Before Mumbai became synonymous with money, Calcutta was India’s financial capital. In the 19th century, when British agency houses controlled shipping, tea, coal and indigo, it was along the streets of Dalhousie Square and Clive Row that shares first exchanged hands. The Calcutta Stock Exchange (CSE), formally incorporated in 1908, was not merely a trading floor, it was the economic stage of eastern India.
The building at 7, Lyons Range, completed in 1928, stood like a Greek columned temple to commerce. Brokers arrived in starched dhotis, clerks ran with handwritten slips, and fortunes were announced by nothing more than a bell and a raised eyebrow. This was long before electronic tickers, capital in Calcutta ran on memory, trust, and reputation.
The Market That Built Industrial Bengal
CSE grew not on speculation, but on industry. It was the exchange of jute, tea, coal, and steel, rooted in the hinterland of Bengal, Assam and Bihar. Companies like Andrew Yule, McLeod Russel, Jessop & Co., and Dunlop India used CSE to raise capital decades before Bombay industrialists arrived.
In 1980, the Government of India granted permanent recognition to CSE under the Securities Contracts Regulation Act. At its zenith, it listed nearly 900 companies, making it the second most influential exchange in India after Bombay.
CSE was more than a market, it was the financial nerve of the East. It funded roads, railways, plantations and mills. Kolkata’s Marwari and Bengali business families built generational wealth here.
Decline by Drift: When Power Moved West
CSE’s fall was not sudden. It began with India’s political and economic drift westward.
a) 1947 Partition drained agency houses and European capital.
b)1970s labour unrest and Naxalite violence pushed corporate headquarters to Mumbai.
c) 1991 Liberalisation concentrated finance around Bombay and the newly created National Stock Exchange (NSE, est. 1992).
Despite launching its electronic system, C-STAR in 1997, CSE could not match the speed, scale and nationwide reach of NSE’s screen-based markets. Investors no longer needed Kolkata; they needed liquidity, and liquidity had moved to Mumbai.
2001: The Crash That Broke Its Back
In March 2001, the Ketan Parekh securities scam hit Indian markets. Kolkata brokers were heavily entangled in circular trading of the so-called “K-10 stocks”. When the bubble burst, dozens of CSE brokers defaulted. Payments failed. SEBI intervened. This was not a mere scandal. It was an extinction event. Investors fled. Trust collapsed. CSE never recovered market confidence.
Suspended into Oblivion (2013 – 2023)
In April 2013, SEBI officially suspended trading on CSE for non-compliance, shrinking volumes, and failure to meet modern norms.
Even attempts to survive through tie-ups with other platforms were halted by regulatory pressure.
In November 2023, the Calcutta High Court ordered a full cessation of any trading linkages, effectively ending all operational life. No final trade. No farewell session. Just terminals gone dark.
The Final Exit: Last Diwali at Lyons Range (2025)
In April 2025, CSE shareholders voted to voluntarily exit under SEBI’s exchange exit policy. A valuation firm has been appointed. Employees are being released under VRS.
This Diwali, 2025– is not just symbolic. It is the last Diwali that CSE will live through as an exchange. While BSE and NSE perform their ceremonial Muhurat Trading, Lyons Range will remain shuttered. No bell. No lamp. No last trade.
Why India Let It Die
This was not natural market evolution. It was engineered financial centralisation. India chose two mega-exchanges over a federal market structure.
What Kolkata Loses Forever
a) A regional capital market outside Mumbai’s monopoly
b) The last institutional link between Bengal’s industrial past and India’s financial present
c) The only exchange where tea, jute and coal built empires
CSE’s closure is not a failure of a company. It is the silencing of a financial civilization.
After the Bell
The building will remain. Heritage boards may preserve its arches. But an institution that survived Empire, Independence, Socialism and Liberalisation could not survive centralisation without memory. India still celebrates Diwali on Dalal Street. Kolkata will celebrate without a market.
One bell will not return.
