Mumbai And Epidemics: The Bombay Plague Of 1896

The coronavirus crisis is bringing into question most of the modern edifices created by human beings. In a rush to understand the impact of this crisis, many have turned to history with a new lens. Just as the 2008 global financial crisis was compared to the 1929 Great Depression and other past economic crises, the early weeks of the Covid-19 pandemic prompted renewed analysis of the Spanish Flu of 1918 and the 2002 SARS outbreak..Even as social and economic activity in India ground to a halt following the nationwide lockdown announced on March 24, 2020, the disease has continued to spread in Mumbai. The country’s financial capital is no stranger to epidemics. Over a hundred years ago, the city that was then Bombay was struck by bubonic plague that killed thousands, prompted many others to flee, and even led to the introduction of the very law that has been invoked by state governments in 2020 to battle the present coronavirus—the Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897..Origins And Immediate Response.The general hygiene conditions in late 19th-century Bombay were a perfect recipe for the spread of the disease. A cluster that had started as a group of seven islands had by then emerged as the centre of trade and commerce under the British Raj. This led to many people living in all kinds of conditions, from sprawl to squalor. After the first case was reported in August 1896, the number of plague deaths rose from 79 in September to 2,188 by January 1897..In February 1897, the imperial government took a series of measures, starting with the Epidemics Diseases Act which gave the government powers to “prescribe regulations for the inspection of any ship or vessel leaving or arriving at any port” in case of an outbreak of epidemic diseases. The sea passengers leaving and arriving in Bombay were examined..A proclamation was issued declaring that no passenger shall leave a train coming from Bombay until they have been examined and certified free from the plague..The government also issued a notification empowering the Municipal Commissioner to take special measures concerning sanitation..The city was divided into 10 districts with teams of medical officers and nurses for each district. District Plague Officers were appointed to visit houses, ensure maximum patients were admitted to hospital, and to count deaths..In 1898, the colonial government appointed a commission which conducted an extensive investigation and submitted a report in 1901. Despite the detailed report, criticism followed in the coming decades that little was done to prevent the spread of disease elsewhere. Great plagues recurred in Pune in 1918, and Borsad, Gujarat, in 1932-35..At the turn of the twentieth century, Bombay was not just a commercial centre for overseas trade, but a big hub for the supply of domestic goods as well..Over the next few years, the plague spread to other cities as well, as did the death toll..How Herd Immunity Works, a Possible Key to the Covid Pandemic’s End.Studies On The Spread.A report by the Bombay Plague Committee chaired by James Campbell showed how by October 1897, the plague had spread to Surat, Satara, and Poona. This led to inspections of passengers from and towards these cities. The report also detailed how rats sickened the stores of the (mainly Hindu) grain traders. Campbell noted that “The religious repugnance of the inhabitants to kill, or even to remove the rats after they had sickened and died, filled the houses with infection.” Later, the bania trading community took the plague to the Deccan and other regions where it was called by names such as ‘Marwadi sickness’, ‘Bania disease’ and so on..Campbell’s predecessor on the Plague Committee, Brigadier-General WF Gatacare noted how people preferred to die in their own homes instead of hospitals. There was just one hospital (the municipal hospital on Arthur Road) which was admitting people of all castes and classes..There was distrust in European methods as there were fears that “all patients were operated on during life and their bodies given over to the dissecting room after death”, Gatacare wrote..The Indian Plague Commission Report of 1901 detailed how the plague travelled to different cities like Bangalore, Hyderabad, Madras, noting that mortality rates were high in areas such as Poona, Karachi, etc..As 1907 came around, over 3 lakh had died across the country. The Bombay municipality office which governed the plague matters had an executive health officer by the name of JA Turner. That year Turner wrote a detailed report on the Bombay Plague. He surmised there were four possible places of origin:.via sea from Hong Kong or remote parts of China,via sea from the Persian Gulf,via pilgrims who travelled from the Kumaon and Garhwal Hills to Bombay, andvia pilgrims from Jeddah..The first and third options were seen as unlikely as trade between India and Mainland China as British Hong Kong was done mainly via the Calcutta port, not Bombay. Also, there were no cases of plague reports in the Kumaon-Garhwal Hills..The Bombay plague most likely came from Persia with whom India traded grains, perfect for rats to infest the food stock..Criticism Of Government Policies.The British dealt with the plague using similar policies that are used today: segregate, quarantine, hospitalise, sanitise and so on. These policies were criticised for being limited and exclusionary. Bal Gangadhar Tilak wrote extensively on how little the government did to mitigate the impact of the disease. The Chapekar brothers—Damodar Hari Chapekar, Balkrishna Hari Chapekar, and Vasudeo Hari Chapekar—even assassinated WC Rand, the British plague commissioner of Pune..In research done in 2004, Prashant Kidambi studied how much of the government’s efforts were directed at the poor. There was an explicit class bias where the idea was that plague was mainly a local disease residing in Bombay’s slums. This led to an assault on their neighborhoods, purportedly to protect the well-being of Bombay’s elites..Comparing the U.S. Workforce During the 1918 Flu vs. Covid-19.The Economic Impact.The 1890s were challenging for the Indian economy due to not just plague also twin famines in 1896-97 and 1899-1900. Bombay was a cotton hub and these natural disasters led to a slowdown in the sector..In 1885-95, 21 new cotton mills had opened in Bombay and in 1895-1905 the number of new mills had declined to 16..There were nearly a dozen more mills that had planned to open business during the period, but the projects were shelved. The share capital per firm had also declined from Rs 3.6 lakh in 1885-95 to Rs 3.4 lakh in 1895-1905. The Bombay cotton industry did recover after 1905 but was subsequently impacted by competition from mills in China and Japan..The epidemic also led to a shortage of labour in the Bombay Presidency. The Royal Commission on Labour in a 1926 report noted that “after the plague epidemics the difficulties of employers were acute especially in Bombay.” The population in Bombay Presidency declined by 1.7 percent from 1.88 crore in 1891 to 1.85 crore 1901..Bloomberg columnist Andy Mukherjee recently wrote that the ongoing “disease would likely cast a lasting shadow on behavior, preferences, prices… and yes, interest rates”. The Bank Rates charged by the three Presidency Banks in British India spiked sharply in the years of the plague. As the interest rate charged for demand loans against collateral such as government securities, this doubled from around 4 percent in 1895 to 8-8.5 percent in 1898, before settling at 5.5 percent in 1899. There was no Reserve Bank of India back then and the interest rates rose along with uncertainty, as funds got scarcer..Deposits declined as well, particularly in the Presidency and Exchange Banks. In 1894, the total deposits in Presidency Banks were to the tune of Rs 16.88 crore which declined sharply to 12.99 crore by 1897. The sharpest decline was at the Bank of Bombay whose deposits fell from Rs 5.77 crore in 1895 to Rs 3.57 crore in 1897..The Bombay municipality was unable to float a loan worth Rs 29 lakh at 4 percent due to a shortage of funds during the plague period. The money was needed for housing and sanitation purposes to fight the plague. Even employees at Bank of Bombay demanded higher allowances to set up temporary accommodations due to the plague epidemic..Lessons From History.Urban India’s frequent brushes with plagues have receded from public memory as we’ve not had a large-scale outbreak after Surat in 1994. While that’s a welcome trend, administrations and the citizenry would do well to remember how past epidemics were resolved and cities were revamped, at a time like this in the fight against Covid-19. Surely, we wouldn’t want the current moment to be a part of history that is only revisited if a similar calamity were to occur in the future..Amol Agrawal is a faculty member at Ahmedabad University. He has a PhD in Indian Banking History and writes the Mostly Economics blog..The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of BloombergQuint or its editorial team.

Mumbai And Epidemics: The Bombay Plague Of 1896

India’s financial capital is no stranger to epidemics. 125 years ago, it was struck by a plague that killed thousands.

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