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Disputing ‘market value’: the Bombay Improvement Trust and the reshaping of a speculative land market in early twentieth-century Bombay

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 July 2020

Shabnum Tejani Open the ORCID record for Shabnum Tejani [Opens in a new window]
Shabnum Tejani*
Affiliation:
Department of History, SOAS University of London, Thornaugh Street, LondonWC1H OXG, UK
*
*Corresponding author. Email: st40@soas.ac.uk
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Abstract

Urban expansion in the early twentieth century had a profound impact on India's urban land economies. Historians argue that in this period, urban India went through an increasing marketization of land and that improvement trusts had a significant hand in accelerating land speculation. In the case of Bombay, we still understand little of the relationship between the activities of the Bombay Improvement Trust and rising land values. The article examines key legal disputes around compensation for land acquired by the Trust for public purpose before and after World War I. Such cases show how the Trust and the judiciary shaped changing expectations around what comprised ‘market value’ and consequently became deeply involved in Bombay's land economy. Where officials had earlier resisted valuations that they believed encouraged speculation, after the 1920s the resolution of disputes incorporated future value as a legitimate and necessary part of the economy.

Type
Research Article
Information
Urban History , Volume 48 , Issue 3 , August 2021 , pp. 572 - 589
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press.

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References

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21 Kidambi, Indian Metropolis, 74–5. In Bombay city, the government of Bombay acquired land on behalf of the Improvement Trust: see F.G. Hartnell Anderson, Manual of Land Acquisition for the Presidency of Bombay (Bombay, 1918), India Office Records (IOR), British Library (BL), 1.

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29 These included three ex-officio trustees; seven elected trustees of whom four were elected by the Municipal Corporation, one by the Bombay Chamber of Commerce, one by the Port Trust of Bombay and one by the Bombay Millowners Association; and three trustees and a chairman nominated by the government of Bombay. See Rao, House, but No Garden, notes to ch. 1, n. 8, 248.

30 Hazareesingh, Colonial City, 31–2, Kidambi, Indian Metropolis, 84–5.

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35 Ibid., submission from Abdul Hoosein Adamji Peerbhoy, 22 Nov. 1913, p. 86.

36 ‘Rents in Bombay’, Times of India, 16 Aug. 1907. This is a point the chairman of the Trust himself attested to: Hazareesingh, Colonial City, 44.

37 NNRBP, Bombay Samachar, 2 Jun. 1903.

38 Ibid., H.P. Mody to the special officer to the Committee for the Development of Bombay, Hill Report, 125–7.

39 Ibid., 127.

40 NNRBP, Bombay Samachar, 21 Aug. 1902.

41 NNRBP, Jam-e-Jamshed, 23 Jan. 1903.

42 Hill Report, submission from Vasantrao Dabholkar, 28 Nov. 1913, 106–8.

43 Ibid. See too Kidambi, Indian Metropolis, 86–7.

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48 Ibid., 132–3.

49 Ibid., 135.

50 Ibid., 135–6.

51 Ibid., 136.

52 On the rental method and other methods of valuing land, see MSA, Public Works Department, file ‘Lands: Bombay’, vol. 333, compilation no. 50 of 1904 (1904–09); Kidambi, Indian Metropolis, 86–7.

53 The hypothetical method is also explained in 10 Bom LR (1908) 907, Appeal from Original Civil, Government of Bombay vs. Merwanji Muncherji Cama. For other disputes on the valuation of land acquired by the Land Acquisition Act 1894 in the first decade of the twentieth century, see Indian Law Reports (ILR) 33 Bom 483 (1909), The Trustees for the Improvement of the City of Bombay, vs. Jalbhoy Ardeshir Sett and Another; ILR 34 Bom 618 (1910), In the matter of the Land Acquisition Act of 1894, Government of Bombay, vs. Esufali Salebhai; ILR 34 Bom 486 (1910) In the matter of Land Acquisition Act. In the matter of Government and Sukhanand Gurumukhrai and Another.

54 9 Bom LR (1907) 1232, In re: Government of Bombay and Merwanji Cama, 1236.

55 Ibid.

56 Ibid., 1237.

57 Rao, House, but No Garden, 35.

58 ILR 29 Bom (1905) 565, Anandrav Vinayak vs. Secretary of State for India in Council and Another.

59 9 Bom LR (1907) 1236.

60 Ibid., 1246.

61 Gupta, Land Acquisition Acts, 138.

62 Ibid., 138–9.

63 Ibid.

64 Historians agree on this point. See Kidambi, Indian Metropolis, 87; and Rao, House, but No Garden, 33.

65 9 Bom LR (1907) 1251.

66 Ibid., 1281.

67 Ibid., 1274

68 Ibid., 1232.

69 The Port Trust, like the Improvement Trust, had the jurisdiction to acquire land for public purpose.

70 10 Bom LR 701 (1907), In re: Dhanjibhoy Bomanji.

71 Ibid., 705.

72 Ibid.

73 Ibid., 706.

74 Rao, House, but No Garden, 32–3.

75 Ibid., 34.

76 10 Bom LR 907 (1908), 908–9.

77 ILR Bom (1909) 325, In re: Land Acquisition Act cause in the matter of 1. Government of Bombay, 2. Karim Tar Mahomed.

78 Ibid.

79 Ibid., 328.

80 Ibid.

81 Ibid.

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89 ‘Rack-renting in Bombay: a protest meeting’, Times of India, 13 Mar. 1918.

90 ‘Housing in Bombay: the people's hardship’, Times of India, 12 Aug. 1919. Bania and Bhatia are caste names for Gujarati merchant, trading or money-lending communities. Marwaris are a trading caste from Rajasthan. Borahs are a Muslim trading community from Gujarat.

91 Ibid.

92 Report of the Rent Enquiry Committee (Bombay, 1939), vol. I, 31.

93 Ibid., Oral Evidence, vol. III, 9–10.

94 Ibid., vol. I, 31.

95 Ibid., 34–8.

96 City of Bombay Improvement Trust, Annual Report for 1921–22, Appendix O-2, Scheme 53, case 1, paras. 6–7, IOR, BL.

97 Ibid.

98 V/24/3481, IOR. The Registration Department's Annual Report indicated that the average values of immovable property in Bombay fell by 54.3 per cent in 1921, a slump which continued into the 1920s.

99 V/24/3482 IOR. Registration Department Annual Report for the Bombay Presidency, 1922.

100 Ibid., 1924.

101 25 Bom LR (1923) 1182, Government of Bombay vs. Merwan Moondigar Aga. There were a number of disputes that debated how to deal with rising land values after the war. See, for instance, 24 Bom LR (1922) 471, Government of Bombay vs. N.H. Moos; 26 Bom LR (1924) 227, Government of Bombay vs. Ismail Ahmed Hafiz Moosa; 28 Bom LR (1925) 714, Land Acquisition Officer, Bandra vs. Gulam Hussein Ahmad Gomajee.

102 Four rupees and four annas. An anna was one sixteenth of a rupee.

103 25 Bom LR (1923) 1183.

104 Ibid., 1186.

105 Ibid., 1187.

106 Ibid., 1188.

107 Ibid., 1189.

108 Ibid.

109 Ibid.

110 ‘Estate market, slump in Bombay and its causes’, Times of India, 21 Jul. 1924.

111 ‘The right to profiteer’, Times of India, 8 Feb. 1923.

112 ‘The land market in Bombay, possibilities of confidence re-appearing’, Times of India, 6 Apr. 1926.

113 Ibid.