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159 On the face of it, one might conclude that the joint enterprise was extremely successful and the colonial government achieved its aims in directing the native elite to collaborate in the creation of public institutions and an urban vision of Bombay that the former desired. However, as demonstrated in chapter 4, local donors did not simply respond to the objectives of the government but brought their own agendas and cultural rules to the mix to create innovative solutions to the building of these new public institutions. Local donors used philanthropy to provide special provisions for their own community and, in the case of the Parsis, to alter their racial status. Chapter 3 showed an individual who used the skills and experience gained from designing public buildings to raise money and design modern hospitals and sanitary housing for his own community. In other words, the joint enterprise also resulted in unexpected outcomes to create a landscape of contradictions. Moving from a focus in the first four chapters on the implementation of the joint enterprise,this chapter concentrates on its unforeseen consequences to explore the contradictions that troubled this landscape. The intersection of the joint enterprise and the racial policies of the colonial regime created unstable social and spatial hierarchies. Hierarchies of race, community, class, and nationality intersected with space in Bombay to produce unstable identities where an individual could have a privileged status in one space and be denied entry into particular institutions in another space.Thus members of the wealthy Parsi elite who participated in the joint enterprise by constructing palatial institutions for the general public were prohibited from seeking medical aid at the European 5 An Unforeseen Landscape of Contradictions 160 Unforeseen Landscape of Contradictions General Hospital, a privilege granted to members of their hired help if they were of the right race or nationality. The construction of the joint public realm was seen by the colonial regime as a division of responsibilities between the government and the local elite. The joint nature of this enterprise was illustrated by names, foundationstone plaques, sculptural medallions, and busts or statues with which both the governing and native elite sought to advertise contributions. At the same time, especially in the case of medical institutions, we find that these were continually expanded as each community attempted to make special provisions for their own care. In the last chapter we saw that the new public landscape was a fractured landscape. As far as possible, Europeans created institutions that were separate from those for the new entity, the native public. However, an examination of Bombay’s hospitals and lunatic asylums in the last chapter revealed that fault lines ran through these institutions as well. Even though these were thought to be public institutions shared by various groups, we saw spaces where populations tried to carve out separate spaces for themselves, creating a landscape of contradictions. Who owned this public landscape of institutions and public spaces? As a result of joint enterprise, the city of Bombay was transformed in the second half of the nineteenth century,which might signify the colonial regime’s success in transforming the city. As local elites contributed vast sums toward the construction of this new joint public realm, they and their descendents attempted to control its current and future use; yet we find that the colonial government, acting on behalf of the public good, worked to limit the claims of elite philanthropists . However, the enormous philanthropic output of the Parsi community made many visitors question whether it was the Parsis, rather than the colonial regime, who constructed Bombay. Furthermore, Parsis attributed their generosity to Zoroastrian religious principles rather than lessons learned from their British masters. In the colonial context it is normal to expect that the ruling race received the best facilities. Undoubtedly the colonial elite did. However, the ruling race consisted of many different groups and classes. How did most Europeans fare in a city built on native philanthropy? How did this compare to the care received by Parsis? If native philanthropists, in partnership with the colonial government, took care of the native population, who was supposed to take care of the Europeans? In the previous chapter we saw how the joint public realm was compromised as issues of caste, race, and religion led to the division of its hospitals and lunatic asylums. In this chapter we examine colonial Bombay’s public institutions at the turn of the twentieth century, where we see class make its appearance as...

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