Mumbai in Indian freedom movement
Indian freedom movement
The growth of political consciousness started after the establishment of the Bombay Presidency Association on 31 January 1885.[128] The Bombay Millowners' Association was formed in February 1875 by Dinshaw Maneckji Petit in order to protect interests of workers threatened by possible factory and tariff legislation by the British.[129] The first session of the Indian National Congress was held in Bombay from 28–31 December 1885.[130] The Bombay Municipal Act was enacted in 1888 which gave the British Government wide powers of interference in civic matters.[131] The Victoria Terminusof the Great Indian Peninsular Railway, one of the finest stations in the world, was completed in May 1888.[132] The concept of Dabbawalas (lunch box delivery man) originated in the 1890s when British people who came to Bombay did not like the local food. So the Dabbawala service was set up to bring lunch to these people in their workplace straight from their home.[133] On 11 August 1893, a serious communal riot took place between the Hindus and Muslims, when a Shiva temple was attacked by Muslims in Bombay. 75 people were killed and 350 were injured.[134] In September 1896, Bombay was hit by a bubonic plague epidemic where the death toll was estimated at 1,900 people per week.[135] Around 850,000, amounting to half of the population, fled Bombay during this time.[136] On 9 March 1898, there was a serious riot which started with a sudden outbreak of hostility against the measures adopted by Government for suppression of plague. The riot led to a strike of dock and railway workers which paralysed the city for a few days.[137] The significant results of the plague was the creation of the Bombay City Improvement Trust on 9 December 1898[138] and the Haffkine Institute on 10 January 1899 by Waldemar Haffkine.[139] The Dadar-Matunga-Wadala-Sion scheme, the first planned suburban scheme in Bombay, was formulated in 1899–1900 by the Bombay City Improvement Trust to relieve congestion in the centre of the town, following the plague epidemics.[140] The cotton mill industry was adversely affected during 1900 and 1901 due to the flight of workers because of the plague.[141]
The Partition of Bengal in 1905 initiated the Swadeshi movement, which led to the boycotting of British goods in India.[142] On 22 July 1908, Lokmanya Tilak, the principal advocate of the Swadeshi movement in Bombay, was sentenced to six years rigorous imprisonment, on the charge of writing inflammatory articles against the Government in his newspaper Kesari. The arrest led to huge scale protests across the city.[143] The Bombay Chroniclestarted by Pherozeshah Mehta, the leader of the Indian National Congress, in 1910, played an important role in the national movement until India's Independence.[144] Lord Willingdon convened the Provincial War Conference at Bombay on 10 June 1918, whose objective was to seek the co-operation of the people in the World War I measures which the British Government thought it necessary to take in the Bombay Presidency. The conference was followed by huge rallies across the city. The worldwide influenza epidemic raged through Bombay from September to December 1918, causing hundreds of deaths per day. The Lord Willingdon Memorial incident of December 1918 saw the handicap of Home Rulers in Bombay. The first important strike in the textile industry in Bombay began in January 1919.[145] Bombay was the main centre of the Rowlatt Satyagraha movement started by Mahatma Gandhi from February — April 1919. The movement was started as a result of the Rowlatt Act, which indefinitely extended emergency measures during World War I in order to control public unrest.[146]
Following World War I, which saw large movement of India troops, supplies, arms and industrial goods to and from Bombay, the city life was shut down many times during the Non-cooperation movement from 1920 to 1922.[147] In 1926, the Back Bay scandal occurred, when the Bombay Development Department under the British reclaimed the Back Bay area in Bombay after the financial crisis incidental to the post-war slump in the city.[148] The first electric locomotives in India were put into service from Victoria Terminus to Kurla in 1925.[149] In the late 1920s, many Persians migrated to Bombay from Yazd to escape the drought in Iran.[150] In the early 1930s, the nationwideCivil disobedience movement against the British Salt tax spread to Bombay. Vile Parle was the headquarters of the movement[151] in Bombay under Jamnalal Bajaj.[152] On 15 October 1932 industrialist and aviator J.R.D. Tata pioneered civil aviation in Bombay by flying a plane fromKarachi to Bombay.[153] Bombay was affected by the Great Depression of 1929, which saw a stagnation of mill industry and economy from 1933 to 1939.[154] With World War II, the movements of thousands of troops, military and industrial goods and the fleet of the Royal Indian Navy made Bombay an important military base for the battles being fought in West Asia and South East Asia.[155] The climatic Quit India rebellion was promulgated on 7 August 1942 by the Congress in a public meeting at Gowalia Tank.[156] The Royal Indian Navy Mutiny of 18 February 1946 in Bombay marked the first and most serious revolt by the Indian sailors of the Royal Indian Navy against British rule.[157] On 15 August 1947, finally India was declared independent. The last British troops to leave India, the First Battalion of the Somerset Light Infantry, passed through the arcade of the Gateway of India in Bombay on 28 February 1948,[158] ending the 282 year long period of the British in Bombay .[159]
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