Abstract
This is an engaging collection of essays by historians of Bombay/Mumbai. The volume came together as a tribute to Professor Mariam Dossal whose two books on the history of Bombay are a must read for all those who wish to engage with the megapolis’ varied history. The contributors are all well-known historians and this is what makes this volume an authoritative account of the city.
The span of the essays is wide and addresses problems of contemporary Mumbai to assessments of colonial Bombay. Darryl D’Monte’s essay which closes the volume makes for thoughtful reading. On 26 July 2005 Mumbai was deluged with heavy rains and the already blocked Mithi river spilled over its banks causing havoc in the city and bringing life to a standstill. It was an ecological disaster which took the citizens by surprise, but in retrospect did not seem at all unlikely since rampant growth had affected the natural drainage of the city from the Powai lake and little had been done to redress this issue. D’Monte looks at the various plans for the city and is unimpressed. Far too much attention had been paid to cosmetic infrastructure that was driven by reclamation for commercial needs and little attention had been paid to lack of housing and the growth of slums.
Mariam Dossal has also contributed to this volume and her essay addresses the 1930s when a critical mass of thinking about the city came to fruition in the work of architects like Claude Batley and his disciple P.P. Kapadia. Batley was unhappy about the revisions to the Back Bay Reclamation Scheme and his ideas ran towards making Bombay a more accommodative city with decent and affordable housing for all. Kapadia according to Dossal was a nationalist and nation-building and cities were closely connected in his practice. He suggested multi-storey buildings for Bombay and as far as middle and upper class housing was concerned this soon became the norm.
Douglas Haynes has an interesting take on the deindustrialisation of Mumbai and he seems to suggest a dispersal and decentralisation from the city proper to smaller centres like Bhiwandi, Surat, Malegaon, Ichalkaranji, instead of outright decline of factory-based textile production. It was in these smaller centres that the more entrepreneurial artisan–capitalists capable of absorbing the newer models of organisation and technology were able to compete with the big players. Haynes’ account extends and confirms the argument made for colonial India by Tirthankar Roy that the response of artisans to mechanisation was more robust and over time they adjusted and even competed with mill-based production.
Mridula Ramanna’s essay on health in Bombay takes on a gamut of diseases which threatened the public order and in response to which the state had to innovate with new responses. Cholera, plague, influenza, tuberculosis, malaria all affected the city in various degrees. Plague produced an interventionist state and led to demolitions and sanitary planning which had political consequences. Ramanna seems to suggest that medical crises also led to the promotion, spread and gradual acceptance of western medicine and here a crucial role was played by Indian doctors who were important intermediaries. The growing popularity of western medicine may also have been responsible for Bombay becoming an important hub of medical education and training.
Frank Conlon’s essay is a brief history of tramways which were introduced in Bombay in 1874. The first trams were horse-drawn and it was only in 1907 that the process of electrification of the tram system began in some earnest. Trams signified a new level of urbanisation: it was widely used by both middle-class office employees as well as by the some sections of the working class. Transport historians have commented how mechanised transport, electrification and modern road systems encouraged the generation of new urban spaces. One outcome was the divide between places of work and places of residence which was an important attribute of the modern city. Trams however did not survive the rapid growth of Bombay and they were shut down in 1964. Suburban trains and buses replaced this form of travel.
Jim Masselos provides an overview of the city in the twentieth city through the Times of India choosing at random 25 March and then following it through 1925, 1965 and 2005. This approach has produced rich results and the advertisements and inserts in Bombay’s premier newspaper gives us a fascinating peep into the city’s public life over many decades. Bombay was not just an outpost of empire in the early decades of the twentieth century which replicated metropolitan urbanism but had a very distinct life of its own. The global character of Bombay/Mumbai as Masselos’ essay seems to hint persisted despite the very specific local problems of the city and the imperatives of nation building in the late twentieth century.
Amar Farooqui’s essay excavates the forgotten Portuguese connections of Bombay and its economic basis in the opium trade. Major contributors to this connection were Indian traders till the 1840s. The strategic importance of Daman ensured that taxes on the opium trade would be kept to the minimum. Dietmar Rothermund’s essay which opens the book is a survey of Bombay from its origins to the Mumbai of the present. It gives a good overview of development and change in the city including some of the important political and economic events that affected the destiny of the city.
Manjiri Kamat’s long introduction diligently summarises all the essays in the book—this has made the job of the reviewer easier! However what is missing in the introduction is any overview of the work and achievements of Professor Dossal. In a book of this nature it would have been appropriate if the editor had devoted a few pages to the place of Professor Dossal in the evolving historiography of urban India. It would also have helped if there had been some indication of the kind of research that Bombay/Mumbai has generated in the last decade, especially in the field of cultural studies.