Anneli Xie
Prof. Nikhil Rao
HIST 276: The City in Modern South Asia
2019/02/20
Prof. Nikhil Rao
HIST 276: The City in Modern South Asia
2019/02/20
Chawls, Citizenship, and Colonialism: the Failure of Urban Renewal in the City of Bombay
When the plague hit Bombay in 1896, winds of change fluttered through the newly industrialized landscape. A city
crowded with low-income workers and immigrants searching for work in the city’s
cotton mill factories, the outbreak of the disease caused panic amongst
stakeholders of the Bombay economy, including British officials, Bombay
mill-owners, and the elite classes. (Hazareesingh 2000, 799-802) Not only out of fear for illness, these stakeholders also feared for the
epidemic’s effect on the production of Bombay as a booming capitalist commerce.
A disease assumed to have grown out of filth and squalor, the plague epidemic
of Bombay spurred a radical shift in the landscapes of urban cities in India,
as the transmission of disease was connected to the overcrowding of dwellings
and was traced back to the factory working low-income neighborhoods.[3]As a result, formalized urban planning was adopted, starting with the birth of
the Bombay Improvement Trust (B.I.T) in 1898. (Kidambi 2001, 57) Decades later, however, the new planning institutions only deepened the housing
and congestion crisis in Bombay, often justifying spatial and social
segregation and colonial dominance behind the newly discovered shield of public
health and sanitation. With a no less livable city provided by the colonial
government, low-income workers, with the help of the press, started to organize
themselves in the fight for civil rights – at the time only given to
stakeholders of the Bombay economy. Studying the city of Bombay during the time
period ranging from the late 19th century into the early 20th century is thus
important as it showcases how the quest for urban citizenship amongst the urban
poor was spurred through an indecency of the British to try to envision Indian
culture, life, and tradition.
During the 19th century, Bombay emerged as an urban civil society with a laissez-faire market economy which brought a desire to participate in the city’s public life in order to gain wealth. (Hazareesingh 2000, 799) Although British rule had initially grown more conservative and centralized following the Indian rebellion in 1857, the new liberal economy delegated freedom to trade, own land, and build homes guaranteed military protection, with the three categories becoming the basis of class within the city of Bombay. (Oldenburg 1984, 28) As the American Civil War broke out in 1861, the West saw an increasing demand for cotton, and India stepped in to fill the void, with Bombay as one of the most prominent cities for cotton-trade. (Hazareesingh 2007, 76) The rapid growth of commerce in Bombay brought with it the presence of major industries and factories, and as natural result of these, the city started to congest as villagers arrived in search for factory work. The search for work, coupled with the strengthening of capitalist land rights, made the city a space of temporary dwelling for many low-income immigrants as landlords and mill-owners strove to keep house rates at a minimum in order to accommodate the influx of this new demographic. Since work was highly demanded and highly flexible – meaning also highly uncertain – the quality of housing was kept at a minimum, with a “sweating of sites,” meaning highly dense housing, to follow. (Kidambi 2001, 76)
When town-planner Patrick Geddes visited Bombay in 1915, he voiced good housing to be a basic right and critiqued the obstacles to active citizenship in the city, claiming that “the wealth of a city could not be reduced to the money-making pursuits of a small affluent group, but lay ‘in its whole body of citizens.’” (Hazareesingh 2000, 805) Geddes critique of the current city of Bombay was noted by the major newspapers in the city – a growing problem for the colonial state as the press often consisted of an “English-educated professional intelligentsia largely excluded from the restrictive political citizenship,” (Hazareesingh 2000, 801) thus eager to critique their colonial rulers using bilingual strategies in order to reach a wide audience of peoples. After Geddes’ visit, one of the Bombay dailies, The Chronicle called attention to the damaging consequences of insufficient housing on civic life. Following Chronicle’s coverage and application of Geddes’ views, Bombay saw a strike of 150,000 textile workers in January 1919 – the start of organized labor unions, strikes, and the view that Chronicle voiced louder than anything: that “the city is one; the poor have as much right to it as the rich.” (Hazareesingh 2000, 808)
After the 1919 strike, devastating for the colonial textile trade, the British government decided to respond to the voiced injustices of the peoples through the planning of housing. However, as housing became more regulated, it also disadvantaged the urban poor it was intended to help. Whereas residential housing had previously been provided by native land-owners of Bombay, it was now overtaken by colonial institutions such as the B.I.T and the Bombay Development Directorate (B.D.D). The latter, founded in 1920, was entrusted with an urban renewal mission of chawls, the most cost-effective housing at the moment, and was responsible for constructing over 16,000 tenements in Bombay between the years 1920-1924. (Rao 2012, 110) Although the B.D.D chawls were developed to accommodate the urban poor, they ended up representing only a colonial vision of what the working class needed – exemplified in the removal of the nahaniand the verandah – two distinguishing features of the chawl. (Hazareesingh 2000, 815) Whereas the nahani, a traditional washing place, was removed due to what colonial officers deemed to be sanitary reasons, the verandah was removed to provide more privacy – a concept highly valued in Europe, but less appealing at its building site. Coupled with the lack of government subsidies, the newly built chawls were both undesirable and too expensive for their intended working-class residents. Instead, the B.D.D chawls were scarcely occupied by a high caste- lower middle-class that was drawn to the city by the professionalism of the capitalist work culture, who with a literacy gained from their high caste background sought out white-collar work. (Rao 2012, 103) This demographic, however, unable to afford the housing of the wealthy upper classes, was also unsatisfied with the chawls as they were seen as unsuitable due to their one-room tenement structure, and the B.D.D chawls were, until after the second world war, never more than half-occupied. (Hazareesingh 2000, 815) Instead, the B.D.D chawls spurred the build of the Bombay flat: a self-contained entity with multiple rooms, characterized by the inward migration of the WC, that catered to the new demographic of the educated lower middle-class that now established themselves in the city. As for the B.D.D chawls, they remain an example of how the British failed to understand and imagine Indian living. (Rao 2012, 103)
Around the same time, in 1922, the reform of the Bombay Municipal Corporation was revealed, leading to a distorted deepening of democracy through a constrained expansion of political rights given by the British officials. The reform, although seemingly more inclusive, ensured maintained colonial control, even though it meant a fivefold increase of in the number of voters, now allowing political rights to the commercial middle class. In a city of 1.25 million, this only accounted to 7% of the population, with the lower middle-class and the industrial working classes still excluded from the rights of urban citizenship. The new gainers of civil rights, however, soon created local political parties that promoted nationalism and sought a more effective solution to the housing crisis than those offered by colonial governance. Together with the press, consisting mostly of the educated lower middle-class and inspired by Geddes’ visit in Bombay, these new civil forces sought to improve living conditions for the working classes by, for example, encouraging workers to go on strike through frequent reports of successful strikes in Europe appearing in the press. With a failed promise of better housing conditions for the urban poor given by the B.D.D and a newly established lower middle-class that could utilize the press, Bombay saw 461 industrial strikes between 1921 and 1924, and 80,000 workers taking part in 48 different unions in 1922. The newly organized labor forces encouraged a direct impact on public opinion as the workers’ appropriated public spaces in their protest, threatening the colonial government in its declining public support and gaining the fundamental civil right: the right to voice. (Hazareesingh 2000, 816-826)
By looking at the city of Bombay during the late 19th and early 20th century, the struggle for urban citizenship can be traced back to the birth of formalized urban planning following the outbreak of the plague in 1896. The unintentional relocation of the educated lower middle-class by the construction of the B.D.D chawls and later, the Bombay flat, turned out to be devastating for the colonial model of citizenship in the new demographic’s appropriation of the city. Utilizing the press’ bilingual strategies to promote an increasing stridency of the nationalist movement across a wide audience, the fight for civil rights – for everyone – was voiced loud and clear through organized labor forces, such as strikes and unions. Together, the people of Bombay came together to spread one message: “the city is one; the poor have as much right to it as the rich.”
Gooptu, Nandini. “The ‘Problem of the Urban Poor Policy and Discourse of Local Administration: A Study in Uttar Pradesh in the Interwar Period.” Economic and Political Weekly 31, no. 50 (December 1996): 3245-3254.
Hazareesingh, Sandip. “The Colonial City and the Challenge of Modernity: Urban Hegemonies and Civic Contestations in Bombay 1900-1925.” In New Perspectives in South Asian History 18, edited by Sanjoy Bhattacharya, Peter Cain, Mark Harrison, and Michael Worboys, 12-70. Hyderabad: Orient Longman, 2007.
Hazareesingh, Sandip. “The Quest for Urban Citizenship: Civic Rights, Public Opinion, and Colonial Resistance in Early Twentieth-Century Bombay.” Modern Asian Studies 34, no. 4 (October 2000): 797-829.
Kidambi, Prashant. “Housing the Poor in a Colonial City: The Bombay Improvement Trust, 1898-1918.” Studies in History 17, no.1 (February 2001): 57-79.
Oldenburg, Veena Talwar. The Making of Colonial Lucknow, 1856-1877. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984.
Rao, Nikhil. House but No Garden: Apartment Living in Bombay’s Suburbs, 1898-1964. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2012.
During the 19th century, Bombay emerged as an urban civil society with a laissez-faire market economy which brought a desire to participate in the city’s public life in order to gain wealth. (Hazareesingh 2000, 799) Although British rule had initially grown more conservative and centralized following the Indian rebellion in 1857, the new liberal economy delegated freedom to trade, own land, and build homes guaranteed military protection, with the three categories becoming the basis of class within the city of Bombay. (Oldenburg 1984, 28) As the American Civil War broke out in 1861, the West saw an increasing demand for cotton, and India stepped in to fill the void, with Bombay as one of the most prominent cities for cotton-trade. (Hazareesingh 2007, 76) The rapid growth of commerce in Bombay brought with it the presence of major industries and factories, and as natural result of these, the city started to congest as villagers arrived in search for factory work. The search for work, coupled with the strengthening of capitalist land rights, made the city a space of temporary dwelling for many low-income immigrants as landlords and mill-owners strove to keep house rates at a minimum in order to accommodate the influx of this new demographic. Since work was highly demanded and highly flexible – meaning also highly uncertain – the quality of housing was kept at a minimum, with a “sweating of sites,” meaning highly dense housing, to follow. (Kidambi 2001, 76)
When town-planner Patrick Geddes visited Bombay in 1915, he voiced good housing to be a basic right and critiqued the obstacles to active citizenship in the city, claiming that “the wealth of a city could not be reduced to the money-making pursuits of a small affluent group, but lay ‘in its whole body of citizens.’” (Hazareesingh 2000, 805) Geddes critique of the current city of Bombay was noted by the major newspapers in the city – a growing problem for the colonial state as the press often consisted of an “English-educated professional intelligentsia largely excluded from the restrictive political citizenship,” (Hazareesingh 2000, 801) thus eager to critique their colonial rulers using bilingual strategies in order to reach a wide audience of peoples. After Geddes’ visit, one of the Bombay dailies, The Chronicle called attention to the damaging consequences of insufficient housing on civic life. Following Chronicle’s coverage and application of Geddes’ views, Bombay saw a strike of 150,000 textile workers in January 1919 – the start of organized labor unions, strikes, and the view that Chronicle voiced louder than anything: that “the city is one; the poor have as much right to it as the rich.” (Hazareesingh 2000, 808)
After the 1919 strike, devastating for the colonial textile trade, the British government decided to respond to the voiced injustices of the peoples through the planning of housing. However, as housing became more regulated, it also disadvantaged the urban poor it was intended to help. Whereas residential housing had previously been provided by native land-owners of Bombay, it was now overtaken by colonial institutions such as the B.I.T and the Bombay Development Directorate (B.D.D). The latter, founded in 1920, was entrusted with an urban renewal mission of chawls, the most cost-effective housing at the moment, and was responsible for constructing over 16,000 tenements in Bombay between the years 1920-1924. (Rao 2012, 110) Although the B.D.D chawls were developed to accommodate the urban poor, they ended up representing only a colonial vision of what the working class needed – exemplified in the removal of the nahaniand the verandah – two distinguishing features of the chawl. (Hazareesingh 2000, 815) Whereas the nahani, a traditional washing place, was removed due to what colonial officers deemed to be sanitary reasons, the verandah was removed to provide more privacy – a concept highly valued in Europe, but less appealing at its building site. Coupled with the lack of government subsidies, the newly built chawls were both undesirable and too expensive for their intended working-class residents. Instead, the B.D.D chawls were scarcely occupied by a high caste- lower middle-class that was drawn to the city by the professionalism of the capitalist work culture, who with a literacy gained from their high caste background sought out white-collar work. (Rao 2012, 103) This demographic, however, unable to afford the housing of the wealthy upper classes, was also unsatisfied with the chawls as they were seen as unsuitable due to their one-room tenement structure, and the B.D.D chawls were, until after the second world war, never more than half-occupied. (Hazareesingh 2000, 815) Instead, the B.D.D chawls spurred the build of the Bombay flat: a self-contained entity with multiple rooms, characterized by the inward migration of the WC, that catered to the new demographic of the educated lower middle-class that now established themselves in the city. As for the B.D.D chawls, they remain an example of how the British failed to understand and imagine Indian living. (Rao 2012, 103)
Around the same time, in 1922, the reform of the Bombay Municipal Corporation was revealed, leading to a distorted deepening of democracy through a constrained expansion of political rights given by the British officials. The reform, although seemingly more inclusive, ensured maintained colonial control, even though it meant a fivefold increase of in the number of voters, now allowing political rights to the commercial middle class. In a city of 1.25 million, this only accounted to 7% of the population, with the lower middle-class and the industrial working classes still excluded from the rights of urban citizenship. The new gainers of civil rights, however, soon created local political parties that promoted nationalism and sought a more effective solution to the housing crisis than those offered by colonial governance. Together with the press, consisting mostly of the educated lower middle-class and inspired by Geddes’ visit in Bombay, these new civil forces sought to improve living conditions for the working classes by, for example, encouraging workers to go on strike through frequent reports of successful strikes in Europe appearing in the press. With a failed promise of better housing conditions for the urban poor given by the B.D.D and a newly established lower middle-class that could utilize the press, Bombay saw 461 industrial strikes between 1921 and 1924, and 80,000 workers taking part in 48 different unions in 1922. The newly organized labor forces encouraged a direct impact on public opinion as the workers’ appropriated public spaces in their protest, threatening the colonial government in its declining public support and gaining the fundamental civil right: the right to voice. (Hazareesingh 2000, 816-826)
By looking at the city of Bombay during the late 19th and early 20th century, the struggle for urban citizenship can be traced back to the birth of formalized urban planning following the outbreak of the plague in 1896. The unintentional relocation of the educated lower middle-class by the construction of the B.D.D chawls and later, the Bombay flat, turned out to be devastating for the colonial model of citizenship in the new demographic’s appropriation of the city. Utilizing the press’ bilingual strategies to promote an increasing stridency of the nationalist movement across a wide audience, the fight for civil rights – for everyone – was voiced loud and clear through organized labor forces, such as strikes and unions. Together, the people of Bombay came together to spread one message: “the city is one; the poor have as much right to it as the rich.”
References
Gooptu, Nandini. “The ‘Problem of the Urban Poor Policy and Discourse of Local Administration: A Study in Uttar Pradesh in the Interwar Period.” Economic and Political Weekly 31, no. 50 (December 1996): 3245-3254.
Hazareesingh, Sandip. “The Colonial City and the Challenge of Modernity: Urban Hegemonies and Civic Contestations in Bombay 1900-1925.” In New Perspectives in South Asian History 18, edited by Sanjoy Bhattacharya, Peter Cain, Mark Harrison, and Michael Worboys, 12-70. Hyderabad: Orient Longman, 2007.
Hazareesingh, Sandip. “The Quest for Urban Citizenship: Civic Rights, Public Opinion, and Colonial Resistance in Early Twentieth-Century Bombay.” Modern Asian Studies 34, no. 4 (October 2000): 797-829.
Kidambi, Prashant. “Housing the Poor in a Colonial City: The Bombay Improvement Trust, 1898-1918.” Studies in History 17, no.1 (February 2001): 57-79.
Oldenburg, Veena Talwar. The Making of Colonial Lucknow, 1856-1877. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984.
Rao, Nikhil. House but No Garden: Apartment Living in Bombay’s Suburbs, 1898-1964. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2012.