Question

Higlights the features of social life of people living in bombay ?

Answer 1

Overcrowded city: Bombay was a crowded city. While every Londoner in the :840s enjoyed an average space of 155 square yards. Bombay had a mere 9.5 square yards. By 1872. when London had an average of 8 persons per house, the density in Bombay was as high as 20

(ii) Separate living areas for the natives and the white: The Bombay Fort area which formed the heart of the city in the early 1800s was divided between a ‘native’ town, where most of the indians lived, and a European or ‘while section. A European suburb and an industrial zone began to develop to the north of the Fort settlement area, with a similar suburb and cantonment in the south.

(iii) Living space for the rich: Like the European elite, the richer Parsi. Muslim and upper case traders and industrialists of Bombay lived in sprawling, spacious bungalows In contrast, more than 70 per cent of the working people lived in the thickly populated chawls of Bombay.

(iv) Life in chawls: More than 70 per cent of the working people lived in the thickly populated chawls of Bombay.

(v) Depressed classes and housing problem: People who belonged to the ‘depressed classes’ found it even more difficult to find housing. Lower castes were kept out of many chawls and often had to live in shelters made of corrugated sheets, leaves, or bamboo