Mani Bhavan Gandhi Sangrahalaya

Mani Bhavan Gandhi Sangrahalaya

“Mani Bhavan in Mumbai will ever remain a precious memory to all those who visited it on many on occasion when Gandhiji used to stay there.  I am glad therefore that it is being converted into a Gandhi memorial.” – Jawaharlal Nehru

December 28, 1931, a frustrated Gandhi returned to Mumbai after attending a Round Table Conference with the British in London.  Having discussed the discouraging situation with the Congress Working Committee, he decided to launch the Civil Disobedience Movement for Swaraj or self-rule.  The time was midnight and it was the last day of year 1931.  Early morning of January 4, 1932, Gandhiji was in his tent on the terrace of Mani Bhavan when he was arrested and jailed…

Mani Bhavan has witnessed plenty of history in the making.  It was the place from where Gandhiji launched Satyagraha (the policy of non-violent resistance) against the Rowlatt Act in 1919, and the place he undertook a historic fast in 1921 to restore peace in Mumbai after disturbances broke out in wake of the Prince of Wales’ visit.  In 1930, it was from Mani Bhavan that he gave a call to the country to observe January 26 as Independence Day and to solemnly pledge to win Independence through self-sacrifice and self-suffering.

Mani Bhavan was also the place where Gandhiji learnt spinning and carding from a carder who passed by everyday.  On Kasturba’s suggestion, it was here he first took goat’s milk for his deteriorating health… Mani Bhavan was where Gandhiji lived, exchanged news and views with his colleagues, inspired his followers and won over the nation to his cherished ideals of Non-Violence and Truth.  In its sparely unadorned rooms, in his everyday belongings preserved here, it seems as if you can invoke the spirit of Gandhiji even today…

MUMBAI history

When Mumbai was still Bombay, it was a cluster of seven Koli islands. Muslim ruler Sultan Muhamed Begada captured the by Hindu inhabited islands.

The Portuguese Occupation of Mumbai

The Portuguese Vasco da Gama found the sea route to Bombay, and several attacks followed. In 1534 the Sultan of Gujarat gave in and handed the islands over to the Portuguese, but the islands turned out not to be of any use to them. When King Charles II married the Portuguese princess Catherine Braganza, the Portuguese decided to give the islands to him in 1661.

Charles II took over the remaining islands a couple years later. The East India Company saw the potential of Bombay as trading port because of its strategic location, and took over the island.

Over the years Bombay became one of the biggest industrial cities in the world, with Gerard Aungier as the "Father of Bombay." He was the one who persuaded businessmen from all over India to come and settle in this central city and so it developed into a great commercial centre.

Why Bombay Changed into Mumbai

England ruled over Bombay until 1947, when India became independent.

In 1960 Bombay State became Maharashtra, with Bombay as its capitol. It took until 1995 before the name Bombay changed into Mumbai. When Shiv Sena, a Hindu nationalist party, won the elections, they decided to give the city a different name. Since the name Bombay was given to the city by King Charles II, the Shiv Sena party thought this was too English. The party changed the name into Mumbai, based on the name of the Hindu goddess Mumbadevi.

Industry in Maharashtra

Maharashtra is a highly industrialized state. In fact, Mumbai, it’s State capital, is also considered the industrial and financial capital of India.

The development of a State requires infrastructure. From this point of view, many important factors continue to contribute to the industrial development in Maharashtra such as the availability of water, electricity, roads, modern transport and communication facilities.

Mumbai being an international port, rise of various industrial development corporations as well as financial institutions and the industrial cities of Mumbai, Pune, Thane, Aurangabad, Nashik and Nagpur are pillars of development in the State.

According to the Economic Survey of Maharashtra 2008-09, as many as 14,975 industries have been registered in the period from August 1991 to December 2008, with a total investment of Rs. 5,04,689. 

Concerning the total industrial investment in the country,

Maharashtra makes a 10% contribution, while in case of employment generation the State’s contribution is 15%. 

Maharashtra has a 23% share in the total industrial production in the country.

Types of Industries in Maharashtra:

Agro based Industries	Textiles, Sugar, Oil mills, Tobacco processing, Gram mills, Wineries, Rubber
Mineral wealth based Industries	Iron and Steel, Cement, Mineral oil curing, engineering
Forest produce based industries	Log mills, Paper mills, Match box, Pharmaceuticals, Toys, Sports goods, Furniture
Animal products based Industries	Leather goods, woollen clothes, silk, textiles, milk products

Along with these, construction, tourism, service sector, vehicles, publishing, printing, information technology and entertainment industries are also growing significantly.

Samyukta Maharashtra Movement ,,,,,and Today

The heart of what was then Bombay city was bathed in blood in January 1956. The Bombay police were ordered to fire on peaceful demonstrators who were on the streets to demand a linguistic state for the Marathi speaking people, with Bombay as its capital. 

The government in New Delhi had already agreed to the right of other linguistic groups to form states, but was dilly-dallying when it came to Maharashtra.

Eighty-three people were mowed down in what remains one of the most brutal police attacks on a peaceful rally in independent India. The total number of people who lost their lives in the movement: 106.

These martyrs have now become the center of a renewed political battle as the state of Maharashtra prepares to celebrate its golden jubilee on 1 May. Sharad Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party is trying to build on its huge success in the recent municipal elections in Navi Mumbai, and has plastered Mumbai with posters reminding citizens that 23 of the 105 martyrs were from other communities, thus trying to position itself apart from the two Senas run by the warring Thackeray cousins. The list of martyrs includes Muslims, Jews, Christians, Parsis and North Indians. While it is not clear how many of these were Marathi speakers — the Konkani Muslims, Bene Israelis and the Christian East Indians of Vasai speak Marathi as their mother tongue — the broader point of the NCP posters is well taken.

The movement for a united Maharashtra was led by a rainbow coalition — the writer P.K. Atre, the communist S.A. Dange, the socialist S.M. Joshi, the social reformer Prabodhankar Thackeray, the Gandhian Senapati Bapat, the economist D.R. Gadgil, the peasant leader Keshavrao Jedhe and the proletarian bard Shahir Amar Sheikh, among others. The January 1956 killings angered moderate opinion as well. A miffed C.D. Deshmukh, India’s finest finance minister till Manmohan Singh came along, resigned from the Nehru cabinet.

The overall political leaning of this leadership was to the moderate Left, and there were hopes that the state that eventually emerged from the bloody battles would be progressive in both social and economic terms. In fact, the battle for Bombay was split along class lines. The business class that funded the Congress wanted the city to become a Union Territory that it could control while the predominantly-Marathi working class wanted it to be the capital of a progressive Maharashtra.

Fifty years later, the latter dream is in a shambles. The state is deep in debt, the epicenter of farmer suicides, threatened by Naxalite insurgency at its peripheries, struggles with immense deprivation in many districts and has seen its industrial supremacy threatened by other states, even as power has been captured by a narrow and venal political elite linked to the sugar lobby.

Meanwhile, Mumbai has lost its green spaces as successive governments changed rules to benefit builders, its infrastructure has not kept pace with population growth and the social composition of many old parts of the city has changed.