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The Perils of Proximity: Rivalries and conflicts in the making of a neighbourhood in Bombay City in the twentieth century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 May 2018

RAJNARAYAN CHANDAVARKAR
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Extract

Rajnarayan Chandavarkar—Fellow of Trinity College and Reader in History at the University of Cambridge—passed away on 23 April 2006. In addition to a rich legacy of books and articles that were published in his lifetime, he left behind an enormous amount of manuscript material, much of which was ready for publication. A selection of this material was published in his posthumous History, Culture and the Indian City (Cambridge University Press, 2009), but new manuscripts continue to come to light. His wife, Jennifer Davis, recently found this essay among his effects. There is good reason to believe that Raj felt it was ready for publication. Therefore, we publish this essay almost exactly as it appears in his typescript, only correcting typos and minor errors, and adding a map. The editors would like to thank David Washbrook and Jennifer Davis for proofing this article, Uttara Shahani and Binney Hare for researching and adapting the map, and Francoise Davis for the photograph of Raj.

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Essay
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Modern Asian Studies , Volume 52 , Issue 2 , March 2018 , pp. 351 - 393
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

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References

1 Referred to variously in this article as ‘Dr Vaidya’, ‘the Vaidya’, ‘Keshavlal Raghunath’, and ‘Keshavlal’.

2 Cowasji Patel Tank Road.

3 Note by V. B. Bhagwat, D.I., Maharbouri Police Station, 9 November 1947, in Special Branch (henceforth, SB), File 309/A of 1947, Home Special Archive, Bombay. Unless otherwise stated, archival references relate to the records collected in this series.

4 Deputy Commissioner of Police, Bombay, Special Branch (Intelligence) (henceforth, SB (I)), CID, to Secretary, Government of Bombay, Home, 14 November 1947.

5 Note by Deputy Inspector of Police, Maharbouri Police Station, 15 July 1947.

6 Statement of Vaidyaraj Keshavlal Raghunath, 9 June 1947.

7 Note by P. R. Rane, lnspector of Police, 30 June 1947.

8 Departmental Note, 5 July 1947.

9 Note by Sub-lnspector of Police, signature illegible, 6 July 1947.

10 Note, signature illegible [A. K. Desai?], 7 July 1947.

11 Statement of Devichand Jethalal, cloth merchant, C. P. Tank Road, no. 75 Gangawala Building, 7 July 1947.

12 Statement of Nanalal Lalji Mehta, hardware merchant, C. P. Tank Road, 7 July 1947.

13 Note by Office of the Additional Director of Civil Supplies, 27 June 1947.

14 Statement of Harishchandra Mahadeo Bhosle, civil supplies watcher, no. 78 Gora Gandhi House, 9 July 1947.

15 I have examined this process in the context of the mill districts of Bombay. See R. Chandavarkar, ‘Workers’ Politics and the Mill Districts of Bombay Between the Wars’, Modern Asian Studies, Special Issue: ‘Power, Profit and Politics: Essays on Imperialism, Nationalism and Change jn Twentieth·Century India’ edited by C. Baker, G. Johnson and A. Seal, Vol. 15, No. 3 (1981), pp. 603–47; and Chandavarkar, R., ‘From Neighbourhood to Nation: the Rise and Fall of the Left in Bombay's Girangaon’ in Adarkar, N. and Menon, M., A Hundred Years. A Hundred Voices: The Millworkers of Girangaon: An Oral History (Calcutta: Seagull Books, 2004), pp. 7–80Google Scholar.

16 Pocock, D., ‘Sociologies: Urban and Rural’, Contributions to Indian Sociology, Vol. IV (1960), pp. 63–81Google Scholar.

17 Rowe, W. D., ‘Caste, Kinship and Association in Urban India’ in Southall, A. (ed.) Urban Anthropology: Cross-Cultural Studies of Urbanization (New York: Oxford University Press, 1973), pp. 211–49Google Scholar.

18 Census of India, 1901 (Bombay, 1901), Vol. XI.

19 Ibid.

20 Gazetteer of Bombay City and Island, 3 vols (Bombay, 1909), Vol. II, p. 253.

21 The pattern of violence during the riots of 1946–47 in Bombay are discerned from the daily reports of the city police in SB (I), Files 21/K, File A/154 of 1947, and File 154/A/1 of 1946–47 (which deals with statistics of prosecutions); and in Government of India [GOI], Home (Poll), Files 539/46-Poll (I), Vols 1–V; Files 5/50/46-Poll (I); Files 5/3/47-Poll (I). National Archives of India (henceforth, NAI), New Delhi. There is a growing literature on the riots of 1946–47 in India. See Pandey, G., Remembering Partition: Violence, Nationalism and History in India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, especially Chapters 5 and 6; Das, S., Communal Riots in Bengal, 1905–1947 (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1993)Google Scholar, especially Chapter 6; Jan Copland, ‘The Further Shores of Partition: Ethnic Cleansing in Rajasthan 1947’, Past and Present, No. l60 (1998), pp. 203–39; Butalia, U., The Other Side of Silence: Voices from the Partition of India (Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 2000)Google Scholar; Menon, R. and Bhasin, K., Borders and Boundaries: Women in India's Partition (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1998)Google Scholar; Menon, R and Bhasin, K., ‘Recovery, Rupture and Resistance: Indian State and Abduction of Women During Partition’, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 28, No. 17 (24 April 1993), pp. 2–11Google Scholar ; Sarkar, S., ‘Popular Movements and National Leadership, 1945–47’, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 17, No. 14-15-16 (1982)Google Scholar.

22 Burnell, J., Bombay in the Pays of Queen Anne: Being an Account of the Settlement. Edited by Sheppard, S. T. (London: The Hakluyt Society, 1933), p. 20Google Scholar.

23 See Chandavarkar, R., The Origins of Industrial Capitalism in India: Business Strategies and the Working Classes in Bombay, 1900–1950 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Chapter 2; Dossal, M., Imperial Designs and Indian Realities: The Planning of Bombay City, 1845–1875 (Bombay: Oxford University Press, 1991)Google Scholar.

24 Maclean, J. M., Maclean's Guide to Bombay (Bombay: Bombay Gazette Steam Press, 1875), p. 197Google Scholar.

25 Edwardes, S. M., The Rise of Bombay—A Retrospect (Bombay: Times of India Press, 1902), p. 295Google Scholar.

26 Proceedings of the Committee on the Future Extension of the City of Bombay, 1887, Appendix, Evidence, Mr D. Gostling, p. 2, in Government of Bombay (henceforth, GOB), Public Works Department (General) Vol. 1162, Compilation no. 4133 W, 1888–89. Maharashtra State Archives (henceforth, MSA).

27 On the plague epidemic in Bombay, see Chandavarkar, R., Imperial Power and Popular Politics: Class, Resistance and the State in India, 1850–1950 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998)Google Scholar, Chapter 7; Arnold, D., ‘Touching the Body: Perspectives on the Indian Plague, 1896–1900’ in Guha, R. (ed.) Subaltern Studies, Vol. V: Writings on South Asian History and Society (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1995), pp. 55–90Google Scholar; Catanach, I., ‘Plague and the Tensions of Empire, 1896–1918’ in Arnold, D. (ed.) Imperial Medicine and lndigenous Societies (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1988), pp. 149–71Google Scholar; Klein, I., ‘Plague, Policy and Popular Unrest’, Modem Asian Studies, Vol. 22, No. 4 (1988), pp. 723–55CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; and Klein, I., ‘Urban Development and Death: Bombay City, 1870– 1914’, Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 20, No. 4 (1986), pp. 725–54CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

28 Report of the Bombay Development Committee 1909 (Bombay, 1914), p. 1. Annual Report of the City of Bombay Improvement Trust 1907–08 (Bombay, 1908), Appendix A, pp. xix–xxxiv.

29 Labour Gazette, Vol. IV, No. 7 (1925), pp. 745–47.

30 See Chandavarkar, The Origins of Industrial Capitalism, Chapter 5; and Chanda-varkar, ‘From Neighbourhood to Nation’.

31 Census of India, 1921 (Bombay, 1922), Vol. IX, part 1, p. l6.

32 A more detailed analysis of patterns of migration is offered in Chandavarkar, The Origins of Industrial Capitalism, Chapter 4.

33 Some women who came to the city to escape the shackles of the family are an exception to this rule. See Sen, Samita, Women and Labour in Late Colonial India: The Bengal Jute Industry (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999)Google Scholar.

34 Chandavarkar, The Origins of Industrial Capitalism, Chapters 4 and 5.

35 See, for instance, Burnett Hurst, A. R., Labour and Housing: A Study in the Economic Conditions of the Wage-earning Classes of Bombay (London: P. S. King, 1925), pp. 84, 90Google Scholar, on the cohesiveness found among building workers and dock workers who were casually employed; see also Rowe, ‘Caste, Kinship and Association’.

36 Burnett Hurst, Labour and Housing, p. 98.

37 Census, 1931 (Delhi, 1933), Vol. IX, part 1, pp. 88–89.

38 Gazetteer of Bombay City and Island, 3 vols (Bombay, 1909), Vol. I, p. 199.

39 Petition to Commissioner of Police, Bombay, by Naromdas Karshandas and others, 27 June 1947.

40 Indian Textile Journal, Vol. XXIX (August 1919), p. 209.

41 Statement of Deputy Inspector of Police, Maharbouri Police Station, 15 July 1947.

42 Note by Inspector of Police, Dadar Police Station, 19 July 1947.

43 Burnett Hurst, Labour and Housing, p. 49.

44 Proceedings of the Bombay Riots Inquiry Committee (henceforth, BRIC), Oral evidence, G. L. Kandalkar and V. H. Joshi, File 7, p. 71. MSA.

45 Adarkar and Menon, A Hundred Years. A Hundred Voices, p. 294.

46 Proceedings of the BRIC, J 929, Oral evidence, Balubhai T. Desai, File 8, pp. 29–31. MSA.

47 ‘Rao Bahadur’ was a title bestowed by the British on worthy and supposedly influential subjects. Makanlal may not have been identifiable by that name alone.

48 On Borkar, see Chandavarkar, Origins of Industrial Capitalism in India, pp. 204–11.

49 GOB, Home (Special), File 265 of 1928. MSA.

50 Note by Inspector of Police, Dadar Police Station, 19 July 1947.

51 Note by Office of the Additional Director of Civil Supplies, 27 June 1947.

52 This argument is elaborated in greater detail in Chandavarkar, Imperial Power and Popular Politics, Chapter 6.

53 Note by Inspector of Police, Dadar Police Station, 19 July 1947.

54 On the colonial state's management of the economy during the Second World War, see Baker, C. J., An Indian Rural Economy, 1880–1955: The Tamilnad Countryside (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984)Google Scholar, Chapter 6; Baker, C. J., ‘Colonial Rule and the Internal Economy in Twentieth-Century Madras’, Modem Asian Studies, Vol. 15, No. 3 (1981), pp. 575– 602CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Tomlinson, B. R., The Political Economy of the Raj: The Economics of Decolonization in India (London: Palgrave, 1979)Google Scholar; Kamtekar, I., ‘A Different War Dance: State and Class in India, 1939–1945’, Past and Present, No. 176 (August 2002), pp. 187–221CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bayly, C. A., ‘“The Nation Within”: British India at War 1939–1947’, Proceedings of the British Academy, Vol. 125, 2003Google Scholar.

55 Statement of Devichand Jethalal, cloth merchant, C. P. Tank, 7 July 1947.

56 GOI, Home Political (Internal) Files 5/21146-Poll (I); 21/8/46-Poll (I); 2112/46-Poll (I); 21/10/46-Poll (I). Subrata Banerjee, NAI., The RIN Strike (February 1946) (New Delhi: People's Publishing House, 1954)Google Scholar; Deshpande, A., ‘Sailors and the Crowd: Popular Protest in Karachi, 1946’, Indian Economic and Social History Review, Vol. 26, No. 1 (1989), pp. 1–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

57 See especially GOI, Home (Poll), File 5/39/46-Poll (I), Vol. I–IV. NAI.

58 For instance, see Annual Report on the Police in the City of Bombay, 1922 (Bombay, 1923), p. 17; GOB, Home (Special), File 543 (10) E Part G of 1929; and Proceedings of the BRIC, 1929, P. A. Kelly, Commissioner of Police, Bombay, File 18, p. 207. MSA.

59 Petition to Commissioner of Police, Bombay, by Naronamdas Karshandas and others, 27 July 1947.

60 R. R. Kantawala, advocate, to Home Member, Bombay, 4 August 1947.

61 Statement of Nanalal Lalji Mehta, hardware merchant, C. P. Tank Road, 7 July 1947.

62 Petition to Commissioner of Police, Bombay, by Naronamdas Karshandas and others, 27 July 1947.

63 Rakhapchand Kanhayyalal Indori to Commissioner of Police, Bombay, 29 July 1947.

64 Homi Jamshed Kermani to Commissioner of Police, Bombay, 29 July 1947.

65 Rajaram Ramdhan to Commissioner of Police, Bombay, 29 July 1947.

66 H. M. Bhosle, watcher, Civil Supplies, to Additional Director, Civil Supplies (Enforcement), Bombay, 27 June 1947.

67 Mangalgauri Narandas Vyas and Sharada Laxmi Mehta to Home Member, Government of Bombay, 21 June 1947.

68 Note by Inspector P. R. Rane, 30 June 1947.

69 Statement of Sub-inspector V. G. Sahasrabudhe, Maharbouri Police Station, 10 July 1947; idem, 14 July 1947.

70 ‘Ghati’ was a derogatory term for people who live in the Deccan, especially its mountainous districts. It was taken to signify a manual labourer and often also implied ignorance and stupidity.

71 ‘I am a man [agent] of the police.’

72 Statement of Sub-inspector V. G. Sahasrabudhe, Maharbouri Police Station, 10 July 1947.

73 Ibid., 11 July 1947.

74 Statement of Mangalgauri, wife of Narayan Vyas, Sonawala Building, C. P. Tank Road, 15 July l947.

75 Statement of Sharada, wife of Baboobhai Mehta, 3111 floor, Sonawala Building, C. P. Tank Road, 15 July 1947.

76 Certainly, Sharada's husband, Baboobhai Mehta, was in fact a hardware dealer in neighbouring Gulalwadi. Mangalgauri's husband, Narayan Vyas, may indeed have lodged a complaint against the Vaidya a few months earlier at Maharbouri Police Station.

77 Note by R. S. Rane, Sub-inspector of Police, G Branch, SB (I), C. I. D., 11 July 1953, in S. B. File 100/A of 1953.

78 Gulabchand Poonamchand to Inspector, Maharbouri Police Station, 4 April 1953.

79 ‘A Citizen of Kamathipura’ to Commissioner of Police, Bombay, 18 March 1953.

80 Mohammed Azam to Inspector of Police, Nagpada Police Station, 20 July 1953.

81 Vishnu Narayan Vengurlekar vs Krishna Gosavi and Kashinath Gandhi.

82 Harishchandra Yeshwantrao to Commissioner of Police, Bombay, 3 August 1953.

83 Note by Superintendent of Police, SB (1), 13 June 1953.

84 Note by Inspector of Police, G Branch, SB (1), 1 June 1953.

85 Commissioner of Police, Bombay, to Secretary, GOB, Home, check Imperial Power, p. 161, fn. 55.

86 E. C. Cox, Police and Crime in India (London: S. Paul & Co., 1910), p. 205.

87 GOB, Home (Special), File 543 (10) E Part G of 1929. MSA. On the use of this strategy, and its effects during the communal riots of February 1929 in Bombay, see Chandavarkar, Imperial Power and Popular Politics, pp. 162–63.

88 For cases in which solidarities were forged within the arena of the neighbourhood, see Chandavarkar, ‘Workers’ Politics and the Mill Districts of Bombay’, and Chandavarkar, ‘From Neighbourhood to Nation’.

89 For a restatement of this distinction, see Chatterjeee, Partha, The Politics of the Governed: Reflections on Popular Politics in Most of the World (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004)Google Scholar.

90 See R. Chandavarkar, ‘Customs of Governance: Colonialism and Democracy in Twentieth Century India’, Unpublished paper, presented at the School of International and Advanced Studies, Johns Hopkins University, Washington DC, October 2004.