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Princely urbanism and the colonial city: Bombay, c. 1860–1940s

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 December 2022

Kate Boehme Open the ORCID record for Kate Boehme [Opens in a new window]
Kate Boehme*
Affiliation:
School of History, Classics, and Archaeology, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK
*
*Corresponding author. Email: kate.boehme@ed.ac.uk
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Abstract

To this point, nineteenth-century Bombay – including its urban development, economy and population – has most often been analysed in relation to the city's position within British imperial, and overseas maritime, networks. In contrast, this article calls into question established scholarly definitions of ‘colonial’ and ‘princely’ spaces in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century India, through an in-depth examination of Bombay's socio-economic ties with wider Indian networks. It focuses on connections that stretched across colonial borders and into the princely states, suggesting that both the city's economy and its business elite were rooted in cross-border Indian capital networks. It further highlights the contributions of Indian princes, their states and populations to the development of urban culture in Bombay.

Type
Research Article
Information
Urban History , Volume 51 , Issue 1 , February 2024 , pp. 108 - 124
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Copyright
© The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press

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