From chawls to mansions: the rags to riches story of a Bombay entrepreneur

Decades after the textile mill chimneys have faded from the Mumbai skyline, indelibly altering the demographics, architecture and culture of the city’s central districts, the fate of displaced textile workers continues to—surprisingly—animate political discussions. The campaigning for and outcome of elections to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), the country’s richest urban local body by a mile, for instance, provide insights into how the once-ubiquitous textile factory continues to haunt collective memory.

The textile factories were not mere physical symbols of industrial productivity and commerce but cradles for community development as well, providing livelihood for over 250,000 workers who had mostly migrated from rural Maharashtra. The workers and their family members tuned into the city’s rhythms to upgrade their songbooks and compose unique cultural memes; celebrations of traditional festivals turned into collective and voluntary labour, some of which have now become the city’s visible socio-cultural icons, such as the Dahi Handi festivities or Ganpati celebrations.

And then, following the prolonged textile strike of the 1980s, the mills shut down. Mill owners, with some help from the political class, were able to repurpose the land and monetise it, even though a part of the land was supposed to be used for public housing. Former mill workers, who lived near the mills in tightly knit communities, were also stakeholders because the mill land was on long lease from the city. But mill owners and political leaders successfully subverted rules and policy prescriptions. Unfortunately, even the trade unions failed these workers.

The forcible dispersal of a century-old community was turbo-charged by a class angle as well: as south Mumbai got over-populated, the wealthy and aspiring wealthy needed residential properties not too far from the original elite hub. This required overhauling the working-class character of the former textile district. End-result: out with the old textile mills, hello steel-and-glass skyscrapers.

But this othering of the workers was nothing new. They were invisible earlier; they continued to be ignored in later-day policy and planning. Exclusion based on class, caste and economic status has been the textile workers’ lot. For example, during the 1928 textile workers’ strike, mill owners chose to ingratiate themselves with colonial powers to quell the strike rather than standardise and increase the workers’ wages, which had remained stagnant for many years. Even the Indian National Congress, a big tent which included interests representing big capital, had played a dubious role by splitting the workers.

In the documented history of the city’s many communities, it is largely Marathi literature and subaltern analysis that have focused on textile workers and their family ties, social linkages, economic dependencies, cultural outpourings and location—both spatial and temporal—in an otherwise chaotic urban geography. Tejaswini Apte-Rahm’s latest book, Tatyasaheb: The Story of a Bombay Entrepreneur, provides us with some glimpses into their lives, albeit seen through the lens of an extraordinary individual’s biography.

Vaman Shridhar Apte (1875-1952), or Tatyasaheb, was a representative of that same community, someone who started at the bottom of the food chain, not as a part of the direct manufacturing process but earning a living from the broader textile trade. His career began in 1892 in the city’s famed Mulji Jetha wholesale cloth market as a trainee in one of its shops. He then made an audacious leap in one year, becoming the 25% owner of a textile retailer in the same market. Tatya subsequently climbed the economic ladder of the textile trade through grit, hard work and ingenuity, segueing from a lowly worker to a successful textile trader with offices in different cities and, finally, made his mark as an industrialist.

His career progression is reflected in his housing choices: starting his life in worker tenements (chawls), he eventually left behind their squalor and moved sticks to an elite locality, eventually buying a commodious mansion in a tony neighbourhood to house the extended family. The responsibility of taking all his children, nephews, nieces and extended family (including grandchildren) under his wings, nurturing them, and holding their hands through various life stages is what probably explains his nickname: Tatyasaheb, which, translated from Marathi, means a respected family elder. In business circles, though, he was known as Vaman seth. His resettling in an elite neighbourhood—the preserve of the colonial hierarchy, royal families from across the country and leading businessmen—required Tatyasaheb to blend in without sacrificing his family’s traditional customs or kinship dynamics. And yet, very little has been written about him in the annals of the city’s businessmen from different communities.

It is therefore fitting that Apte-Rahm, his great-granddaughter, has written a book documenting his ascent from the chawls to mansions, from being a lowly clerk to an independent sales agent for one of the country’s prestigious textile mills, from investing in manufacturing to producing a large body of films.

Tatyasaheb, the youngest of four brothers and a sister, was born in Bombay (now Mumbai). His father Sridhar, who owned small cargo boats in Rajapur on the Konkan coast, had to relocate to Bombay after an accident and was employed in a shop. Tatya was not educated beyond the school level but was self-taught. His reading habit stood him in great stead in his interactions with British managing agents (such as Killick Nixon and Company) as well with other established business families in the city.

Like many Indian businessmen of that age, Tatyasaheb was industrious and thrifty, shrewdly re-investing his business surplus by setting up a sugar factory, acquiring and re-selling a paper mill, or financing a raft of feature and documentary films. It is worth mentioning here that he financed over 40 films directed by Dadasaheb Phalke, after whom the film industry’s most prestigious award is named. Yet very little of him exists in official business biographies, in the recorded history of the city’s textile trade, or documents about the country’s silent film industry.

The absence is all the more glaring since he was deeply involved in all the three industries which were not only central to Bombay’s growth as India’s commercial capital but became inextricably intertwined with the city’s history: textiles, sugar and film production.

The probable—and this is idle speculation—reasons could be that this is the lot of most first generation entrepreneurs, compounded by neglect from subsequent generations to perpetuate the founder’s memory. Or, perhaps, it is the lack of Tatyasaheb’s involvement in creating any city landmark.

His spectacular rise from a trainee in a cloth shop to part-owner of a textile retailer and finally ending up as the sole sales agent of Kohinoor Mills involved accelerated learning about the intricacies of textile production—the quality of raw cotton and its processing methods, conversion into yarn of different counts, weaving into cloth, its dyeing and processing, and finally its sales. A ₹300 profit in 1898, the very first year of opening his own independent shop, must have validated the trajectory he had chosen. Two years later, his profit quadrupled.

Apart from hard work, Tatyasaheb’s ascent was also due in part to his networking abilities and, of course, a large dose of providence. A deadly combination of right opportunities and an uncanny business sense helped him swing deals, husband capital, and expand his business empire. Tatyasaheb also looked for opportunities to help community members, a character trait that landed him in film production. On hearing about Dadasaheb Phalke’s troubles in raising finances for his films, Tatyasaheb stepped forward and became a full-time producer. This was one Konkanastha Brahmin helping out another.

Apte-Rahm provides insight into the nature of kinship as well as the cultural and social milieu that prevailed among Konkanastha Brahmin families in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This was a period when they were relocating from the Konkan coast to the city, attracted by employment opportunities and escaping their humdrum existence, but maintaining community ties by either choosing to stay together or through shared endeavours.

The codes and customs of these tradition-bound families, whether they lived in chawls of middle-class neighbourhoods or in mansions located in the city’s toniest addresses, come through vividly in Apte-Rahm’s telling. There is a studied attempt to suspend judgement. The author describes some of the horrific practices—like girls married off at 12, or widespread Brahminical rigidities and discriminatory practices—with a poker face. There is no telling whether familial ties prevent judgement or whether she is being truly clinical, but it is interesting to bring them out in the open.

The author also tries to locate Tatyasaheb’s business, industrial and cultural exertions within the broader trends sweeping through India in the pre-independence era, when indigenous investment was grappling with the complications of modernism compounded by repressive colonialism. Yet, there is a gnawing feeling that this attempt is somewhat hesitant and she wavers in fully exploring the concatenation between Tatyasaheb’s life and the larger events driving his investment energies, or the broader social and economic truth outside Tatyasaheb’s plush mansions. The author may have been constrained by the limited availability of records and archival material. There is also the inescapable feeling that the book has been written primarily for the larger family, to firmly anchor the feats of their illustrious forebears in the memory of its living members.

On balance, the book offers a wealth of information about Mumbai and its past. It paints vivid portraits about the migrants who came to a new kind of occupation. It tries to dissect the social relationships between these families and their neighbours. It delves into the structure of a thriving textile industry that powered the city’s economy. It zooms into the emergence of cinema as a new and popular art form and documents the nascent stirrings of an indigenous sugar industry, among others. Most importantly, it serves as a useful reminder that there were many contributors to the city’s economic growth, apart from the Marwaris, Gujaratis or Parsis.

Rajrishi Singhal (@rajrishisinghal) is a senior journalist and author of Slip, Stitch and Stumble: The Untold Story of India’s Financial Sector Reforms.