A Joint Enterprise
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On 5 March 1839, five were mutually beneficial. Especially since being conditioned by the structures prominent native businessmen of the 1860s the government, with the of social and political power.” While Bombay proposed a scheme to the help of the philanthropic individuals of acknowledging the importance of what government that would cost over two the capitalist class, created institutions James Scott calls “everyday forms of hundred thousand rupees, a huge sum to form the new public realm and built resistance,” Prakash and Haynes argue in those days. The scheme consisted of infrastructure to aid the capitalistic for the need to look at both extraordinary the building of a wharf and basin at the development that was emerging. and everyday resistance. Of particular Cooly Bunder (dock) for the landing of These institutions included hospitals, significance is their argument that grain, and the extension of this wharf educational institutions, asylums, and resistance is not always overt and as far as the Bori Bunder for the landing dispensaries for the use of the public at conscious. They define resistance “as of cotton or any other merchandise. large. The joint partnership between the those behaviours and cultural practices A Joint In their letter the merchants added, government and financial elite dominated by subordinate groups that contest the direction of urban planning and local hegemonic formations, that threaten to We doubt not that considering government, but by the 1920s the control unravel the strategies of domination; Enterprise: The the importance of the undertaking to of the upper classes was under attack. ‘consciousness’ need not be essential the interest of a large portion of the to its constitution.”4 In Bombay, both community; and the expense that will My argument that the building ordinary and privileged sections of Creation of a be involved in the completion of it, of colonial Bombay was a joint enterprise Indian society undercut colonial and elite upwards of two lacs of Rupees—as also of the colonial regime and Indians stands projects by challenging the government the improvement it will confer upon the in contrast to that of Anthony D. King, in court or by bargaining with the island of Bombay—an improvement the who credits European imperialism and government through contestatory acts New Landscape furtherence of which we have always colonialism alone with the creation that were not always overt or conscious. understood it to be a particular object of colonial cities.2 King sees global Although the cooperation of the native of attention to the Government of this influences at work in colonial cities, but elite and colonial government was in British Presidency to have effected through in Bombay as well as elsewhere these central to the operation of the joint private enterprise, our humble request will influences were met head on by local enterprise, the native elite did not simply be favorably taken into consideration by influences and politics, which were follow the government’s directions. Bombay the Honorable the Governor in Council.1 equally determinant forces in the making Instead, cooperation, the negotiation of of colonial cities. As the opening anecdote unequal power relations, domination, In other words, business of this chapter indicates, in Bombay, and resistance were all features of the leaders understood that the colonial taxpayers, landlords, and intellectuals, complex relationship that made the (1839-1918) government believed that private as well as industrialists and merchants city of Bombay and shaped a range of A Joint Enterprise: The Creation of a New Landscape in British Bombay enterprise would play an integral role who were involved in the global more specific social processes: from (1839-1918)" originally appeared as "A Joint Enterprise" in A Joint in the development of the city. commodity exchange, were influential migration—both from the hinterland to Enterprise: Indian Elites and the Making of British Bombay (University of actors in molding urban-planning the city and within the city itself—to Minnesota Press, 2011). Copyright 2011 by the Regents of the University of Minnesota. Reprinted by permission of the University of Minnesota Press. This chapter explores the city policies conducive to their agendas, commerce and industry, urban design that was built and controlled jointly by demonstrating the ways, as geographer schemes, and the partnership between the colonial rulers and the Indian and Jane Jacobs has argued, that global government and private enterprise. European mercantile and industrial elite and local already inhabit one another.3 to serve the interests of these classes and The City As Palimpsest Preeti Chopra especially their interests in the commerce Gyan Prakash and Douglas Cities are in a continuous state of the city. In this city, the government Haynes recognize that in unequal power of transformation and are comparable Associate Professor of Architecture, Urban History and Visual Culture Studies Department of Languages & Cultures of Asia, and capitalists worked together to relations there is both dominance and to a palimpsest: a text or a parchment and Design Studies Department University of Wisconsin develop the city through projects that resistance and “struggle is constantly that has been written on, erased, and 320 / 10 governance 11 / 321 written on again. The local elite played Negotiating the Best Deal: Native a specific meaning as was shown by title to the lands, which many had held, a complex and multifaceted role in city Landholders and the Width of Roads Advocate-General Thriepland of Bombay directly or through their ancestors, for design, and by doing so they constructed, Large landholders in Bombay while arguing a specific case in Bombay: twenty, forty, sixty years or more. Based erased, and transformed the city. As concretely shaped the city in making “It is called foras, . a Portuguese on this report the government issued landowners they made deals with the deals with the government when the expression, the meaning of which is an order on 4 April 1844 observing that government. As men of business they government needed to acquire lands in rent, but which in this island denotes the history of the origin of foras lands acted as advisers, partners, or investors their possession. By the mid-nineteenth the rent in particular which is paid by a established the government’s proprietary in schemes. As men of wealth, they built century, most of the land in Bombay was cultivator or person permitted to occupy right over such lands. However, wells, tanks, and religious, educational, in the hands of Indians. This was the case ground for the purpose of improving because of various circumstances the and medical institutions. They influenced with foras lands, which were in the hands it, but without any lease or other grant occupants were led to view this land as the course of development and opposed of numerous tenants, some of which were by which he can maintain possession their inheritance. The governor did not government schemes if they negatively required by the government for building during the continuation of the term.”7 wish to take all foras lands, but only to affected their interests. A city is made up roads and other public amenities. Sir reserve those pieces of land that were of multiple layers, making this exercise Michael Westropp, the judge in one key It is significant that Thriepland going to be required for works of public of digging up the past an archaeology of case, derived foras from the Portuguese discusses the understanding of the term utility in the future, while conceding the city. When talking of layers, I mean the word fora, meaning “outside,” to indicate foras in Bombay as the rent paid by a the rest of the land to the current erasures and writing that make the city a the rent or revenue obtained from outlying cultivator or person allowed “to occupy tenants on some scheme of tenure.9 palimpsest—in this case, the destruction lands.5 Roads from the Fort traversing the ground for the purpose of improving and construction of buildings, open Flats, or foras lands, between Malabar it” but without a formal lease or legal In 1847, William Acland, the East spaces, and the city infrastructure—that Hill and Parel, were generally known as document. Apart from immovable India Company’s solicitor, met with the characterized a certain era (Figure 1). “Foras Roads.”6 In 1805, foras land had objects such as houses, hedges, and major holders of foras land in Bombay, fences, ownership of land in England including Dadabhoy Pestonjee, Jagannath could be acquired through repeatedly Shankarshet, and Bomanjee Hormusjee. employing it for agriculture or for Copies of the plans were handed out pastoral use, both of which activities showing the various foras grounds and were seen as improvements in the the projected roads. Acland explained seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.8 to them that the holders of the foras ground needed to reach an agreement Although the government among themselves for compensating owned the land, in practice the rent- the holders of the ground that was to paying tenants sold and disposed of it as be made over to the government, free they wished, treating it as their property. from all claims, because it was required In 1841, the government took some for roads and so on. After this the pieces of land near the racecourse for government was prepared to draw up stacking hay without compensating the legal documents confirming the tenure occupants; the assumption was that it of the landholders. The landholders was government property. A memorial conveyed to Acland that rather than Figure 1. City of Bombay, signed by over seven hundred persons having their rights being declared by a 1909, plan. From The was sent to the government in which legislative act, they preferred this course Gazetteer of Bombay City they claimed their title to the lands.