Flavia Agnes

 

THE MAKING OF A METROPOLIS

http://www.majlisbombay.org/pdf/7%20island%20-%20Flavia%20ppr.pdf

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The Textile Mills:

It is around this time, Bombay became the nation's first industrial town. The first Indian cotton

mill, The Bombay Spinning Mill, was started in 1854, by Cowasji Nanabhai Davar was a

success. So other traders followed suit. By 1870 there were 13 mills in Bombay and

increased to 70 by 1895, growing further to 83 in 1915. The mills were owned and managed

mainly by Indians.

The rapid growth in mills was sustained by large migrations of Marathi speaking workers into

the city. Supervisors (who were called jobbers) were sent out to recruit men from the

impoverished coastal regions and the planes. But to the villagers, Bombay seemed alien,

cramped and poverty stricken. So the job of recruitment was not easy. But gradually the

workers trickled in. Most often, the male member of the family would work in Bombay,

leaving the rest of the family in the village. These workers were initially accommodated in

hostels. Eventually, these chawls became tenements, with full families crammed into single

rooms. The high density of population, coupled with low pays and insanitary living conditions

caused high morbidity rates in Bombay.

The 1881 census revealed startling statistics - 80 per cent of the population lived in one room

tenements. The population density in European areas of Fort and Colaba were 20 & 27 per

acre while Europeans formed only one percent of the population. In Indian occupied areas of

the Fort - 258 per acre. In Mill areas it was around 700 per acre.

The Famines and the Plague:

To add to the miseries of city life, were the famines in hinterlands which brought in starving

multitudes into the city. The Saurashtra region faced acute famine in 1877 1889 and 1897-

99. The administration now began to distinguish between worthy and unworthy poor. While it

welcomed the poor from the backward regions of Konkan and Ghats who came in as textile

and construction labour, it sought to prevent the entry of the destitute drought victims s into

the city. The infestation metaphor was applied to them According to the civic administrators,

'their squalid and diseased appearance render the scene loathsome and the gathering a

perfect nuisance'. Famine refugees fell sick with fever due to their feeble conditions and the

administration viewed hem as a menace to public health'.

The city was considering how to set itself apart and distinct from the country side and

maintain the barriers between them. But the government did not have the power to effect

this. The enactment of 1897, the Epidemic Diseases Act stipulated that entry could be

prevented only if the source of plague were beggars, but not if they cotacated the plague in

the city.

Most of the victims of famine were from the neighboring Princely states. Through an

ecactment of 1864 , the entry of foreigners to the city could be restricted and the government

wanted to use this clause to prevent the entry of victims from the Princely states. But the

Famine Commission of 1880 had recommended that there should be no distinction between

victims from British territories and the Princely states. While the administration was

contemplating the implications of preventing entry of famine victims, a death by starvation on

the streets of Bombay brought out starkly the city's apathy towards its poor and pierced the

conscience of the city administrators.

Phase VI - 1911 - 1947 Nationalist Struggle and Trade Union Movement.

This phase of India's history left its mark in the history of world politics. The nationalistic

struggle led by Gandhi who gave the world a new terminology for struggles - noncooperation,

non-violence which in India were known by the name, Swadeshi (Indian

manufactured goods) and Satyagrahaha (non-violence) and Swaraj (indpenedence). At the

other end, a working class movement evolved rooted within the Maraxist ideological

framework. The nations history evolved through these struggles and within the dynamics of

the tensions between the two.

Emergence of the Trade Union Movememnt:

It was also the period when the labour movement made significant strides. In 1905, when

electricity came into the city, the working hours at the mills stretched to 15 hours. Gradually

through a series of strikes, the working day was brought down to 10 hours. On 9th January,

1919 , around 150,000 textile workers went on strike for 18 days, demanding higher wages.

At this time they were not led by any official trade union. But soon thereafter, trade unions

affiliated both to Congress, the nationalist party and the Communist Party emerged. The

textile workers, a formidable force by now, struck work on several issues of economic and

political importance during 1920-30. In 1928, under the leadership of a charismatic leader G.

S. Dange, the textile workers struck work for six months. Soon after this the Communist

Party and the workers organizations affiliated to them were banned.

The Nationalist Struggle:

There were nationwide movement against British goods, which received the widespread

support of Mill owners who saw in it an opportunity for the promotion of Indian textiles. In

1935, the Government of India Act was enacted which provided for elections in the British

Presidencies. The Congress Party swept the polls in the elections held in 1937. The

electorate was the tax payers and mill workers had no stake in these elections.

With the advent of the second world war, India was dragged into it, to serve British interests.

The Congress Party resigned since the government had ated arbitrarly. The Congress was

willing to give it conditional support, condition being the freedom of the country upon the

conclusion of war. But the Communist party was against any support to the war but

Congress was willing for conditional support. But in the midst of this dilemma, the clarion call

of `Quit India' was given from the Gawalia Tank Maidan in Mumbai, on August 9, in 1942.

These grounds have been later renamed as August Kranti Maidan (August Revolution

Grounds.

Fearing widespread political reprisal, the British government arrested all congress leaders. In

thier absence, it fell to the lot of a brave young woman, Aruna Asif Ali, then barely in her

early twenties, to step into the shoes of her leaders and unfurl the national flag and give the

battle cry of Quit India.

Fire at the Bombay Port:

Bombay experienced the heat of the war in a most tragic manner. On 14th April, 1944 a

major fire broke out at the Victoria Docks. A ship named Stikine which had sailed from Britain

had berthed in the docks since two days. It carried highly explosive ammunition and other

war material for the planned attack on Japan. Also stored in its hold were lubricating oil

drums, bales of raw cotton, heavy timber, scrap iron, dynamos and wireless sets. It also

carried gold bars of two million Pounds Sterling from London to stabilize the Indian Rupee,

which was sagging due to the war and fear of invasion from Japan.

Around 12.35 p.m. officers on ships nearby noticed smoke billowing out of the ship but

assumed that those on Stikine would be aware of it and take necessary action. So they did

not raise an alarm. But as ill luck would have it, none on Stikine noticed anything amiss. It

was only around 1400 that some stevedores returning from lunch noticed the smoke and

raised the first fire alarm. The fire service crew from the dock joined. The gravity of the

situation was such that the first party had to despatch an emergency message for more men

and equipment. But despite all efforts the fire could not be located. The fire fighting crew was

unable to reach the water to the smouldering cargo as cotton bales soaked it up. Thick,

black, asphyxiating smoke and hot toxic gases from the dangerous cargo sapped the fire

fighters.

The clock at the tower clock on the docks, showed 1550. Time was running out and the

situation was getting out of hand. The deck and sides of Stikine had turned red. The fire

fighters had run out of options The heat patch on the side of the ship grew larger with each

passing moment. The radiations from the struck ship set a shed on the dock ablaze. The

chief gave orders to abandon the ship. Some brave and daring officers and men however did

not leave their posts and continued to fight the prowling flames. The tower clock registered

1606 and a tremendous explosion that followed froze the clock hands at that moment as if in

a record for posterity. Molten metals and lethal debris killed the crew still on their posts.

Blazing cotton bales, flaring oil drums, blobs of melting metal flew up, showering down over a

vast area killing and maiming old and young, starting numerous fires in sheds and ships in

the Victoria and Prince's Docks. But the worse was still to come. The ill-fated ship had not

sunk entirely after the first explosion. Its hold bulging with high explosives, ammunition and

cargo was still intact. It was 1640, just 34 minutes after the first explosion, when a second

and much more powerful and devastating explosion followed. Stikine went up in the air like

flying saucer and rose to the level of 3000 feet! A majority of the men of the Bombay Fire

Brigade, who answered the call to duty immediately after the first blast, lost their lives in the

second explosion.

The force generated by the second blast started a tidal wave that lifted the 400 feet, 4000 ton

S.S.Jalpadma clear off the water 50 feet high and slammed her down. On that fateful Friday

there were 23 ships berthed in Victoria and Prince's docks, only six remained after the

disaster struck. 300 acres of dock area was in ruins. Port equipment lay in shambles. Fire

service infrastructure was devastated. The destruction in the docks and surrounding area

was immense and several hundred-dock workers were killed instantly. About 300 acres of

the dock was devastated Valiant firemen continued to fight the fire without respite for days

and nights. Gold bars were flown all over the city. One such bar entered a third floor flat

more than a mile away from the docks at Girgaon.

There was utter chaos and panic in the metropolis. Rumours spread rapidly that the

Japanese had commenced hostilities on the same style as the surprise attack on Pearl

Harbour in the Hawaiian Islands in December 1941. The major terminal railway stations were

crowded with people scurrying to leave the city, with their meager belongings. As late as in

1970 during dredging operations in the docks, one or two gold bars buried deep into the soil

at the bottom of the sea would be found and returned to the British government. In 1963, the

government declared this day as, fie fighters day in memory of all the firemen who had died.

Phase VII - 1947 - 1982 - Parochial Chauvinism and Spell of Bollywood

The freedom came at midnight of 15th August, 1947, after the country was torn asunder by

communal riots and was finally partitioned. Colossal loss of life and property, and

displacement of tens of thousands of people. But Bombay was saved from the communal

violence. Its cosmopolitan character came to its rescue. The communal riots erupted in the

city several decades later, fanned by right wing and parochial identity politics. Bombay was

the commercial capital with all the gloss and glamour attached to it. Within this climate, the

film industry thrived and within the next few decades, earned a district place for it self in the

world entertainment market under a new coinage, Bollywood.

Under faulty development schemes, the population from neglected rural areas from as far

away as Utter Pradesh, Bihar and Bengal (the Northern and Eastern Provinces) gravitated

towards Bombay, lured by the spell of the Bollywood and the possibility of employment within

the organized sector . The multi-lingual and multicultural character of the city continued. The

continuous land reclamations were adversely tilting the ecological balance. The perennial

shortage of space sent property prices spiraling. The land scams and the faulty housing

regulations created enormous amount of unaccounted wealth, and ceated the breeding

grounds for the under world.

Emergence of Parochial Identity

After independece, the states undr the British rule and those governed by native Kings as

well as tribal and forest regions were reconstituted on linguistic basis. But for the Bombay

Presidency, a bi-lingual state comprising of Maharashtra and Gujarat, with Bombay as its

capital was recommended. Its inauguration on November 1, 1956, caused a great political

stir. The socialist and communists were at the forefront of this struggle. When the agitation

became violent, the Chief Minister, Mr. Morarjee Desai (a Gujarati) ordered police firing in

which several agitators were killed. The Congress Party suffered heavy electoral losses in

the state elections held in 1957. Finally Congress relented and the state of Maharashtra

came into official existence on May 1, 1960 and Bombay was declared as its capital. From

this point on Bombay was groomed as a Maharashtrian city. But the name change from

Bombay to Mumbai occurred only in 1995 under severe

opposition from non-Marathi sections. In the next two decades, the right wing party Shiv

Sena was able to channelise the aspirations of the working class, who were facing severe

economic set backs, to a Marati identity. Gradually, the all party political formulation formed

during the agitation for the creation of the state gave rise to a more aggressive right wing

parochial identity. The unemployed youth of the city became its base.

Phase VIII - 1982 - 2002 - Decline of Industry and Invocations for a Global City.

The textile industry had already begun to decline as part of a world wide trend. Various

government restrictions, the spiraling land prices, a strong labour movement which cut into

profits induced the mill owenrs to siphon off the profits and show losses. By eighties many

textile mills in the city were in the red. They would have preferred to closed down mills, sell

the mill land and direct the profits to other industries outside Bombay. But tis was not

possible due to government restriction on sale of mill land which was leased to the mills at

concessional rates. The mill owners evolved a strategy of declaring the mills as sick

industrial units for obtaining permission for the sale of mill land on the pretext of modernizing

the mills. Wages stagnated, bonus amounts were reduced and workers were disgruntled.

They felt let down by the left trade unions and forced an individual trade unionist, Dr. Datta

Samant to lead their struggle. The initial call for a one day strike given under the leadership

of Dr. Datta Samant was a success. The trade unionist had received a certain measure of

success in the engineering industry. Under pressure from the workers from several mills

which were on the verge of closure, he declared an indefinate strike in January, 1982.

2,50,000 textile workers struck work.

The events that followed were beyond the simple calculations of the workers and their

leader. The government refused to negotiate with the workers unless they called off the

strike and the workers on the other hand were adamant. This led to a stalemate. Workers

and their families were on he brink of economic ruin. Unable to withstand the pressures of

the city life, several workers returned to the villages. The Congress affiliated mill, colluded

with the mill owners and the government and used brutal force to break the strike. The strike

went on for 18 months and at the end only a small fraction of strikers were taken back. The

strike never actually ended. It just lost its steam and dwindled out. The workers who could

not withstand the pangs of hunger and starvation and trickled back to work without any

gains, in the wake of total face loss. The collective bargaining power of the workers had been

shattered.

The strike came as a boon to the mill owners, who used the underworld to get into deals with

builders with the active collusion of the political parties power. The workers remained out of

all the negotiations. Special permission was obtained for the sale on the pretext of reviving

he industry. But instead, the money was siphoned off and the mills remained closed. Some

companies induced their workers to take the newly evolved Voluntary Retirement Schemes.

During the period of twenty years from the time of the textile mill strike the number of workers

employed by the mills was dramtically reduced from 250,000 in 1982 to around 30,000

workers to the present day. Economists view this as one of the swiftest job losses in the

world in recent times. Several mill owners and trade unionist, including Datta Samant were

brutally murdered. Bombay had turned into a mafia city.

Within this ground reality, the 1992-93 communal riots took place in the city. The demolition

of a mosque in North India was the trigger. After 100 years, the city was engulfed in

communal frenzy, fanned by the right wing political party Shiv Sena. The Marathi chauvinism

of the fifties, which was directed against the Gujarati traders initially, and the South Indian

community later, in the wake of the communal frenzy was channelised against the Muslims

in the city. Suddenly, the Muslims who have been living in the city for centuries, became

'outsiders'. The riots took Bombay by surprise and destroyed the cosmopolitan character of

the city.

Bombay as a Global City:

It is within this climate of a violent political and economy, that a call to convert the city into a

global one has been given. The mill land has been developed into multiplexes. A scheme

titled, 'Bombay First' was started in 1995. At this time, the cost per sq meters of office space

in Mumbai was '$1689 - 30% more than its nearest rival, Hong Kong. Asian cities occupied

the top three places, Mumbai, Hong Kong and Tokyo-inner central. Hong Kong's annual

rentals were $1291 per sq m and Tokyo $1215.

In 1997, as the sun set on the last colony of the British empire in 1997, the dream of inviting

global capital to Mumbai blossomed. In August 2000 the Confederation of Indian Industry

renewed its three year old proposal to convert Mumbai into an off shore financial centre

which would offer tax efficient and less regulated jurisdiction for attracting investments into

the country.

Beyond city limits, satellite cities have been created. A 370-hectare complex just outside the

island city to rival the earlier center at South Bombay. Located near the international and

national airports it was planned as a 'modern' sophisticated 'city within a city' complete with

technical and infrastructural facilities that compares with the best in the world.

Conclusions:

The smoke from the chimney's has been extinguished. High rises with shopping malls and

bowling alleys adorn the skyline of the mill area today. The workers continue to live in their

dilapidated houses with no hope for a future unless their children join the underworld or are

sucked into communal politics. The communal elements and the underground mafia has

been able to effectively channelise the frustrations of the youth in the wake of despair and

desolution.

At the other end, the rupee is shrinking, faced with global challenges and the buying power

of even the middle class is dwindling. It is not that the policy of globalisation has bought

about only doom and that there is no prosperity in the city. A small section of the upper

middle class and the elite have been able to reap the fruit of these conomic policy. But what

is of concern is the increasing disparity between the rich and the poor with a shrinking middle

class in between. The city

has no space for the poor. This type of development, and the trend of de-industrialisation can

be seen elsewhere as well. But nowhere has been the swift as sudden or as violent as it has

been in Bombay. As the sky rises block the sea winds, one wonders whether the boon given

by the goddesses will end.Conclusions:

The smoke from the chimney's has been extinguished. High rises with shopping malls and

bowling alleys adorn the skyline of the mill area today. The workers continue to live in their

dilapidated houses with no hope for a future unless their children join the underworld or are

sucked into communal politics. The communal elements and the underground mafia has

been able to effectively channelise the frustrations of the youth in the wake of despair and

desolution.

At the other end, the rupee is shrinking, faced with global challenges and the buying power

of even the middle class is dwindling. It is not that the policy of globalisation has bought

about only doom and that there is no prosperity in the city. A small section of the upper

middle class and the elite have been able to reap the fruit of these conomic policy. But what

is of concern is the increasing disparity between the rich and the poor with a shrinking middle

class in between. The city has no space for the poor.

This type of development, and the trend of de-industrialisation can be seen elsewhere as

well. But nowhere has been the swift as sudden or as violent as it has been in Bombay. As

the sky rises block the sea winds, one wonders whether the boon given by the goddesses

will end.