of course it is, in exactly the same way that “lorry” is a word. Just because they’re British usage doesn’t mean that no British speakers exist in the US or that we are never exposed to British writing or media or that no Anglophile ever tries to talk like someone from Ol’ Blighty. And both words are in the American Heritage Dictionary, third edition.