by datta Nighut 
1. Introduction to Mumbai
Mumbai famous the capital city of the state of Maharashtra, is located in the western peninsular region of India. The city is the largest in the country and is also known as the financial and business capital of the country. Mumbai occupies a total area of 437.8 square kilometers and has an estimated population of approximately 18.4 million people.
This makes it the most populous city in India and one of the 20 most densely populated cities in the world. Because of its unique culture, which has evolved through the centuries, Mumbai has been able to appeal to and attract both domestic and international travelers.
In addition to its rich history, a strong infrastructure, world-class hospitality and tourism services, and the presence of the Hindi film industry, which is popularly known as Bollywood, have been instrumental in attracting visitors.
Among Mumbai’s most well-known places associated with Hindu and Maratha heritage are the iconic Gateway of India, the world-famous Elephanta Caves, the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya Museum, and the Prince of Wales Museum. Consequently, Mumbai has always been known for its rich history, heritage, culture, diversified religions and festivals, world-class arts and crafts, and exclusive cuisine.
It is truly a melting pot of people from all walks of life, cultures, communities, and religions that have together made Mumbai a vibrant and exciting destination for the discerning traveler.
2. Historical Evolution of Mumbai
The group of seven islands constituting Mumbai were ruled by several dynasties before the Portuguese fortified and adopted the islands and initiated commercial and mercantile activities on a large scale.
By the Queen’s Charter of 1661, the islands were given as dowry to Charles II of England on his marriage to Catherine of Braganza, at a nominal annual rent of ten pounds. The British achieved complete supremacy on the islands when they were handed over to England as part of the marriage treaty of Charles II. The English Crown took a second loan under the guaranteed form from the East India Company in 1718 and paid off the debt to the Portuguese.
The ownership of Bombay Island was transferred to the East India Company by the Crown of England for a sum of ten pounds in 1668. When the East India Company secured British supremacy, they were not interested in making large investments in developing the infrastructure of the city and consequently, they used the local population for trade operations since they had an established organization and skill in commerce.
A system of ‘Farming Out’ the operations of the city was introduced by the Bombay Presidency. Under this system, the island was subleased to local merchants by tender notice for a period of five years. A successful tannery merchant, William Hornby, a Bombay member of the East India Company, was appointed the first governor of the Presidency town of Bombay in 1771, and thus the experiment of ‘Farming Out’ Bombay to merchants ended.
With an extension in the lease tenure of the island and with the appointment of William Hornby as governor of the city, the company pursued an ambitious plan of infrastructural development within the Presidency town of Bombay, such as roads, docks, irrigation, an orphanage, a hospital, and the other facilities such a city required.
2.1. Colonial Period
Mumbai began its urban life with the British factory, which in turn caused urban developments outside the confines of the British fort. The fort had brought in traders, administrators, and soldiers from Britain and a sprinkling of other Europeans from India and abroad. Global trade and political favor created a commercial-service economy that thrived.
The dockyard, the mint, and the cotton mills fed the British government, which also needed food, horses, and war material from Asia. The first slivers on the surface were the chawls, verandahs, cast-iron tools, and cooking vessels that catered to this British economy. The second, deeper layer was the Indian merchant rolling in rupees and surrounded by the cheaper laborers who brought him comfort – the stick, water, shoe polish, and white office attendants, the double bed, figs, Devonshire butter, the postage, round-table marriage, and imported furniture at home.
The third layer was created by the upturns and downturns of the British economy, which swallowed up the men on top or felled their enterprises. Protocols kept the merchant from stepping past the peons and bearers and asking for money from the moneylender-pawnbroker. But money becomes dear, and need compels. In time, the underlayer of laborers and orphans, boot polish and roasted groundnut boys, dressed to match those above, embarked on their annual pilgrimage, their foreheads and moods lowered, to the moneylender or the pawnshop.
The fourth layer has still been too close, too contemptible to be looked at. Said who has been under them and above them – the beggar, the refuse-dump scavenger, the substandard mortgaged and hawked or bound heirless till the king comforted only with dregs of shoes, clothes, rubber, bone, and brass.
2.2. Post-Independence Era
The socio-cultural changes that British rule brought during the colonial era included both negative aspects such as urban and rural poverty, lack of education, racial discrimination, and child labor, as well as positive aspects such as urbanization, secularism, government-aided education, industrial growth, and many cultural advancements due to social movements against the rulers.
These events marked the chaos of an era culminating in independence from colonialism. Post-war poverty, unemployment, and illiteracy were vital problems during the transition, compounded by a lack of resources and a plethora of political, social, and cultural issues.
The situation in cities like Bombay resembled a city built in a week after the destruction of the war. The combination of economic growth and decline that prevailed in continuous waves during the first half of the post-independent era was a situation accidentally generated by the urban elites of that period.
The young population was shattered by these turning points and faced genuine fears and uncertainty about their future in every aspect of their lives at home, workplaces, and inheritance, unlike the older generation. As a result of these prospects, the probability and necessity of post-war freedom led the hands and minds of the recently employed and organized young people to refuse to accept the decrees delivered by their elders.
The original group of educated and skilled young individuals was not solely engaged in demonstrating, demanding, and enacting economic or social reforms, but also reinforced these movements to the verge of political and social revolutions. The success of these revolutionary movements proved that communities had the capacity to make good use of their power.
This was a crucial break in the continuity of heritage between the pre-war and post-war generations, as the dynamics survived as functions of change that kept post-war cultures as something other than a temporary meeting place and battlefield.
Since the economic processes of the post-war periods resulted from decisions aimed at achieving specific objectives formulated by analysts seeking to reduce class struggle, mediated by urbanization, they did not reward efforts to alleviate and decrease the inherited social and economic chaos. This chaos, resulting in various pandemics in recent years, posed barriers to youth that the revolutionary movements sought to overcome.
3. Economic Importance of Mumbai
Mumbai has been at the forefront of India’s economic transformation. The city has witnessed rapid economic growth and has been one of the protagonists in India’s first decade of economic liberalization. From a prime port city, it has emerged as India’s leading industrial and commercial center. At present, Mumbai is the commercial and financial capital of India. Most large Indian multinational companies have their headquarters in the city, and it is home to India’s main stock exchange.
The history of three hundred years of British rule in Mumbai has close and long-term ties with the city’s economic importance. Even today, the city is a pivotal link in India’s interaction with the developed world.
India attracts a substantial amount of expatriate Indian and foreign investment, and Mumbai is the preferred entry and exit point for many of these investments. Also, the majority of foreign banks wishing to do business in India have made it their home because of the expected high growth in the service sector post-liberalization. Firms in the city are linked to and work with foreign capital, and the city also imports and reexports machinery and other industrial products.
With Bangalore as the software capital and Mumbai as the finance and communication capital, most economic transactions first touch Mumbai, generating substantial service revenues. The total turnover of India’s major stock exchange exceeds the combined turnover of all the other Indian stock exchanges.
3.1. Financial Hub
Sitting right at the top of the Himalayan ecosystem, the city is the financial hub of Mumbai, a city that blinks its lights 24 hours a day, much like the commercial nation of India. It is significant to realize that Mumbai has long been an important financial center.
In the 18th century, Bombay, the English name for the city of Mumbai, was considered India’s leading city, growing in strength in commercial pursuits. Early links with merchants trading in India and large capital consignments into trade bear testimony to Bombay’s early financial importance. Concentration on shipping and trade continued throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, with financial activities focused on a growing service sector.
The main trading exchanges for commodities, metals, spices, drugs, opium, and slaves were the Warehousing Fort, from 1843 at Cotton Green, and from 1875 at Sassoon Buildings. Textile trading also took place in the five main cotton exchanges operating in the Merchants Building at Cotton Green, starting in the latter part of the 19th century.
The merchants in Bombay followed the same trading patterns as their counterparts in London. Specialist exchanges were set up to trade in specific areas, and both buyers and sellers met regularly in a formal location to seal their trading contracts. In order to facilitate financial dealings, drawing on their Indian connections, financial intermediaries began to open agencies in Bombay by the late 19th century. Over time, two banking houses working out of London established themselves in Bombay.
By 1856, the Chartered Bank of India, Australia, and China set up in Bombay, followed by the Bank of Bombay in 1840, which amalgamated with the Bank of Bombay and Calcutta in 1921. These banks offered merchant banking services, like the finance houses operating in London at the time, and were able to build extensive local networks, enabling them to establish foreign connections and fund transactions with the trading and manufacturing operations that were by now well established in the city and the surrounding Indian countryside.
3.2. Industrial Sector
The city of Mumbai has achieved substantial industrial importance as a result of large investments in the industrial and services sectors. The city is the financial hub of India and ranks fourth in terms of average monopoly and the country’s principal economic current affairs, providing national benefit for the planting and banking industries of India.
A large share of India’s foreign trade is also carried out through the city, which adds to India’s income in terms of business time. A large dedicated airport at the south of the city adds to the city’s industrial base by enhancing business time.
The city has a large financial structure, which consists of nine nationalized banking institutions held by the Reserve Bank of India, apart from private and other nationalized financial institutions, including bond markets. Furthermore, there are large homegrown financial institutions, including one of the largest private owned issuer funds out of India.
There are also three nationally significant financial hubs comprising major global cities, with government restrictions on commodity-related transactions in the insurance sector. This has helped to expand through trading, information, technology, and leadership services. The city’s industrial hub encompasses a large and important role in India’s economy, making property possible in the manufacturing, finance, banking, international trade, real estate, marketing, entertainment, advertising, and mass media sectors. These activities are responsible for a significant part of India’s business and employment.
4. What is unique about Mumbai?
Mumbai is India’s most modern and cosmopolitan city, as well as the capital of the federal state to which it belongs. It is the country’s largest urban center with almost 15 million inhabitants and an extraordinarily low density of only 21,150 persons per km². However, the city accommodates around 83% of the total population of the Mumbai metropolitan area.
Why is Mumbai the richest city?
Its economic importance is disproportionately large, at the national as well as at the state level. Mumbai is India’s largest city, and it is certainly unique in many ways. It is the most modern city in India and the capital of Maharashtra.
It is the largest place in the country, with a population of 12,691,836. The city is an outsourcing center for multinational corporations and also has the highest GDP of any city in Central, West, or South Asia. Mumbai is thus the richest city in India. It is the entertainment capital of India, a coastal city on the west coast, and a city that runs 24 hours a day.
Interesting Facts about Mumbai, India
Mumbai is the most populous city in India and the fourth-most populous city in the world, with a total metropolitan area population of approximately 20.5 million. Along with the neighboring suburbs, the Mumbai urban area, which includes the cities of Navi Mumbai and Thane, has a population estimated to be approximately 22.5 million.
The city has an estimated population of approximately 14 million. Mumbai is the most populous Indian city. Mumbai is only one of the four cities in the world that has an extensive forest located within its city limits. Mumbai is a melting pot of varied cultures and yet offers a huge sense of belonging to the city and the people around.
It’s a place where exploration of city life and exploration of personal potential are two sides of the same coin. One of the intriguing facts about Mumbai, and something that adds a feather to its transportation cap, is the fact that the Mumbai Suburban Railway is the busiest railway system in the world. Also, the first train in India ran from Mumbai to Thane.
In addition to a great railway network, the Mumbai transport service also has a wide network of buses and taxis, running within the city and outside. The first thing that comes to the mind of any person who wants to pursue a career in Bollywood is that they will have to shift to Mumbai. Mumbai is like a magical place in the minds of people.
It’s a place where people come to clutch their dreams, where they dress themselves. It’s a place where they create their own future and hence a future of the city itself. Bollywood is a source of life and glamour for the people who live here.
Its history is so rich and deep-rooted that people can come and touch the walls of time. Hence, it brings rich revenue to the government and people involved in it. Bollywood is the largest film producer in India and one of the largest centers of film production in the world.
5. Conclusion and Future Prospects
For Mumbai to maintain its commanding position as a South Asian hub, local, regional, and national leaders will need to come together and create a roadmap for the next 50 years. Policymakers should focus not only on intensifying its links with South Asia and the world but also on preserving and promoting the assets that have made it South Asia’s commanding city and that will increasingly provide the foundations of its economic activity.
These include the natural advantages of being India’s most cosmopolitan city with significant business services skills and thriving cultural and tourist facilities. Decisions in the coming decade will be pivotal. Historically, cities that were significant maritime trading centers struggled to regain that position when these routes lost their significance.
A period of neglect can lead to a loss of competitiveness. And while there are other South Asian rivals who are hoping to challenge Mumbai’s lead, the opportunity for Mumbai to direct economic and social improvements in South Asia will remain if the city is able to bestow its benefits on a diverse group of people living on these lands.
