HISTORY OF MUMBAI

Bala Sahib Thackeray was born in Indore MP 

Pav is a Portuguese word meaning bread (Pav in Marathi means bread, the word borrowed from portuguese pão (lit., "bread")

WHY MUMBAI BELONGS TO ALL
By Tushar Gandhi

The “Mumbai for Ma rathi Manoos” war cry has once again been raised to shore up the sagging political fortunes of the Thackeray family. When the Shiv Sena-BJP combine came to power in the year 1993, under the guise of reverting to the original name they replaced Bombay with Mumbai.

I wonder when they will discard the anglicised Thackeray and revert back to their original Marathi surname Thakre?

According to ancient history, a grouping of seven islands comprising Colaba, Mazagaon,Old Woman's Island, Wadala, Mahim, Parel, and Matunga-Sion formed a part of the kingdom of Ashoka the Great of Magadh, ironically in North India.

The Bhaiyas and Biharis whom the Thackerays accuse of being outsiders in Mumbai, come from the region, which was a part of Ashoka the Great’s  empire. We judge everything according to history and the history of Mumbai proves that its earliest  known ownership was with a North Indian.

The seven islands of Mumbai passed through many hands, the sultans of Gujarat, the Portuguese  and the Bri tish. Every ruler left behind proof of residence in Mumbai. The Mauryans left behind the  Kanheri, Mahakali and the caves of Gharapuri more popularly called Elephanta. The sultans of  Gujarat built the Dargahs at Mahim and Haji Ali, the Portuguese built the two Portuguese churches,  one at Prabhadevi and the other St Andrews at Bandra. They built forts at Sion, Mahim, Bandra and  Bassien.
The Portuguese named the group of seven Islands ‘Bom Baia’, Good Bay. The British built a city out of the group of seven islands and called her Bombay. The original settlers of the seven islands, the Koli fishermen, worshiped Mumbaidevi, her temple still  stands at Babulnath near Chowpatty. The Kolis called the island Mumbai, ‘Mumba, Mother Goddess’.

In 1662, King Charles II of England married the Portugese Princess Catherine of Braganza, and  received the seven islands of Bom Baia as part of his dowry. Six years later, the British Crown leased  the seven islands to the English East India Company for a sum of 10 pounds in gold per annum. 

It was under the English East India Company that the future megapolis began to take shape, after  the first war for independence Bombay once again became a colony of theBritish Empire. History  has forgotten this but the first Parsi settler came to Bombay in 1640, he was Dorabji  Nanabhoy  Patel.

In 1689-90, a severe plague epidemic broke out in Bombay and most of the European settlers  succumbed to it. The Siddi of Janjira attacked in full force. Rustomji Dorabji Patel, a trader and the  son of the city’s first Parsi settler, successfully defeated the Siddi with the help of the Kolis and  saved Bombay.

Gerald Aungier, Governor of Bombay built the Bombay Castle, an area that is even today referred  to as Fort. He also constituted the Courts of law. He brought Gujarati traders, Parsi   shipbuilders,  Muslim and Hindu manufacturers from the mainland and settled them in Bombay.

It was during a period of four decades that the city of Bombay took shape. Reclamation was done  by plugging the breach at Worli and Mahalakshmi, Hornby Vellard was built in 1784. The Sion Causeway  connecting Bombay to Salsette was built in 1803. Colaba Causeway connecting Colaba island to  Bombay was built in 1838. A causeway connecting Mahim and Bandra was built in 1845. Lady  Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy, the wife of the First Baronet Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy donated Rs 1, 57,000 to  meet construction costs of the cau seway. She donated Rs 1,00,000 at first. When the project cost  escalated and money ran out half way through she donated Rs 57,000 again to ensure that the vital  causeway was completed. Lady Jamsetjee stipulated that no toll would ever be charged for those  using the causeway. Today Mumbaikars have to pay Rs 75 to use the Bandra-Worli Sea link,  connecting almost the same two islands. Sir J J Hospital was also built by Sir Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy.

The shipbuilding Wadia family of Surat was brought to Bombay by the British. Jamshedji Wadia  founded the Bombay Port Trust and built the Princess Dock in 1885 and the Victoria Dock and the Mereweather Dry  Docks in 1891. Alexandra Dock was built in 1914. A Gujarati civil engineer  supervised the building of the Gateway of India. The Tatas made Bombay their headquarters and  gave it the iconic Taj Mahal Hotel and India’s first civilian airlines, Air India.

The Godrejs gave India  its first vegetarian soap. Cowasji Nanabhai Daver established Bombay’s first cotton mill, ‘The Bombay Spinning Mills’ in 1854. By 1915, there were 83 textile mills in Bombay largely owned by Indians. This brought about a  financial boom in Bombay.

Although the mills were own ed by Gujaratis, Kutchis, Parsis and Marwaris, the work force was  migrant Mahrashtri ans from rural Maharashtra.

Premchand Roychand, a prosperous Gujarati  broker founded the Bombay Stock Ex change. Premchand Roychand donated Rs 2,00,000 to build  the Rajabai Tower in 1878. Muslim, Sindhi and Punjabi migrants have also contributed handsomely  to Mumbai. Mumbai is built on the blood and sweat of all Indians. Apart from its original  inhabitants, the Kolis, everyone else in Mumbai, including Thackeray’s ‘Marathi Manoos’, are  immigrants.

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The writer is founder president, Mahatma Gandhi Foundation. He is Mahatma Gandhi's grandson.