Father of Municipal Government
If you cross the Dadabhai Naoroji Road at the intersection with Mahapalika Marg opposite to the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus in Mumbai, you face the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation building. Outside the building is an impressive bronze statue of the “Father of Municipal Government in Bombay.” His name is Pherozeshah Mehta. On his obituary, Viceroy Hardinge described Mehta as “a great Parsi, a great citizen, [a] great patriot, and a great Indian.”
In 1865, Arthur Crawford became the first Municipal Commissioner of Bombay. When he took over, the city faced water shortage, garbage pile-ups, clogged drains and high mortality. Crawford, an able administrator, improved the sanitation and got the streets cleaned that halved the city’s mortality rate. However, his plans ran above budget and he was accused of financial mismanagement. Prominent politicians including Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Gopal Krishna Gokhale denounced the commissioner for squandering away municipal funds. A young twenty-five-year-old lawyer, Mehta, gave a spirited defence of Crawford.
Mehta understood the criticisms as also the benefits of the Crawford administration. He made the case for municipal reforms and drafted the Bombay Municipal Corporation Act. The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation was formed under this Act. This civic body governs Mumbai, the richest municipal organization in the country. Mehta served as the President of the corporation for four terms.
Swadeshi Liberal in London
After his early education in Bombay, Mehta went to England to study law at Lincoln’s Inn, one of the four Inns of Court in London. It is recognised as one of the world’s most prestigious professional bodies of judges and lawyers. Mehta frequently visited Dadabhai Naoroji’s house in England and got influenced by him. He also formed lasting friendship with a few other Indians including Jamsetji Tata, Badruddin Tyabji, Womesh Chandra Bonnerjee and Manmohan Ghose. He became an active member of the East India Association that was set up by Naoroji to promote Indian interests by influencing British public and Parliament.
He believed in the usefulness of British liberal values to achieve peace, prosperity and progress for India. He also attacked the defects and injustice of the British administration in India. Back home he started his own law practice. When a group of British officials tried to oust Mehta from his post at the Bombay municipality, he hired the sharp lawyer Mohammed Ali Jinnah to represent him.
Mehta was a keen supporter of swadeshi. His involvement in setting up the Central Bank of India was to promote domestic commerce. In 1911, it was arguably the first commercial Indian bank completely owned and managed by Indians. He realized that to form public opinion, required newspapers. The two newspapers in Mumbai, The Times of India and the Bombay Gazette, were hardly nationalistic. He started The Bombay Chronicle in 1910 to highlight the political struggle of pre-independence India. This paper, under its fearless editor, B. G. Horniman, exposed the Jallianwala Bagh massacre to the public.
Mehta also served as Vice Chancellor and Dean of Faculty of Arts at Bombay University. He believed that “an intelligent and educated population is the best means of developing indefinitely the resources of a country.” He opposed the government’s attempt to bring universities under government control to suppress their intellectual freedom.
Founding Father of Indian National Congress
Mehta was one of the founders of Indian National Congress when it was formed in 1885. He believed in the fraternity of all native communities of the country and the bond that binds them together to pursue a common government. Fully aware that the British appeased Parsis, he hit back, “In speaking of myself as a native of this country, I am not unaware that, incredible as it may seem, Parsis have been both called, and invited and allured to all themselves, foreigners.”
When the Congress split at Surat, he sympathised with the moderates. He supported a separate party for the members with differing opinions. Mehta was concerned by the condition of Indians in South Africa that brought him in contact with Mahatma Gandhi.
He was knighted in 1904 even as his health deteriorated. His kidneys and heart gave him trouble. The final straw was the death of Gokhale in early 1915. He went into depression and physical exhaustion that took its toll on him and proved fatal that same year.
Sources: Indian Political Thinkers: Modern Indian Political Thought by N. Jayapalan (Atlantic Publishers and Distributors, 2000); Speeches and Writings of the Honourable Sir Pherozeshah M. Mehta, K.C.I.E, edited by C. Y. Chintamani (The Indian Press, 1905); encyclopedia.com