CRAMPED for ROOM Mumbai’S Land Woes
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CRAMPED FOR ROOM Mumbai’s land woes A PICTURE OF CONGESTION I n T h i s I s s u e The Brabourne Stadium, and in the background the Ambassador About a City Hotel, seen from atop the Hilton 2 Towers at Nariman Point. The story of Mumbai, its journey from seven sparsely inhabited islands to a thriving urban metropolis home to 14 million people, traced over a thousand years. Land Reclamation – Modes & Methods 12 A description of the various reclamation techniques COVER PAGE currently in use. Land Mafia In the absence of open maidans 16 in which to play, gully cricket Why land in Mumbai is more expensive than anywhere SUMAN SAURABH seems to have become Mumbai’s in the world. favourite sport. The Way Out 20 Where Mumbai is headed, a pointer to the future. PHOTOGRAPHS BY ARTICLES AND DESIGN BY AKSHAY VIJ THE GATEWAY OF INDIA, AND IN THE BACKGROUND BOMBAY PORT. About a City THE STORY OF MUMBAI Seven islands. Septuplets - seven unborn babies, waddling in a womb. A womb that we know more ordinarily as the Arabian Sea. Tied by a thin vestige of earth and rock – an umbilical cord of sorts – to the motherland. A kind mother. A cruel mother. A mother that has indulged as much as it has denied. A mother that has typically left the identity of the father in doubt. Like a whore. To speak of fathers who have fought for the right to sire: with each new pretender has come a new name. The babies have juggled many monikers, reflected in the schizophrenia the city seems to suffer from. The Koli fishermen were the first to lay claim. From them possibly comes the present name of the city, derived from a shrine to the goddess Mumbadevi. The Kolis have survived unobtrusively in small pockets along the shoreline while the city has grown up, grown apart. From the 6th to the 13th century, the islands served as home to several Hindu dynasties, most famously that of the Yadava king Bhimdev who made his capital at Mahikawati, familiar to us as Mahim. The Mohmeddans of Gujarat annexed the islands in 1343, bringing with them the beautiful Haji Ali Mosque and the religion of Islam. The Portuguese dropped anchor in 1508, and were quick to snatch the islands away from the Sultanate. They dubbed the deep natural harbour Bom Bahia – Good Bay. The islands were of little more utility to the Portuguese than as a weekend getaway, apparent The original Bombay archipelago, prior to the from their alternative name for the archipelago: A Ilha reclamations da Boa Vida, or The Island of Good Life. In 1661, Catherine de Braganza, the Portuguese princess, married King Charles II of England and the main island of Bombay came to the British as part of dahej. After some initial Portuguese resistance, the British in 1665 took control over the other six islands of the archipelago, as well as the large northern island of Salsette. The city’s name was anglicized to Bombay. The name persisted for several centuries, till of course the Hindu nationalist party - the Shiv Sena, led by the demagogical Balasaheb Thackeray, came to power. Thackeray in a superficial quest for roots revived the nomenclatural battle, and the city has ended where it began, albeit a little bigger, a little larger. The city has stopped at Mumbai. 4 YELLOW | JUL - DEC 2007 GRANT ROAD NAMED AFTER ROBERT GRANT, GOVERNOR OF BOMBAY FROM 1835 TO 1839, ONE OF THE MOST DENSELY POPULATED NEIGHBOURHOODS IN THE CITY. ALSO HOME TO KAMATHIPURA – MUMBAI’S INFAMOUS RED LIGHT DISTRICT. First Birth Directors served him with a notice of suspension. Hornby, or so goes the legend, calmly pocketed the Mumbai as we know the city was born when the British notice and carried on with the implementation of his Crown leased out the islands to the East India scheme until he was forced to hand over charge to his Company at an annual “farm-rent” of 10 pounds, to successor. be paid in gold! The Company was headquartered at Surat and was in need of a deeper port that would The Hornby Vellard, despite all the trouble that it allow larger ships to dock. Trade was booming and landed up poor Hornby in, provided Bombay with some Surat couldn’t cope. Bombay, with its naturally safe badly needed room for expansion. 400 acres of land harbour and strategic location on the western coast, were made habitable, and the city was allowed to was perfect. overflow its Fort boundaries. Civic amenities were improved, a ferry service was commenced between The city began as a fortified outpost. Most of the Bombay and Thane in 1776, new markets were built, population was concentrated on the main island of and the city’s drainage dramatically improved. The Bombay, in the area that we call now simply as Fort. precincts of Mahalaxmi, Kamathipura and Tardeo were Work on the Fortification was initiated in 1715 by then settled. Reclamations and causeway building Governor Charles Boone, who also oversaw the continued apace. In 1803 Bombay was connected with construction of the St Thomas Cathedral, from where Salsette by a causeway at Sion. The comes the name Churchgate (the battlements may name Sion comes from the Marathi have disappeared but the name has stayed). The word shinva, or boundary – Sion here harbour needed strengthening. The first Parsi arrived being the boundary between the to the city in the form of Lowjee Nusserwanji, a foreman islands of Bombay and from the Company’s shipyard at Surat, invited to Salsette. The Causeway Bombay to build war ships for the town’s defense. connecting Mahim and Much of the 18th century was spent in establishing Bandra was completed in firmer control over the island, and in repelling invading 1845 at a total cost of one- parties sent by the Maratha kingdoms to the north. and-a-half lakh rupees, donated entirely by Lady Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy under Coming of Age the precondition no toll be charged to citizens for its The city had begun to grow. The southern island of use by the Government. In Bombay was witness to a steady stream of migrants 1838, the Colaba Causeway from the hinterland who made their home within the linked Colaba and Old Fort area. The Englishmen lived in the southern part Woman’s Island in the east of the Fort while the Indian migrants organized to the island of Bombay. The themselves into colonies in the north. However, city was rapidly evolving increasing congestion compelled the Company to into one single fused land undertake the project of connecting the seven isles. mass. Mumbai was In 1782, William Hornby, acting as Governor, seemingly coming of age. commenced Bombay’s first real engineering project – the Hornby Vellard. Near the northern base of Malabar Hill in the area known as Breach Candy, there once stood a Great Breach that separated Malabar Hill from the northern island of Worli. Hornby proposed to the Directors of the East India Company that the sea be shut out at its opening at Breach Candy, in order to make the low-lying land known as the Flats (ordinarily inundated during high tide) habitable. The proposal, costing an estimated one lakh rupees, was deemed too expensive and rejected. City myth says that Hornby proceeded with the project, unfazed by the refusal. 18 months before his tenure was to run out, the irate 6 YELLOW | JUL - DEC 2007 In the Prime of Youth However, the setting up of mills heralded the arrival of a vast new population. The island city needed more Once the seven islands had been connected there was room to house its people. The walls of the Fort held no stopping Mumbai’s transformation from trading the city handcuffed, as a result of which it was decided post to industrial centre. Better connectivity between in 1862 by Bartle Frere, Governor of Bombay, to the islands needed to be supplemented with better dismantle the battlements. Vital land in the very core links with the mainland. On Saturday 16th of April, of the city was freed up and made available for 1853, a 21-mile long railway line, the first in India, development. Other schemes were initiated by the between Bombay’s Victoria Terminus and Thane was Bombay Government to contain land scarcity. opened. Two more lines began operation in 1860 and Reclamations were carried out at Apollo Bunder, Mody a regular service of steamers on the west coast was Bay, Elphinstone Bunder, Mazagaon, Tank Bunder commenced in 1869. The earliest cloud of black smoke and the Frere reclamation on the eastern shore, and sent sailing across the city’s skyline in 1854 by the from Colaba to the foot of Malabar Hill on the western city’s first cotton mill was a quiet announcement of shore. this impending metamorphosis, abetted in no small way by significant historic events that happily The grandest of these schemes was proposed by the coincided in and around that time. Back Bay Reclamation Company, which intended the reclamation of the entire portion of the Back Bay on The American Civil War began in 1861. The War lasted the western foreshore. The Company had been formed a total of five years, during which time ports in the during the boom years of the early 1860’s. However, southern American states were blockaded. America when the American Civil War ended in 1865, a was the English’s main source of cotton, and the depression set in and land prices fell. The company opportunity created by the gap in supply was grabbed went bankrupt and had to be liquidated.