Housing the Poor in a Colonial City: The Bombay Improvement Trust, 1898-1918

Studies in History

Volumn 17, Issue 1, 2001, Pages 57-79

  Kidambi, Prashant ^a  

^a WOLFSON COLLEGE   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ARTICLE; CITY PLANNING; ECONOMICS; EDUCATION; ETHNOLOGY; GOVERNMENT; HEALTH; HISTORY; HOUSING; INDIA; LEGAL ASPECT; POLICY; POVERTY; PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECT; SANITATION; SOCIAL BEHAVIOR; SOCIAL CHANGE; SOCIAL CLASS; SOCIOECONOMICS; URBAN POPULATION;

CITY PLANNING; ECONOMICS; GOVERNMENT PROGRAMS; HISTORY, 19TH CENTURY; HISTORY, 20TH CENTURY; HOUSING; INDIA; POVERTY; POVERTY AREAS; PUBLIC HOUSING; PUBLIC POLICY; SANITATION; SOCIAL BEHAVIOR; SOCIAL CHANGE; SOCIAL CLASS; SOCIOECONOMIC FACTORS; URBAN HEALTH; URBAN POPULATION; URBAN RENEWAL;

EID: 14044253418     PISSN: 02576430     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/025764300101700103     Document Type: Article

References (94)

1. Annual Administration Report of the City of Bombay Improvement Trust (henceforth AARBIT) for the year ending 31st March, 1899, Bombay, 1899, p. 3.
2. P.J. Smith, ‘Planning as environmental improvement: Slum clearance in Victorian Edinburgh’, in A. Sutcliffe, ed., The Rise of Modern Urban Planning, London, 1980, pp. 101–2.
3. Proceeding of the Council of the Governor of Bombay Assembled For The Purpose of Making Laws and Regulations (henceforth Council Proceedings), 1898, Vol. XXXVI, Bombay, 1899, p. 17.
4. I. Catanach, ‘Who are your leaders?’: Plague, the raj and the “communities” in Bombay, 1896–1901'
5. in P. Robb, ed., Society and Ideology: Essays in South Asian History Presented to K.A. Ballhatchet, London, 1992, p. 220.
6. Council Proceedings, 1898, Vol. XXXVI, p. 10.
7. Gazetteer of Bombay City and Island, compiled by S.M. Edwardes (henceforth Gazetteer), 3 Vols, Bombay, 1909, Vol. III, p. 82. Of the remainder, the city's prominent commercial interests, i.e., the Bombay Millowners' Association, the Chamber of Commerce and the Port Trust had one representative each, while the others were either ex-officio members such as the Collector of Land Revenue and the Municipal Commissioner or were nominated by the Bombay Government.
8. As Sir Steyning Edgerley of the Government of Bombay pointed out, ‘the Government of India would never have entrusted either the wide borrowing powers in the market or property of the value which they did entrust to the Improvement Trust, nor would they have given them the wide statutory powers of interference with private property, except under the strictest Government control’. Council Proceedings, 1907, Vol. XLV, Bombay, 1908, p. 301.
9. J.C. Masselos, ‘Changing definitions of Bombay: City state to capital city’, in I. Banga, ed., Ports and their Hinterlands, Delhi, 1992, p. 308.
10. S. Dwivedi and R. Mehrotra, eds, Bombay: The Cities Within, Bombay, 1995, p. 159.
11. Minute by Mr. Curtis, in Proposed Transfer of Control of the City of Bombay Improvement Trust to the Municipal Corporation of Bombay, Bombay, 1919, p. 22.
12. J.P. Orr, Note on The Finances of The Bombay Improvement Trust, Bombay, 1919, p. 3.
13. AARBIT, 1899, p. 4.
14. See, for instance, ‘Draft representation of municipal corporation to government of Bombay’, Selections from the Bombay Municipal Corporation Proceedings and Debate on the Improvement Trust's Sandhurst Road to Crawford Market Street Scheme, Bombay, 1911, p. 21. However, this was not entirely due to the Improvement Trust for at about the same time the Bombay Port Trust and the railway companies were also absorbing large areas of land in the city.
15. Gazetteer, Vol. I, pp. 327–28.
16. AARBIT, 1901–2, pp. 14–15.
17. Rast Goftar, 12 February 1899, RNNP, No. 7, 1899. Instead, their surveyors favoured a method known as ‘valuation on land and buildings’ which involved ascertaining the cost price of the building, and after allowing for depreciation, adding to it the value of the land ascertained independently. The combined sum so derived was claimed as the value of land and building. BIT Proceedings, 26 January 1909, GoB, General, Vol. 25, Compilation no. 833, 1909, p. 114, MSA.
18. Report of the Bombay Development Committee (henceforth RBDC), 1914, Bombay, 1914, p. 108.
19. BIT Proceedings, 20 April 1909, GoB, General, Vol. 25, Compilation no. 833, 1909, MSA, p. 114, 115.
20. ‘In the earlier years of the Trust’, noted J.P. Orr, ‘too much stress was perhaps laid on the Trust's functions as a slum destroying agency with possibly too optimistic an estimate of the people's readiness to take up land in the Trust's new estates and to build sanitary houses there for the accommodation of people dishoused by the Trust's operations.’ J.P. Orr, Social Reform and Slum Reform, Bombay, 1918, p. 25. The Board continued to follow its method of wholesale acquisition and demolition during the first decade of its existence. By the beginning of the 1910s, however, Trust officials were forced to acknowledge that ‘the wholesale acquisition and demolition method must be abandoned as needlessly expensive and slow, besides unnecessarily disturbing the house owners and their tenants’, AARBIT, 1912–13, Appendix M-6, p. 122.
21. Frank Conlon, ‘Industrialization and the housing problem in Bombay, 1850–1940’, in K. Ballhatchet and D. Taylor, eds, Changing South Asia: Economy and Society, London, 1984, pp. 162–63.
22. ‘Annual report of the executive health officer’, in Annual Report of the Municipal Commissioner of Bombay (henceforth ARMCB), 1903, Bombay, 1904, para. 75.
23. ‘Annual report of the executive health officer’, ARMCB. 1903–4, Bombay, 1904, pp. 181–82.
24. From 1909 onwards, the Trust modified its policy of direct attack on congested areas and preferred instead to adopt what came to be known as a ‘nursing policy’ whereby attempts were made to provide alternative accommodation in properties owned by the Trust for those displaced by its schemes before embarking on demolition operations. However, this was only partially successful since those displaced were aware that such accommodation was nothing more than a temporary expedient. In 1916, for instance, of the 1,049 tenements demolished by the Trust, about half of the dishoused refused the Trust's offers of accommodation, ‘preferring to take rooms in houses which were not liable to be demolished in the next few years as the Trust-acquired houses are’: AARBIT, 1916–17, p. 14.
25. Two years later it was reported that a large number of those displaced by the Trust's operations were still moving to buildings outside the Trust's estates, ‘fearing that if they accepted rooms in the houses acquired by the Trust, they would soon have to make a second move when these houses were demolished’ AARBIT, 1918–19, p. 18.
26. Indian Textile Journal (henceforth ITJ), Vol. XXIV: 279, December 1913, p. 74.
27. Orr, Social Reform, p. 23, 24, 23.
28. Selections from the Bombay Municipal Council Proceedings and Debate on the Improvement Trust's Sandhurst Road to Crawford Market Scheme, p. 19.
29. W.L. Harvey, Municipal Commissioner, Bombay, to the Chairman, City Improvement Trust, 27 August 1903, AARBIT 1912–13, Appendix C, p. 134.
30. ‘Annual report of the executive health officer’, ARMCB, 1914–1915, Bombay, 1915, Vol. II, p. 65.
31. The Trust claimed that it did not have adequate funds to take up the areas included in the Commissioner's representations. Trust authorities argued that the required improvements would amount to ten million rupees, a sum which they declared was beyond their means. See ‘Annual report of the executive health officer’, ARMCB, 1918–1919, Bombay, 1919, p. 66.
32. Significantly. Section 23 of the City Improvement Trust (CIT) Act, under which the Trust had to compulsorily undertake the improvement of insanitary areas ‘represented’ by the Municipal Corporation, was amended in 1913 in order to free the Trust of this encumbrance. See Proceedings of the Legislative Council of the Governor of Bombay (henceforth Legislative Council Proceedings), 1912, Vol. L, Bombay, 1913, pp. 643–707.
33. Bombay Gazette Overland Summary (henceforth BGOS), 25 July 1903, p. 13, 19.
34. Orr, Social Reform, p. 23.
35. By 1918, the Trust's schemes had displaced 64,000 persons of whom only 14,000 were re-housed. See, Report of the Indian Industrial Commission, 1916–18, Calcutta, 1918
36. Evidence, A.E. Mirams, Consulting Surveyor to the Government of India, Vol. IV, p. 361.
37. Indu Prakash, 26 January 1905
38. RNNP, No. 4, 1905, para. 31.
39. BIT Proceedings, 22 April 1904, GoB, Judicial, Vol. 37, Compilation no. 129. 1904, Appendix, p. 141, MSA.
40. BIT Proceedings, 30 March 1911, GoB, General, Vol. 51, Compilation no. 833, 1911, p. 61, MSA.
41. Sir Ibrahim Rahimatoola to the Chairman, City Improvement Trust, 16 January 1918, AARBIT, 1917–18, Appendix O-3, p. 116, para. 2.
42. AARBIT, 1900–1, p. 5.
43. Chairman, City of Bombay Improvement Trust, to Secretary, GoB, GD (General Department), 25 March 1903, GoB, General, 1903, Vol. 31, Compilation no. 525, p. 59, MSA.
44. AARBIT, 1901–2, p. 13.
45. Chairman, City of Bombay Improvement Trust, to Secretary, GoB, GD, 25 March 1903, GoB, General, Vol. 31, Compilation no. 525, 1903, p. 59, MSA.
46. Moreover, the Trust was noticeably reluctant to house those displaced by its operations in areas that were considered to be valuable from a commercial point of view. For instance, in submitting its proposals for Scheme II (a street running from Queen's Road to the Carnac Bridge), the Trust noted that it did not propose to provide housing for the poor who were displaced ‘as the quarter of Bombay concerned is an important business centre’. It was averred that, ‘such use of valuable frontages would be undesirable as tending to reduce the character of the new street for business purposes and would besides result in heavy loss from high priced lands being utilized instead of cheap sites’. BGOS, 8 August 1903, p. 14.
47. Government Resolution, 14 June 1909, GoB, General, Vol. 28, Compilation no. 218, Part II, 1909, para. 14, MSA.
48. RBDC. 1914, p. xxv.
49. AARBIT. 1911–12, Appendix M-2, p. 85.
50. BGOS, 25 May 1901, p. 10.
51. Council Proceedings, 1907, Vol. XLV, p. 296.
52. Chairman's Note on Rents of Trust Chawls, BIT Proceedings, 30 March 1911, GoB, General, Vol. 51, Compilation no. 833, 1911, p. 61, MSA.
53. ITJ, Vol. XI: 129, June 1901, p. 251.
54. BIT Proceedings, GoB, General, Vol. 32, Compilation no. 833, 1903, p. 214, MSA.
55. AARBIT, 1912–13, p. 2.
56. Legislative Council Proceedings, 1912, Vol. L, p. 656.
57. ITJ, Vol. XXVI: 309, June 1916, p. 263.
58. Legislative Council Proceedings, 1920, Vol. LVIII, Bombay, 1922, p. 564.
59. R.S. Chandavarkar, Origins of Industrial Capitalism in India: Business Strategies and the Working Classes in Bombay, 1900–1940, Cambridge, 1994, p. 292.
60. Chairman's Note on Rents of Trust Chawls, BIT Proceedings, 30 March 1911, GoB, General, Vol. 51, Compilation no. 833, 1911, p. 61, MSA, 62.
61. Minute by D.E. Wacha, BIT Proceedings, 30 March 1911, GoB, General, Vol. 51, Compilation no. 833, 1911, p. 66, MSA.
62. GoB, General, Vol. 41, Compilation no. 411, Part IV, 1913, p. 102, MSA.
63. Report of the Municipal Commissioner on Plague in Bombay for the Year Ending 31st May 1899, Bombay, 1900, Vol. 1, p. 133.
64. Bombay Presidency Police, Secret Abstracts of Intelligence (henceforth BPPSAI), Vol. XII: 6, 1899, para. 205. Their opposition to the Improvement Trust aroused official worries and it was noted that: ‘These people are anxious that their fears should come to the notice of Government in some shape or form that will obtain early recognition, and therefore are trying to stir up mischief by disseminating reports in quarters where they think they will be taken seriously and so come to the ears of Government with the desired result that to avoid disturbances Government will make some concessions.’ It was also reported that while ‘no mention has yet been made of resistance or of inciting to resist the measures of the Board … the City Improvement Trust has given birth to a new Association called the “Property-holders’ Defence Association'”: BPPSAI, Vol. XII: 8, 1899, para. 302.
65. ITJ, Vol. VIII: 89, 15 February 1898, p. 111.
66. AARBIT, 1901–2, p. 14.
67. Masselos, ‘Changing definitions’, p. 310.
68. However, the Kolis were not entirely opposed to moving. Indeed, they argued that they were ready to vacate their homes if some means were devised ‘by which we may be kept together in New Koliwada, after the improvements are completed and space re-allotted for building purposes’ or failing this if they could ‘be still kept together in a fresh colony along the seaside and more or less near the scene of our present labours’. GoB, General, Vol. 29, Compilation no. 194, Part I, 1905, MSA.
69. BIT Proceedings, 22 April 1904, GoB, Judicial, Vol. 38, Compilation no. 129, Part II, 1904, MSA.
70. AARBIT. 1920–21, p. 10. I thank Dr J.C. Masselos for bringing this to my notice.
71. Bombay Samachar, 15 July 1905, RNNP, No. 28, 1905, para. 50.
72. Kesari, 19 June 1905
73. RNNP, No. 25, 1905, para. 31.
74. Jam-e-Jamshed, 8 August 1905
75. RNNP, No. 32, 1905, para. 62.
76. Bombay Samachar, 8 August 1905
77. RNNP, No. 32, 1905, para. 62.
78. BIT Proceedings, 22 April 1904, GoB, Judicial, Vol. 37, Compilation no. 129, 1904, Appendix, p. 141, MSA.
79. Rast Goftar, 11 May 1913
80. RNNP, No. 19, 1913, para. 40.
81. Legislative Council Proceedings, 1912, Vol. L, p. 673.
82. Rast Goftar, 11 May 1913
83. RNNP, No. 19, 1913, para. 40.
84. Colonial officials shared this perception and Trust chawls were characterized by community-based segregation in order to cater to the presumed religious susceptibilities of the poor. See, AARB1T, 1920–21, p. 27.
85. ITJ, Vol. XXVII: 320, May 1917, p. 242. For instance, in spite of the petitions of sections of mill workers to be housed closed to their places of work, the Soparibaug chawls built in 1911 were slow to fill up since their rents of Rs 3-12-0 (three rupees and twelve annas) were considered too high being 8 to 10 annas more than the private chawls in the neighbourhood.
86. As the Jam-e-Jamshed acknowledged: ‘rent is so high and the conditions attached to the occupation of these rooms are so stiff that the people cannot afford to pay the former or to agree to the latter’. Jam-e-Jamshed, 13 May 1913
87. RNNP, No. 20, 1913, para. 46.
88. BGOS, 2 February 1901, p. 25.
89. This appears to have been the case even in the mid-1920s. Thus, according to S.M. Rutnagur, the chawls constructed by the government had ‘not been taken up to any appreciable extent and their unpopularity has resulted in overcrowding in the mill chawls’. S.M. Rutnagur, Bombay Industries: The Cotton Mills, Bombay, 1927, p. 496.
90. Jam-e-Jamshed, 13 May 1904
91. RNNP, No. 20, 1904, para. 30.
92. The Bombay Law Reporter, Vol. VIII, January 1906, p. 8.
93. AARBIT. 1919–20, p. 2.
94. Legislative Council Proceedings. 1920, Vol. LVIII, p. 564.