A Joint Enterprise: Indian Elites and the Making of British Bombay

3. The Biography of an Unknown Native Engineer

73 In most architectural histories of Bombay , native engineers are either ignored or summarily dispatched because they are not seen to be the originator of ideas but, rather, functionaries who carried out orders.1 But is this all they were? Macaulay’s Minute (1835) articulated the aim to create through missionary education “a class of interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern—a class of persons Indian in blood and colour, but English in tastes, in opinions, in morals and in intellect,”or as Homi Bhabha dubs them, “mimic men.”2 My work examines the role of one prominent Indian architect and engineer, Khan Bahadur Muncherji Cowasji Murzban (1839–1917), who belongs to this “class of interpreters” and might offer an example of a “mimic man” (Figure 3.1). How does one examine Murzban’s role in the construction of colonial Bombay? Is Murzban an ideal type of “mimic man,”someone who could imitate the architectural forms desired by the British in his designs and yet forge no independent path of his own? Or are there other, more revealing ways of analyzing the work of Murzban and others like him? Murzban worked in the Public Works Department (PWD) from 1857 to 1893. He was appointed executive engineer, presidency, PWD in 1884 and retired from the government on 24 January 1893 after a thirty-six-year career in government service. In 1892, Murzban was appointed executive engineer of the Municipal Corporation of Bombay, a position he held for eleven years until his retirement in December 1903.3 In a career in Bombay spanning almost half a century, Murzban was responsible for the design and/or supervision of construction of many of Bombay’s public buildings.4 Murzban became a member 3 The Biography of an Unknown Native Engineer FIGURE 3.1. Khan Bahadur Muncherji Cowasji Murzban (1839–1917), portrait photographs taken at various ages. From Murzban, Leaves from the Life of Khan Bahadur Muncherji Cowasji Murzban, 29. Biography of an Unknown Native Engineer 75 of the Institute of Civil Engineers (C.I.E.) in 1896 and a fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects (R.I.B.A.) in 1889. Commenting on the award of his fellowship by R.I.B.A., the influential daily, the Times of India, wrote on 16 July 1889: “This gentleman, who has earned quite an enviable reputation in Bombay, having been associated, in some capacity or other, with nearly every work of magnitude during the past ten years or so, has recently had the very high honour conferred upon him of election to the class of Fellows of the Royal Institute of British Architects—a distinction which, in these days of qualifying examinations, is given only to men of some distinction.”5 In 1881, he applied to the government for a plot of land in the Esplanade area so that he could build a house that was close to both his office and the buildings being constructed under his supervision in the vicinity. The government granted the plot to him, in this most prestigious area,on favorable terms.The house,named Gulestan,was completed by 1884 (Figures 3.2, 3.3).6 I have been unable to locate the house. However, a road in the vicinity of the house continues to bear Murzban’s name. In contrast to the construction of native engineers as more or less anonymous intermediaries who got the job done, Murzban’s son’s life sketch of his father and grandfather represented his father’s life as exemplary:7 Muncherji’s life furnishes an object-lesson in “Self-Help,” he being one of those who have risen, from the lowest rung of the ladder of Government service, to the highest that was reachable at the period of his career as Executive Engineer, Presidency, terminating in a very well-earned pension.8 Although Murzban depicted his father’s life as an “object-lesson in ‘Self-Help,’” this chapter shows that Murzban’s life also offers us object lessons on the possibilities and limits of a native engineer of his time. Early in his career Murzban became a protégé of Sir Bartle Frere and was brought to Bombay by him in the 1860s to help him realize his dream of a new Bombay. Murzban was first appointed as assistant to the secretary to the Rampart Removal Committee in 1863.In my estimation there...