Bombay's Forgotten Economic Landscape
The creation of India and Pakistan as territorially distinct nation-states out of British India in 1947 extends to the economic sphere as well as to the construction of borders, of citizenship and even historiographical implications of partition. Pre-partition Bombay’s links extended outwards to South Africa, to Dubai and the Indian Ocean region, but also to economically vibrant Lahore. Those links are still evident, if forgotten, and speak of a transition to a nation-state that, I argue is incomplete.
I will focus on one particular building as the face of this forgotten economic landscape of this transition, that of a Lahore-based Swadeshi insurance company that was subsequently nationalised by India.
