Following
the first war of Independence in 1857, the East India Company was accused of
mismanagement, and Bombay reverted to the British crown. With the outbreak of
the American Civil War in 1861, and the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, exports,
specially cotton, from Bombay became a major part of the colonial economy.
The Great Indian Peninsular Railway facilitated travel within India. This network
of commerce and communication led to an accumulation of wealth. This was channelled
into building an Imperial Bombay by a succession of Governors. Many of Bombay's
famous landmarks, the Flora Fountain and the Victoria Terminus, date from this
time.
The water works, including the Hanging Gardens and the lakes were also built
at this time. The Bombay Municipal Corporation was founded in 1872. However,
this facade of a progressive and well-governed city was belied by the plague
epidemics of the 1890s. This dichotomy between the city's symbols of power and
prosperity and the living conditions of the people who make it so continues
even today.
The
construction of Imperial Bombay continued well into the 20th century. Landmarks
from this period are the Gateway of India, the General Post Office, the Town
Hall (now the Asiatic Library) and the Prince of Wales Museum. Bombay expanded
northwards into the first suburbs, before spreading its nightmare tentacles
into the the northern suburbs. The nearly 2000 acres reclaimed by the Port Trust
depressed the property market for a while, but the Backbay reclamation scandal
of the '20s was a testament to the greed for land.
The freedom movement reached a high pitch of activity against this background
of developing Indian wealth. Gandhi returned from South Africa and reached Bombay
on January 12, 1915.
Following many campaigns in the succeeding years, the end of the British imperial
rule in India was clearly presaged by the Quit India declaration by the Indian
National Congress on August 8, 1942, in Gowalia Tank Maidan, near Kemp's Corner.
India became a free country on August 15, 1947. In the meanwhile, Greater Bombay
had come into existence through an Act of the British parliament in 1945.
