The 26 Workers Who Died Building Howrah Bridge
You cross it every day. 150,000 vehicles use it daily. But do you know about the 26 men who never made it home?
“My father left for work one February morning in 1939,” 89-year-old Ramesh Chandra Das tells me at his Shibpur home. “He never came back.”
His father, Gopal Das, was one of 26 workers who died building the Howrah Bridge between 1936-1943. Some fell from dizzying heights. Others were crushed by steel beams. A few drowned when scaffolding collapsed into the Hooghly.
I spent weeks digging through National Library archives. The numbers are there, buried in construction reports: “industrial accidents,” “worker fatalities.” Twenty-six lives reduced to statistics.
Shefali Mondal’s grandfather was a skilled riveter who fell from the northern tower in 1940. “The compensation? Fifty rupees,” she says bitterly. “That’s what the British gave my grandmother for her husband’s life. She raised four children alone.”
Kamal Sarkar’s great-uncle was crushed when a girder broke loose. “No compensation. No apology. Nothing.”
Here’s what bothers me most: There’s no memorial. No plaque. Nothing.
The bridge has plaques for British engineers – Bradford Leslie, Rendel, Palmer and Tritton. Their names are etched in metal. But the men who actually built it? The riveters, welders, laborers who risked their lives daily? Forgotten.
“I just want people to know he existed,” Ramesh told me. “His name was Gopal Das. He was 34. He had three children. And he died building that bridge.”
I found eight more names: Hari Mondal, Shankar Sarkar, Ratan Biswas, Sukhlal Mahato, Baijnath Singh, Dilip Ghosh, Abdul Karim Sheikh, Jogen Dutta. Eighteen names remain unknown.
Last month, Kolkata Port Trust celebrated the bridge’s 81st anniversary with fanfare. Politicians gave speeches about engineering excellence. Nobody mentioned the 26.
Next time you cross Howrah Bridge, remember: Twenty-six men died so you could cross the Hooghly in six minutes. Their names deserve to be spoken.
The families don’t want money or grand ceremonies. They want something simple: a small memorial. A plaque that says: “In memory of the workers who gave their lives building this bridge.”
Is that too much to ask?