Mumbai History
PREHISTORY - KOLI FISHERFOLK SETTLED ON THE ISLANDS OF BOMBAY
The Kolis (fisherfolk) were the earliest
known inhabitants of Mumbai. They migrated from Gujarat and lived
in traditional fishing hamlets along the island’s western shores,
where they remain even today. These fisherfolk built their base
in areas around Sassoon Dock and Cuffe Parade, Worli, Mahim, Bandra,
Versova, Madh Island and Gorai.
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200 B.C. - BUDDHISTS CONSTRUCTED KANHERI CAVES COMPLEX
The serene Kanheri Caves Complex was
the creation of Buddhist monks of the Hinayana faith, who had occupied
the nearby island of Salsette in the second century B.C. The complex
expanded over the next 700 years to become one of the larger monastic
settlements in India. The caves were mainly chaityas
(temples), viharas (monasteries)
and simple rock-cut cells. Even today, the area surrounding the
caves is believed to contain medicinal plants cultivated by the
monks.
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550 A.D. - CHALUKYAS ESTABLISHED THEIR CAPITAL AT GHARPURI (ELEPHANTA
ISLAND)
The Chalukya dynasty established their
capital at Gharpuri (now known as Elephanta
Island) around the sixth century A.D. They built the magnificent
Shiva cave temple on the island, which has been declared as one
of the UNESCO World Heritage sites in
India.
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1050 A.D. - SILHARAS CONSTRUCTED THE WALKESHWAR TEMPLE ON MALABAR
HILL
The Silharas came from the Konkan coast
in the 9th century. They were the first to construct the Walkeshwar
Temple on the western flank of the Banganga Tank. The temple is
believed to have contained both the lingam ferried from Benares
by Lakshman, and the one crafted by Lord Ram. Lord Ram is also said
to have sought guidance from local sages here, while on his way
to rescue Sita in Lanka, where she was held captive by the demon
God Ravana. The temple was later destroyed by the Portuguese. According
to popular tales, the sand lingam is said to have jumped into the
sea to avoid defilement. The temple was rebuilt in 1715, but the
current structure dates to the 1950s.
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c. 1100 A.D.- RAJA BHIMDEV FOUNDED A HINDU KINGDOM ON MAHIM
ISLAND
During the 12th century, Raja Bhimdev
established a Hindu kingdom in Mahim, which became the first of
the seven islands to support a sizeable population.
c. 1400 A.D.- MUSLIM SULTANS RULED THE ISLAND OF BOMBAY
In the 14th century Muslims invaded Bombay. During the same period,
the Sultans of Gujarat, Delhi and Deccan also exercised their influence
on the region.
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1508 A.D. - BOMBAY WAS FIRST RAIDED BY THE PORTUGUESE
The Portuguese first raided Bombay
in 1508, when Dom Francisco Almeida, the inaugural viceroy of Goa,
seized a Gujarati ship in Mahim Creek. Their invasions increased
over the next three decades until Bassein and other inconsequential
islands of Bombay were ceded to Portugal in 1534 by the Sultan
of Gujarat, Bahadur Shah. The
Sultan hoped to form an alliance with the Portuguese to prevent
Mughal invasions in Gujarat.
1554 A.D. - GARCIA DA ORTA LEASED BOMBAY ISLAND
The H-shaped island of Bombay - known as ‘a
ilha da boa vida ‘(the island of good life) because of
its abundance of rice and game - was leased to botanist and physician
Garcia da Orta in 1554, for a princely
sum of 85 pounds a year. He built a modest manor house and planted
a garden in the area, behind what is now known as Town Hall.
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1661 A.D. - BOMBAY CEDED TO THE BRITISH AS THE DOWRY OF A PORTUGUESE
PRINCESS
The Portuguese did little to develop Bombay commercially. They
were unhappy when the islands were included in the dowry of Princess
Catherine of Braganza when she married England’s Charles’
II.
The East India Company had coveted the islands for some years as
a potential trading base. But reliable knowledge of Bombay was evidently
in short supply. When news of the dowry was released, the Earl of
Clarendon, who was the British Lord Chancellor, declared that England
had come into possession of the island of Bombay with the towns
and castles therein, very close to Brazil.
1665 A.D. - BRITISH OCCUPIED BOMBAY
The British occupied Worli, Mazgaon, Old Woman’s Island, Colaba,
and the sourthern portion of Parel on February 8, 1665. The Portuguese
retained the northern portion of Parel, Mahim and the larger island
of Salsette to the north. Although Britain already had trading depots
on the subcontinent, the islands were the first crown colony in
India.
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1687 A.D.- THE EAST INDIA COMPANY MOVED ITS HEADQUARTERS FROM
SURAT TO BOMBAY
Governor Gerald Aungier, who foresaw
the advantages of Bombay, persuaded the East
India Company to move its headquarters from Surat to Bombay.
The advantages of Bombay lay in its sheltered harbour and the relative
security of its island setting. Failing to convince the directors
of the company, he moved to Bombay and went about setting the groundwork
for the city. Ultimately, pressure from the Marathas forced the
East India Company to shift its base from Surat to Bombay.
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1689 A.D. - SIDDI INVADERS LAY SEIGE TO BOMBAY FOR A YEAR
Only two years after the East India Company
shifted its base to Bombay, a force of 20,000 Siddis invaded the
city. Unopposed, they took control of Mahim and Mazgaon fort s,
ransacked the island and forced the British to hole up in Bombay
Castle for an entire year. The Britishers had to send envoys to
the Mughal leader Aurangzeb to beg for
mercy before the siege was lifted.
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1715 A.D.- CONSTRUCTION OF BOMBAY FORT BEGAN
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The construction of Bombay Fort began during the tenure of Governor
Gerald Aungier in 1715 and was completed in 1716. However,
the internal structures enclosed by the Fort walls, like Bombay
Castel, Apollo Gate and the ramparts, were built during the tenure
of Governor Boon between 1715 - 1722. Ramparts ran along what is
today known as K. Dubash Marg, M. G. Road, Dr D. Naoroji Road, St
George’s Road and the coast. The Fort had three fortified entrances
- Bazaargate (opposite the GPO), Churchgate (where Flora Fountain
now stands) and Apollo Gate (near the Scot’s Kirk). The magnificent
fort walls enclosed a castle surrounded by a settlement of residential
and commercial houses, shops, churches and temples. Due to fear
of invasion by the Marathas, the British also constructed a moat
around the Fort area in 1743, which they named ‘Maratha
Moat’. The Fort area was severely damaged in a major fire
in 1803 and finally demolished in 1860.
1718 A.D. - ST. THOMAS’ CATHEDRAL WAS BUILT
The foundation of the Cathedral was laid in 1672, during the governorship
of Gerald Aungier. It was not completed
until Christmas day in 1718. The actual construction work began
when Chaplain Richard arrived during the tenure of Governor
Cobbe. Richard persuaded his countrymen to complete the construction
of the church, particularly because the Catholics, Hindus, Muslims
and Parsis had places of worship, while the colonial elite who were
supposed to be a leading example, had none. It was consecrated in
1816 and became a cathedral in 1837. St Thomas’
Cathedral is the oldest British church in Bombay and only
after it the Church Gate to the Fort was named
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1736 - NUSSERWANJI WADIA BEGAN SHIPBUILDING OPERATIONS IN BOMBAY
Once the Britishers moved their trading operations from Surat
to Bombay in the second part of the 18th Century, they coaxed the
Parsi shipbuilder Nusserwanji Wadia from
Surat to establish the town’s shipyards. His family had constructed
approximately 400 vessels in Bombay over the next 150 years, including
frigates for the opium trade. Made from Malabar teak, these successful
ships threatened the profitability of the English shipbuilding industry.
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1830 - FIRST ROAD ACROSS THE WESTERN GHATS INAUGURATED
A significant development after the cancellation of East
India Company’s monopoly on trade was the opening of the
first road across the Western Ghats in
1830, which opened Bombay to trade.1833 -
TOWN HALL WAS BUILT
The idea of the Town Hall was conceived
in 1811, followed by a lot of public debate before it was finally
built in 1833. The hall was initially used for concerts, functions
and political meetings and later became home to the Royal
Asiatic Society of Bombay Library. Along with many other
official pronouncements, Queen Victoria’s
declaration of transferring power from the East
India Company
to the Crown after the 1857 uprising was read
from the Town Hall steps. The Town Hall played an active role in
the educational, cultural and social life of the city. Since 1956,
the State Central Library has occupied much of the building and
as per a law, a copy of every book published in India has been sent
here.
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1853 - ASIA’S FIRST RAILWAY OPERATED FROM BOMBAY TO THANE
The inauguration of the first road across the Western
Ghats in 1830 was followed by the construction of the first
railway line in Asia, from Bombay to Thane, in 1853. The twenty-one
miles of the suburban GIP railway tracks were laid from the terminus
at Bori Bunder (later Victoria Terminus) and inaugurated on April
16, 1853. A holiday was declared on the day the railway line operated
from Bombay to Thane. A decade later, the rail link was extended
to Pune and Ahmedabad.
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1854 - BOMBAY’S FIRST TEXTILE MILL OPENED
The year 1854 was a significant period in the history of Bombay.
The establishment of Bombay Spinning & Weaving
Company at Tardeo reversed the declining trend in the colonial
cotton trade. Earlier, raw Gujarati cotton was shipped from Bombay
to the mills of Lancashire and re-exported to the subcontinent as
finished clothing. Later, Bombay began spinning, weaving and dyeing
of textiles on its own. As a result of the American Civil War in
1861, the Lancashire mills in England were unable to procure raw
cotton from that country and were forced to buy cotton from the
Bombay market, which resulted in an incredible commercial boom.
1858 - BRITISH SOVEREIGNTY REPLACED THE EAST INDIA COMPANY
During this period of Indian uprising, the disappearance of the
East India Company in 1858 was a landmark
development, as the British Crown claimed sovereignty over a large
part of India. From the steps of Bombay Town Hall, Queen Victoria
read out the declaration transferring power from the Company to
the Crown.
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1864 - THE FORT WALLS WERE DEMOLISHED
The Fort Walls were demolished to boost
cotton trade in the city. As a result of the American War, Britain’s
supply of cotton had temporarily exhausted, resulting in Bombay’s
cotton boom. The price of cotton increased by 800 per cent during
this period and the city experienced an influx of 80 million pounds
in just five years, creating the city’s first speculative property
boom. Recognising the boom, Governor Bartle
Frere dismantled the obsolete Fort walls in 1864, as security
was no longer an issue. Moreover, congestion and overcrowding inside
the Fort was hampering business.
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1869 - THE SUEZ CANAL CUT SAILING TIME TO ENGLAND
The massive expansion of the city’s docks and the opening of the
Suez Canal in 1869 cut travel time to
England by 80 per cent, secured Bombay’s primacy over east-facing
ports like Calcutta, and earned it the civic motto Urbs
Prima in Indis (First City in India).
1885 - FIRST INDIAN NATIONAL CONGRESS MET IN BOMBAY
The seeds of independence were sown in Bombay when the city hosted
the first Indian National Congress (INC)
in 1885. The INC, India’s first nationalist
movement, was financed by Bombay merchants and dominated by politicians
over the next 30 years
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1888 - VICTORIA TERMINUS WAS BUILT
This monument was designed by Frederick Stevens
as the headquarters of the Great Indian Peninsular Railway Company.
The structure was completed in 1887 at a cost of nearly 300,000
pounds. Described by Jan Morris in Stones
of Empire as ‘the central building of the entire British
Empire,’ it was built on the site of the city’s dhobi
ghat and an infamous public hanging ground. The first train
in Asia ran from this spot to nearby Thane in 1853.
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1896 - 1903 - BUBONIC PLAGUE KILLED 100, 000 PEOPLE
The deteriorating sanitation infrastructure in the city became
evident with the outbreak of bubonic plague at the end of the century.
It claimed at least 3,000 victims at the end of each week at its
peak in 1899, causing half the population of the city to flee the
countryside, and resulted in the 1901 census recording less people
in Bombay than in 1864.
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1903 - TAJ MAHAL HOTEL WAS BUILT
This hub of the socialites was the brainchild of Parsi industrialist
Jamsedji Tata. Taj
Mahal Hotel was built in 1903 to counter the prejudice of
the Europeans against the Indians, who were not allowed to enter
hotels and clubs. The design of the Taj were created by Jamsedji
himself along with Raosaheb Sitaram Khanderao
Vaidya, who worked as an overseer during the construction
of Sailors’ Home (now Maharashtra Police Headquarters). It was intentionally
designed to face away from the harbour, with its entrance on the
landward side. The main entrance today recognises the importance
of a harbour frontage. It faces the Gateway of India, wedged between
the old wing and the modern Indo-Islamic extension. The architecture
of the Taj has been described variously as `Moorish’,
‘Eastern’ and ‘Indo-Saracenic,’
but cannot be typified into a specific category.
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1913 - FIRST INDIAN FEATURE FILM RELEASED
Mumbai’s film industry, which today churns out the lengthiest
and largest number of films in the world, started off with the screening
of short films made by the Lumiere Brothers
at the Watson’s Hotel in 1896. The first Indian feature film was
a Hindu epic ‘Raja Harishchandra,’ made
by Bombay still-photographer Dadasaheb Phalke in 1913.
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1924 - GATEWAY OF INDIA WAS BUILT
The Britishers had built this arc of victory to commemorate the
visit of the first British monarch, King George
V to India in 1911. Designed by George
Wittet, the foundation was laid on March 31, 1913. Later,
the land on which the Gateway was to be built was reclaimed from
the sea between 1915 and 1919. The Gateway stands near the pier
on Appolo Bunder where sahibs and memsahibs (British gentlemen and
ladies) sailing from the Mother Country first stepped ashore in
India. Despite its colonial associations, the triple-arched Gateway
is derived from Muslim styles of 16th century Gujarat. It officially
opened in 1924 and was redundant just 24 years later, when the last
British regiment in India departed through its archway.
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1929 - BACK BAY RECLAMATION COMPLETED
The Back Bay Reclamation scheme was
announced in 1921 to reshape the city’s shoreline. Three years later,
the Gateway of India graced its harbour to commemorate King George’s
visit in 1911. The reclamation was finally completed in 1929.
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1942 - QUIT INDIA CAMPAIGN WAS LAUNCHED
After decades of non co-operation, Mahatma
Gandhi launched the ‘Quit India Movement’
in 1942 from Bombay’s August Kranti Maidan.
The non co-operation movement actually brought the whole nation
together in driving out the British from the country.
1944 - AMMUNITION SHIP BLEW UP IN BOMBAY HARBOUR
Mumbai faced one of the worst disasters in its history on April
14, 1944, when a ship ‘Fort Stikine’
carrying loads of ammunition caught fire in the city dock. As per
official reports, over 500 people died, including several hundred
dockworkers. The incident resulted in a stampede at the city’s railway
stations as panicky rumours of a Japanese invasion spread. In addition,
several properties and thousands of tonnes of grain, including rice,
millet and wheat were lost in the fire.
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1960 - BOMBAY STATE WAS DIVIDED
After independence, Bombay became the capital of the bilingual
state, which encompassed a huge area of western India. Pressure
to redraw the state’s boundaries on linguistic lines led to tension
between Bombay’s Marathi and Gujarati-speaking communities and the
resultant violence in 1955 claimed 106 lives.
The Samyukta Maharashtra Samiti (SMS),
a multiparty alliance which aimed to create a Marathi-speaking state,
won control of the Bombay Municipal Corporation
(BMC) in 1957 and declared Bombay the capital of Maharashtra.
Ultimately in 1960, the national government gave in to the demands
of SMS and split the state along linguistic
lines into Maharashtra and Gujarat. Bombay became the capital of
the state of Maharashtra.
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1965 - CITY OF NEW BOMBAY PROPOSED
To handle Bombay’s overcrowding and planning problems, the architect
Charles Correa and two associates proposed
a radical approach by suggesting the satellite city of New
Bombay on the mainland shore of Bombay Harbour.
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1966 - SHIV SENA WAS ESTABLISHED
Shiv Sena was formed by Bal
Thackeray, a political cartoonist and orator, who launched
the Sena by championing Maratha identity. The party first won power
in the city’s municipal elections in 1985 and then gained control
of the Maharasthra State in an alliance with Bharatiya Janata Party
(BJP) in 1995.
1974 - BOMBAY ROCKED BY STRIKES
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The year 1974 turned out to be disastrous for the city as there
were more than 12,000 strikes in Bombay. The city workers were dissatisfied
with the government’s policy and attitude towards them.
1978 - FILM CITY IN GOREGAON
The nation’s great dream factory (Film City) was built on 140 hectares
of rural scrubland in Goregaon East, 30 km north of Mumbai in 1978.
Financed to the tune of Rs 30 million
by the Maharashtra state government, it was a state-of-the- art
film studio in the old Hollywood mould; a place where film makers
could isolate themselves from reality and turn ’script
into screen’ on one of the studio’s 15 great shooting stages
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1982-83 - BOMBAY TEXTILE MILLS CALL FOR STRIKE
Bombay’s cotton mills began to close or move out to the periphery
of the city in large numbers in the 1970s. They were becoming anachronisms
in the centre of a modern metropolis and occupied large chunks of
some of the most valuable real estate in the world. The last gasp
for the city’s mill workers was the Bombay textile
strike that began in 1982 and lasted 18 months and involved
a quarter million workers seeking better pay and union representation
of their choice. The strike failed to achieve its goals and many
of the owners of the mills chose to shut down their businesses rather
than accede to workers’ demands.
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1989 - SACHIN TENDULKAR BECAME THE YOUNGEST INDIAN TO PLAY TEST
CRICKET
On being selected for the tour of Pakistan in 1989, Sachin
Tendulkar, then 16, became the youngest Indian to play for
India in tests. Later, Sachin went on to break various world records.
He has many firsts to his credit - the first overseas player to
represent Yorkshire, the first and only
player to score as many as five hundreds in tests before turning
20, and the youngest player to represent Bombay in Ranji. Sachin
scored his first ODI century against Australia in Colombo.
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1992-93 - COMMUNAL RIOTS ROCKED BOMBAY
The influx of four million people between 1981 and 1991 worsened
the housing shortage in the city and increased competition for resources.
Communalist tension rose and the city’s cosmopolitan self-image
took a battering when nearly 800 people died in riots that followed
the destruction of the Babri Masjid in
Ayodhya in December 1992 and flared again
in January 1993. The riots were followed by serial bombings on March
12, 1993, which killed more than 300 people and damaged landmarks
like the Bombay Stock Exchange and the Air India Building
1996 - SHIV SENA CHANGES CITY NAME TO MUMBAI
In 1996, the Shiv Sena officially renamed
the city ‘Mumbai,’ the Marathi name for
Bombay. Subsequently, the name of the Victoria
Terminus station was also changed to Chhatrapati
Shivaji Terminus.
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