Saturday, June 27, 2026

Once upon a time, when Bombay was dismissed as a swamp that wasn't worth building on

 


People & Culture

Once upon a time, when Bombay was dismissed as a swamp that wasn't worth building on

An ongoing exhibit at the DAG illustrates how a scattered archipelago was slowly engineered into a thriving port city
Image may contain Art Painting Nature Outdoors Sea Water Shoreline Beach Coast Person Landscape Plant and Tree bombay framedA watercolour-tinted chromolithograph from 1860 titled, Vue De Bombay / Vista de Bombay by Isidore Laurent Deroy DAG

In 1661, when the Portuguese transferred Bombay to the British as part of Catherine of Braganza’s dowry for her marriage to Charles II,



it arrived more as a problem than a prize. What the British inherited was not a clearly defined territory, but a loose archipelago of islands—mudflats, marshes and tidal creeks shifting every few hours with the tides and seasons brought in by the Arabian Sea, claimed in parts by different rulers and understood differently (depending on who you asked). Even the word “Bombay” was unstable, sometimes referring to a single island, sometimes to the entire cluster. And at ground level, it was far from promising. The islands were sparsely populated, their edges thick with mangroves and salt marshes, their interiors prone to flooding. Fresh water was scarce, disease was common, and the sea, which seemed to promise connection, also made everything harder—food had to be brought in, defence was costly, and settlement was slow. Early East India Company officials were blunt in their assessment: Bombay was expensive to maintain and of little real value. And yet, they held on to it.

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