The story of Mumbai’s transformation from a fragmented colonial port into the Prima Urbis (First City) of India is often told through its architecture or its merchants. However, a more visceral force behind this growth remains sparsely chronicled: the thousands of laborers who built the steel skeleton of the city.
Long before the textile mills dominated the skyline, the Railway was the primary engine of labor migration. The Great Migration: Piercing the Ghats When construction on the Bori Bunder–Thane line began in February 1851, the scale of the operation was unprecedented. For the first time in Indian history, an industrial project required the coordination of over 10,000 workers simultaneously.
Context: The Anatomy of the Workforce
Where did they come from? James John Berkeley, the Chief Engineer whose zeal and planning led to the “piercing of the Ghats,” noted that his workforce was a microcosm of the subcontinent. In a speech regarding the Thull Ghat, he marveled at the diversity of his laborers:
“…from Broach and Dharwar, from Tanna, Sholapore, and Rutnagherry, Sattara, Belgaum, and Poona, from Sawunt Warree and the Concan; and that it comprised 32 different classes of artisans and laborers, of whom there were 10,822 drillers and 2,659 masons.”
Response: Forwarding the Context
Managing this mass required a sophisticated hierarchy. Laborers worked under a ganger or mukkaddum; multiple gangs were supervised by a mistri (foreman), who reported to a European overseer. The wage structure reflected the hierarchy of the era, with masons and bricklayers at the top and excavators at the bottom—a precursor to the labor disputes and government interventions that would define industrial relations in the coming decades.
Key Highlights:
- 10,000 workers coordinated simultaneously in the construction of the Bori Bunder–Thane line in 1851.
- 50,000 to 60,000 workers engaged in the physical molding of Mumbai’s landscape at any given time.
- 79 mills employing nearly 60,000 workers by 1890, with over 124,000 workers by 1918.
By 1890, the GIPR was moving over 150,000 passengers annually, the vast majority of whom were third-class travelers—the laborers, traders, and merchants who nurtured the city in its most formative years.
The city’s demographic map shifted with this growth. While the early workforce was dominated by the Konkani population (constituting 49% in 1911), by 1921, workers from the United Provinces had increased their presence threefold.
Today, as you walk through South Mumbai, you are walking through the physical legacy of this era. The Royal Alfred Sailors’ Home, the University of Mumbai, the Rajabai Towers, the High Court, and the majestic CST station—all were completed between 1870 and 1890.
Reports from here reveal more about the making of Mumbai’s metropolis.