27 March

The Mumbai we see today was not the same in 1668. At that time, it was not a single organised city but a cluster of seven separate islands, with seawater flowing between them. There were marshes, salt flats, and moving from one island to another was itself a difficult task.

On March 27 1668, under a Royal Charter, the seven islands of Bombay were handed over to the English East India Company for a nominal annual rent of 10 pounds. Before this, these islands were under Portuguese control and had been transferred to England in 1661 as part of the marriage agreement between King Charles II of England and Catherine of Braganza of Portugal. The British Crown later chose not to administer the territory directly and instead assigned it to the East India Company for commercial and administrative purposes.

The Company encouraged people to settle here, which led to a gradual increase in population and a growing demand for land for housing and cultivation. However, the challenge was that seawater flowed between the islands and many areas were marshy, where diseases such as malaria were common. To address this, efforts were made to drain the marshes, block the flow of seawater, and reclaim land so that it could be used for habitation and development.

In the 1670s, during the tenure of Governor Gerald Aungier, administration was further improved, the port was strengthened, and the foundations of an organised urban system were laid. In the following years, embankments and connecting routes were gradually built to link the islands. Over time, these separate parts were joined together, and by 1838, they had formed a single connected city. This process turned Bombay into an important commercial and port centre and marked the beginning of structured urban development in the region.