A Master Plan for the City: Looking at the Past Author(s): Mariam Dossal Source: Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 40, No. 36 (Sep. 3-9, 2005), pp. 3897-3900 Published by: Economic and Political Weekly Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4417098 . Accessed: 02/06/2011 02:29

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http://www.jstor.org Mumbaitocope with numerouschallenges, would not only help in building up the shocking housing conditions and the natural and manmade, the city needs necessary infrastructurebut also ensure stranglehold of landlords and officials. multi-level.multi-dire ztional efforts that an efficient managementof risks.[1i During the decade 1896-1906, a deadly bubonic plague epidemic struck Bombay and extracted a heavy toll from the poorly serviced city. Large numbers succumbed A Master Plan for the City to the disease and others fled to safer places in an exodus bornof fear andrumour. Commercial and manufacturing activities Looking at the Past were severely affected and Bombay's self- image and civic pride as the 'Urbs Prima A play of vested interests has always ensured the shelving of in Indis' seriously undermined. The crisis successive master the compelled the Bombay government, the plans devisedfor city's planned and members of This article looks at to Mumbai, municipal corporation development. efforts 'improve' the public to seek both immediate and initiated in the late 1890s and the early years of the last century, long-term solutions. following the outbreakof the plague epidemic. The story of how such initiatives were stymied by groups comprisingtraders and Plague of 1896-1906 and developers acting in concert, is in turn revelatory of how little the Plague Committee seems to have changed over the decades. The first known case of the dreaded bubonic plague occurred on September MARIAMDOSSAL personnel, fire brigade and other workers 23, 1896 in Mandvi, a congested locality helped rescue those stranded in flooded which fronted the docks, from where it In the life of a city, as in that of an areas and restored services, the govern- then spread rapidly to other parts of the individual, come defining moments. ment did the unthinkable. Chief minister city. It was registered by T S Weir, health July 26, 2005 and the disastrous fort- Vilasrao Deshmukh declared a two-day officer of the Bombay Municipal Corpo- night thereafter has been such a moment holiday for all government servants - ration.3The island city's population at the in the lives of Mumbaikars. when a very including those responsible for waste time numberedapproximately one million. heavy downpour measuring 944 mm came management and essential civic services. and its limits extended from Colaba to crashing down on suburban Mumbai. A The environmentminister, Ganesh Naik. Parel. The northern part of the island still cloudburst which. in the space of less than instead of operationalising the city's di- consisted largely of rice fields, coconut 24 hours, killed hundreds of people and saster management plan, could only eye 'oarts' (gardens), salt pans and fishing seriously affected the lives of thousands Mumbai's few. remaining open spaces. villages. By late 1897 the city's popula- of others. While it is true that such a vast such as the Race Course. the Sanjay Gandhi tion had been reduced to nearly half. quantity of water would pose a challenge National Park and Aarey Milk Colony, Initially, municipal officials sought to to any city's sewerage and drainage sys- and offer them for up for sale, ostensibly wish away the problem, but as increasing tem, it is clear from reports detailing the to pay off the Maharashtragovernment's numbers of cases were reported and event, that it was not the intensity of the debts. amounting to more than a thousand mortality figures rose, relief operations rainfall that brought Mumbai to its knees. crore rupees. That the minister himself is were begun. Sometimes referred to as the dislocated public services and traumatised a 'land developer', owning 500 acres of first Plague Committee, it was set up on its citizens, but long years of unregulated commercial farmland in nearby Thane October 11, 1896.Consisting of the city's construction activity, without compatible district, says a great deal about his real leading doctors whose names are now infrastructure.This has led to naturalwater intentions. And the Shiv Sena, the politi- legendary such as Haffkine, Hanks, Childe and drainage courses being built over, cal party with a majority in the BMC. and Surveyor. As the death toll continued streams and drains polluted and choked instead of dealing with the devastated city to rise. a second Plague Committee with with poisonous effluents. The onus lies on on a war footing. was preoccupied with additional powers was set up in March the builder-politician nexus that has held, the differences among its top its leaders. 1898. It consisted of medical personnel and continues to hold. the city to ransom. The party's only anxiety was about the as well as senior government officials, For them immediate profit is everything. political fallout it would suffer in next led by surgeon and chairman brigadier and the people only statistics. year's municipal elections. General W F Gatacre, major general H P If Mumbai survived, it is in large mea- Dimmock, C C James and municipal sure due to the initia- P H 'Ostrich Response' or courage. self-help commissioner, C Snow.4 tives and resilience of its citizens. Commissioner Snow's submitted Criminal Neglect? ordinary report many of whom performedremarkable acts on October 2, 1897 to the Bombay govern- The Maharashtragovernment' s response of bravery, often risking their own lives ment detailed the Plague Committee's to the calamity was shocking. Instead while assisting others to safety.2 efforts to treat and contain the disease.5 of galvanising every department into Traumatic as these events were, this It was difficult, admitted Snow, to deter- emergency action to ensure that the was not the first time that Mumbai city mine the exact cause of the disease or Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation's has paid a heavy price for civic neglect where it had come from. While some (BMC) street sweepers. garbage disposal - poor drainage, inadequate water supply. believed it had been carriedby pilgrims

Economic and Political Weekly September 3, 2005 3897 from the others it Indians. saw measures Himalayas, thought had They government's Bombay City Improvement Trust travelled on ships returning from Arabia, as intrusive, violating their caste and 1898-1930 the Persian Gulf or Hong Kong. Some community precepts and status. The attributed it to the unusual pattern of the authorities in their turn labelled their re- The MumbaiCity ImprovementTrust monsoon that year, for heavy rains had sponses as borne of 'prejudices' which was established on November 9, 1898, initially resulted in floods and was then greatly increased the incidence of the underthe BombayAct IV of thatyear. The followed by long dry spells which led to disease. IndianJustices of Peace were urged specific tasks assignedto the BCIT were an acute scarcity of water. Prices of essen- by the government to convince the people to removeinsanitary housing, develop the tial commodities had increased and brought to support the Plague Committee's initia- northernpart of the islandto reduceover- great suffering to the poor. While the actual tives. but differences were deep-rooted crowdingand undertake a largenumber of cause of the epidemic was debated, it was and strikes and sporadic violence wide- new housing projects.The BCIT's urban evident to the committee that poorly con- spread.7 An example of this was the strike planninginitiatives were lateradopted in structed and overflowing drains, damp of the 'khatarawalas' (handcart pullers) othercolonialcities such as Calcutta, where homes, flooded localities and rotting grain and 'hamaals' (carriers). an ImprovementTrust was established in godowns had been responsible for the On April 6, 1897, 3,000 khatarawalas in 1911. spread of the epidemic. and hamaals struck work at Cotton Green. Importantamong the 33 schemesunder- As Commissioner Snow explained: protesting against official inspections and takenby theBCIT were those in Nagpada, forcible entries into their homes. Their and Mandvi-Koliwada. Un- ... the great and ever presentdanger to the Agripada. city arises fromthe floods of potable water strike affected the movement of cotton der other improvement projects, roads - upwardsof 30 million gallons. without stocks and impacted adversely the cotton were widened, unhygienic buildings sufficient means of escape: this, coupled trade. Fortunately for the Bombay govern- pulleddown, and low-lying lands drained. with the obstructionof naturalchannels of ment. the city's cotton merchants also A new commercialbusiness districtwas escape by the huge reclamation on the seriously affected by the stoppage of work, built between 1908 and 1914 at Ballard Tardeo Flats where the Town sweepings took the initiative and got the strikers to Estate on 22 acres of land reclaimedon are has caused a in deposited, general rise returnto work on the assurance that though the south-easternforeshore. the sub-soil water which has attained a house inspections would continue, forc- Other importantefforts of the BCIT much level thanit stood at ten higher years ible hospitalisation would not. includedthe re-developmentof Princess ago; it is furtherprobably much tainted in By late 1897 the city was already facing Street and Hornby Road .The Princess parts by contact with the sweepings on an acute of "cooks, tailors, bar- Street Scheme 1901-05 extended from the flats. It is therefore. highly probable shortage bers, coolies and mill workers", Road to Carnac and in- that,although the sanitarycondition of the working Queens Bridge vital to the of city has improved in all outward appear- people continuing basic, volved requisitionof private lands and ances, the general conditions of health everyday economic activities. The authori- buildingsto restructurean extremelycon- have deteriorated,thus rendering the inhab- ties feared a complete breakdown if gested area..Trust schemes also included itantsan easier prey to an epidemic of the municipal workers such as scavengers, urban renewal of the CrawfordMarket violent naturenow under discussion. The sweepers and drivers of municipal vans Estate, Nagpada, Parel Road, the Race appearanceof the plague in a famine year joined the general exodus of persons flee- Course,Dadar Hindu and Parsicolonies, has had even more devastatingeffects, for ing the city. With no staff to dispose of the Matunga Five Gardens and Sion it came debilitated upon persons already the city's nightsoil, to clean streets and schemes. Between 1899 and 1900, the and not in a position to offer even normal sewers, remove the sick to or Trust the Dadar, resistance.6 hospitals Improvement completed carry the dead to the graveyards, the epi- Matunga,Wadala and Sion schemes to Segregation and hospitalisation were, in demic would assume even more "calami- provideadditional space for expansionto the view of the authorities, the most ef- tous proportions". To prevent such a ca- the northof the city.9 fective ways of containing the epidemic. lamity, health officer Weir declared mu- A order on October 6, workers to be of essential government passed nicipal providers Crawford's Vision for New Bombay 1896 required all persons suspected to services and prohibited them from leaving have the plague to be removed to hospitals their work places. Railway and port au- A decade after the BCIT had been es- and separated from the rest of the popu- thorities were ordered to refuse them tick- tablished,Governor Sir George Sydenham lation.The Epidemic Diseases Act of March ets to travel, and if necessary, they were Clarke's administration reviewed the 1897 gave additional powers to the civic to be detained by force.8 achievements of the Trust. An acute authorities to detain and segregate plague Though the first two years of the plague shortage of housing for the poor was suspects, to inspect, disinfect, evacuate epidemic had been tided over, its recur- seen as one of the most urgentrequire- and even demolish dwellings suspected of rence impressed upon the authorities the mentsof the islandcity. A circularissued being contaminated. Fairs and pilgrimages need for more long term civic improve- in January1908 invitedsuggestions from were stopped and road and rail travellers ment. To meet these needs the Bombay the Bombay chamberof commerce and detained for inspection. In short. govern- government set up the Bombay City the municipal corporationon this mat- ment officials were empowered to act Improvement Trust in 1898. It was also ter. One detailed response was received decisively to contain the disease at every an admission that the Bombay municipal from former municipal commissioner, possible location. corporation was just not in a position to ArthurCrawford. known for his dynamic The Plague Committee's efforts to seg- handle the civic needs of the growing city, and controversialtenure. regate those affected or suspected to have one aspiring to take its place among the Crawford'swrote, 'The Development of the plague met with resistance from many leading cities of the world. New Bombay', a pamphlet,published in

3898 Economic and Political Weekly September3. 2005 1908. It makes very interesting reading, for Hide curing Factory hard by. An English complexionindeed if the authorities-that- he spelt out the many plans for urban Firm (membersof the ChamberCroft and be, with a little more imaginationand down on DeLisle renewal preparedduring his term of office Goune) dumped Road sense of duty, were to lay down broad a bone and bone manure mill (1865-71), and the opposition he faced crushing principlesfor the developmentsof thecity from landlords and industrialists. These nearly opposite Cowasji Jehangir's Col- even at that in Parel Road. A still juncture."13 fourdecades would lege Khojah Firm, It did "thatto plans, prepared earlier, more establisheda recognise,however, bring have a in enterprising, sulphuric order into from the chaos in gone long way developing acid Factory close to the bone mills - a (Bombay) and it clean and beautiful. which it has been is indeed not Bombay making few yards from the GIP Railway line and steeped, Instead, the plans were lying unattended, the ElphinstoneCollege...All this in open an easy affair".The institute welcomed gatheringdust in the municipal archives.10 defiance of all laws of sanitation and in the effort presented in the joint report Replying to governorSydenham Clarke's open contraventionof the MunicipalAct I submittedby Modakand Meyer to develop housing query. Crawford emphasised the of 1865.11... a masterplan but urged that it be examined importance of comprehensive urban plan- To rid Bombay of its unenviable inter- carefully.Most important,it warnedwas ning. Bombay's housing needs had to be national reputation as a 'cholera nest', the the needto guardagainst "Vested interests addressedin consonance with other closely health department under Crawford under- and spurious bodies of recent origin..." related civic requirements, foremost being took numerous measures. So successful who would work for self-seeking profit its water, drainage and waste management were they, he claimed, that "We had in ratherthan for the long-terminterests of systems. It was these systems, he said, that 1867 stamped out Cholera in the fair city: the city. his administration, ably aided by health (but) soon after, the Corporation becom- An optimistic mood combined with a officer T G Hewlett and Henry Tulloch, ing "muck makers" filling the area of the degree of innocence is evident in the engineer to Bombay municipality, had Flats with refuse and garbage on a large editorialwhich went on to state:"If there worked hard to develop during his tenure. scale. This, he claimed "...invited the is promptness in forbidding any more His urban renewal programmes had en- demon back and - as God lives above us! untidy, unmethodicalbuilding construc- countered great resistance especially from Produced the Bubonic plague! One or tion anddevelopment in the areasthat are the city's rich landlords, with the strongest other of these demons will now reign in not still developed and solid efforts are opponent being Vinayakrao Sunkersett. 'Urbs Prima in Indis' for many a year to madeto clean the city as earlyas possible son of the famous sethia Jugonnath come. Unless you drive all these danger- of the objectionableindustries and slums Sunkersett. In the face of mounting public ous trades and 'microbe manufacturing which have proved a hindranceand a opposition, well-known in Bombay's his- Companies' out of the City again." menaceto the city, then with cooperation tory as the ratepayers' agitation. Crawford Crawford emphasised that it was high and coordinationbetween the centraland had resigned on October 28, 1871. About time that waste management, concern the provincial governments and the those who opposed his civic plans he wrote: for public health, along with better hous- municipality,there should be no difficulty No sooner had Dr Hewlett and I drawn a ing be given duc importance in a scheme in puttinginto effect a MasterPlan".14 of urban While line from the Prabadevi (sic) Temple in comprehensive planning. Mahim woods along the alignment of housing for the poor and middle classes Conclusion Elphinstone Foras Road to Parel - No did receive considerable attention in the sooner had we turnedall dangeroustrades 1920s, 1930s and 1940s with the estab- It is precisely these 'vested interests' out of the Island - except the common lishment of the Bombay Development which today have grown very powerful tanners,whom we locatedat Tannery Town Department in 1920, comprehensive ur- andexercise a strangleholdover Mumbai' s (Dharavi) a very suitable position for the ban planning remained a distant dream.12 future.The battle over Mumbai's mill lands trade - No sooner had 1 proclaimed that is a strikingexample of this.While a petition no Factories of any kind should thence Need of the Hour - A Master Plan has recently come up for hearingin the forth be built south of Elphinstone Road. Madhurima (the GIPR and the BB and CI BombayHigh Court,reports Railway The fact thatthe did not have a master for a townsand were in course city Nandy, "...pleading roughly equal workshops already never failed to amaze its architects. divisionof mill landbetween mill owners, of constructionat AnjirBaug: I bought the plan, urban and concerned as civic authoritiesand the state landfor them)- No sooner.I say. had these planners citizens, housing reviewed essential steps been taken,than Kessowjee they its needs in the months soon authority,town-planners say thisis the last Naik brought his dyers back to their old after India gained independence. big chancefor the city to go for planned, quarters. I prosecuted them, but was "It is a well known and undisputed fact", integrateddevelopment."15 defeated. stated an editorial in the influential Jour- Business interests see it differently, Kessowjee Naik spent money like water, nal of the Indian Institute of Architects, however.According to the KnightFrank eminent physicians swore solemnly that "that the city of Bombay has been allowed India Report, today's Mumbai is a real were beneficial to even dye-pits health!, to grow and and estate bonanza:"Thirteen million ft of the develop haphazardly sq Press was nobbled by sums so large that and the mill land is to be freed that their Editorscould not resist the bait. government municipality private ready up have too often an and for construction. This infamous success emboldened a displayed ignorance This is apartfrom the indifference about even the basic three million ft the sale powerful German firm to open a large principles sq generatedby of town and of thefive steam Dyeing Factory.close to Prabadevi city development, planning NTCmills", amounting to about Temple, whose refuse waters polluted the the provision of civic amenities. After Rs 10,000crore worth of realestate stock fairsands of MahimBay. AnotherGerman first world war, conditions were rapidly in central Mumbai. With 5.49 million Firm(both were membersof the Chamber forcing the pace of growth of the city and square feet of residential projects, the of Commerce) followed suit with a huge things would have assumed a different anticipateddevelopment offers a massive

Economicand Political Weekly September3. 2005 3899 buying opportunityin centralMumbai. Department(GD), (Plague), Vol 332. 1898, July 26 was different from anything No wonder then that with property pp 1-20 Mumbai has ever suffered. The city is the in the 6 Ibid, p 3. as used to occasional failures of its prices being among highest 7 "Let us alone to die, but do not interferewith just world. and the long standingnexus that our customs or prejudiceswhich are far more services and communications,as it is to has developedbetween builders, contrac- importantthan any danger from the plague", the high-tide-excuses its municipality tors and politicians, Mumbai and its statedthe protesters. Ibid,p 6. For an analysis invariablyoffers for those failures, but suburbsare in a crisis-ridden state. To of the plague epidemic and the reactions of never was the so the colonial administrators and Indian paralysis complete, backthe to its citizens,to so The Indian give city protect inhabitants,see David Arnold, 'Touching the enduring. Meteorological its environment,urban heritage, cosmo- Body: Perspectiveson the IndianPlague, 1896- Departmentwas caught napping,unable politan culture, vibrant economy, will 1900',pp55-90 in RanajitGuha(ed).Subaltern to predicteven a rainstormso enormous. requireHerculean efforts on the partof all Studies V, Writingson South Asian History Wereall its staff on holiday, or is it just those who careabout this city and all that and Society, Oxford University Press, Delhi, incompetent? it has stood for. lSl 1987. Even this would not have 8 The Times of lndia. April 7, 1897, p 5. cited downpour in Sarita Mandpe, op cit, p 81. been so calamitoushad the municipality Email:[email protected] 9 Rahul Mehrotra,Bombay: The Cities Within, and its commissionerbeen regularlyper- p 261. See also James Orr, The Bombay City forming its mandatoryduties, for which Notes Improvement Trust, 1898-1909, Bombay it taxes us so heavily,had its conservancy Pamphlets, No 9, Bombay, 1909, pp 1-25. staff been monitoredto ensure 1 Investigative reports in the newspapers, The 10 ArthurT Crawford,The Developmentof New efficiently Times of India and The Hindustan Times, Bombay: A Pamlphlet,Bombay, 1908. that the city's guttersand its 'nalas' and Mumbai,especially in the fortnightfollowing 11 Arthur T Crawford, ibid, p 4. drainagechannels always remainedclear. the deluge of July 26. 2005. 12 A D D Gordon, Businessmen and Politics, The of roadside the 2 Ibid. choking gutters, pro- Rising Nationalism and a Modernising gressive of innumerable 3 SaritaMandpe, 'The Plague in Bombay 1896- in Bombay, 1918-1933. narrowing large Economy Manohar, nalas, like the one at Oshivaraand the 1898', unpbd MPhil Thesis. University of New Delhi. 1978, pp 129-54. Bombay, 1992. p 24. 13 Editorial. 'A MasterPlan for Bombay 1948', Mithi river.ensure a quick and sustained 4 Ibid. pp 31-32. Journal of the Indian Instituteof Architects, floodingof streetsand homes.Their con- 5 Report of the Municipal Commissioner of October-December,1948, Vol XV. No 2, p 26. tinuancein this statefor hours,even P C H to to days, Bombay. Snow, Secretary Bombay 14 Ibid, p 26. as lastmonth, Government. October 2, 1897, 15 Madhurima The happened inevitablycripples Bombay, Nandy, Hindustan Times, the electric and lines and sub- MaharashtraState Archives (MSA), General Mumbai, August 15. 2005. p 1. telephone merges the rail tracks. It is chiefly the habitualneglect of the drainagesystem. andthe failureto monitorits maintenance regularlyto which Mumbaiowes the di- Disastrous Managementsaster it suffered.And for which the munici- palityowes us all an explanation.Nor did the state andits The that successive disaster is government CM.obsessed response greets every typical. with dance barsand dazzledby a mirage As seen in its reaction to thefloods of July 26 in Mumbai,the of Shanghai,acquit itself with credit or use governmentsets up more 'bodies' and 'authorities'to deal its powers of controlover the BMC and with the crisis. But such structures,such as the disaster its commissioner.The CM's plea to the on that Mumbai's drains managementauthority for the city, are already in place. Whatis press July 27, absent is were capableof carrying25 mm of rain- efficient management,administrative will and the lack water an hour, not the 39 mm load that of officers with adequate experience. came, might have served as an excuse if the system designedfor 25 mm had been J B D'SOUZA secretaries to manage the crisis. He went kept clear. The flood would then have on a few days later to announce a new abated,at least on the next day. That did nly one of Mumbai's 15 million authority to protect the Mithi river that not happen.as the CM mighthave noticed citizens shared prime minister trickles into Mahim creek. When you lack hadhe'cared to descendfrom the comforts ManmohanSingh's admiration the sense and the strength to tackle a crisis of MalabarHill. In any case. 25 mm is a of the Maharashtrachief minister'sper- you at once appoint a committee or enlarge nice roundfigure to flauntfor the city as formanceduring and after the July 26 officialdom. a whole if you choose to forget that you deluge. That was Vilasrao Deshmukh The prime minister's flash comment, so have distortedand chokedthe system es- himself.Shock and disgust were universal. uncharacteristicof Manmohan Singh. was pecially in sections where dispropor- Thatevery system in the city went awry one you could expect from someone like tionately high Floor Space Indices (as was bad enough.That it took so long to George Fernandes, who regularly rushes high as 10 and 11) have been allowed in clear the mess and restorenormalcy was to crisis spots with instant comments. He crowded localities with infrastructure indefensible.The CM's response,entirely either declares that they will be cleared in alreadyunder strain. predictablefor Vilasrao,showed how un- 48 hours (Kargil), or asks what is unusual The flood was followed by a spate of equal he and his governmentwere to the about rape, looting and murder (Gujarat). proposalsfor organisationalchange in the task thatfaced them.After declaringtwo Exactly what did the PM look at in Mumbai, city adminlistration.We heardexperts and publicholidays. he set up a committeeof what did Vilasrao let him see? pseudo-expertspontificate over (i) the

3900 Economic and Political Weekly September3. 2005