The corporate hand in making Mumbai, then and now

Mumbai would not have become the city it did if it was not for the generous contributions by the men and women of wealth in its early days

- SMRUTI KOPPIKAR

In the week that Mumbai's newest transport line, the long-awaited Metro 3 Aqua Line, opened for commuters, the city mourned its quiet corporate icon, Sir Ratan N Tata. Where do the lines meet, you may wonder. Read on.

Cities are built, in the physical and socio-cultural realms, not only by policy decisions of governments and relentless labour of its large working classes, but equally by people who have enormous wealth as well as compassion or vision. Mumbai, or Bombay, would not have become the city it did — the Urbs Prima in India — if it was not for the generous contributions by the men and women of wealth in its early days.

Whether their contribution was pure charity, out of compassion for fellow natives, or was motivated by business interests is open to debate, but they lent a hand. Besides charity to their own religious and community organisations, Mumbai's millionaires of yore directed some of their windfall profits from trade in opium-cloth-spices to building institutions in education and health, part-financed the new university, set up libraries and shelters and drinking water fountains, besides contributing to infrastructure.

The Mahim Causeway story deserves a re-telling. Stirred by the series of storms in 1840-41 that hit the bay between Mahim and Bandra, which could only be crossed by boat, and led to loss of lives in alarming numbers, Lady Avabai Jeejeebhoy donated Rs 1.6 lakh (nearly £17,000 then) for a causeway to be built — used to this day. Wife of the merchant Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy, their donations gave Bombay a number of institutions including the famed Sir J.J Hospital and Sir J.J School of Art.