History Of Mumbai City

After the death of Asoka, Bombay had been taken over by various Hindu rulers until 1343. Mohammedans from Gujarat took the possession in the same year and ruled for nearly two centuries. Then came the Portuguese in1534 and kept the name ‘Bom Baia’. Portuguese built many buildings, churches and forts at Sion, Mahim, Bandra, and Bassien.

The English East India Company took Mumbai on lease from the crown for an annual sum of 10 pounds in gold in the year 1668. They shifted their headquarter from Surat to Mumbai in 1687. They corrupted the Portuguese name ‘Bom Baia’ to ‘Bombay’. Kolis, the original fisher-folk inhabitants of Mumbai used to call ‘Mumba’ after Mumbadevi, the Hindu goddess.

When Mr. Gerald Aungier became the governor of Bombay, he made the city more populous by attracting Gujarati traders, Parsi ship-builders, and Muslim and Hindu manufacturers from the mainland. Sir Robert Grant (1779-1838) governor of Bombay from 1835 to 1838 constructed a number of roads between Bombay and the hinterland.

The first railway line of India between Victoria Terminus and Thana was inaugurated on 16th April 1853. The Great Indian Peninsular (GIP) and the Bombay Baroda and Central India (BB&CI) Railway were started in 1860 and a regular service of steamers on the west coast was commenced in 1869. After the Sepoy Mutiny or the First War of Independence, the East India Company was accused of mismanagement and the islands of Bombay were reverted to the British Crown.

Many buildings such as the Victoria Terminus, the General Post Office, Municipal Corporation, the Prince of Wales Museum, Rajabai Tower and Bombay University, Elphinstone College and the Cawasji Jehangir Hall, the Crawford Market, the Old Secretariat (Old Customs House) and the Public Works Department (PWD) Building were constructed in the later half of the 19th century. The Gateway of India was built to commemorate the visit of king George V and Queen Mary for the Darbar at Delhi in 1911.

Historic All India Congress Committee session was started on 7th of August 1942 at Gowala Tank Maidan. Mahatma Gandhi gave ‘Quit India’ call at this session. British arrested the Indian leaders soon afterwards but the momentum of the Quit India movement could not be stopped and led to the final withdrawal of the British on 15 August 1947.

After independence, the state of Bombay was split into Maharashtra and Gujarat states in 1960 on linguistic basis, while the former retaining Bombay city as its capital. The Congress party continued to rule Maharashtra until 1994 when the Shiv Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) replaced it. Later Bombay retained its original name Mumbai.