ABSTRACT
Mumbai, ‘the island city’, occupies a narrow stretch of land between the Arabian Sea and the sprawling states of Maharashtra and Gujarat. The original seven islands, the site of Mumbai today, have been occupied since the Stone Age. In the third century bc they formed part of the Magadha Empire under the rule of a Buddhist emperor, followed some time later by Hindu rulers of the Silhara dynasty through to 1343 when they were annexed by the Islamic sultanate of Gujarat. The Portuguese gained control of the islands in 1534 followed by Charles II of England who was ceded the territory as a dowry in 1661. When the islands were leased to the British East India Company in 1668 for the sum of ten pounds per annum, it marked the beginning of the commercial and urban development of the city (Tindall 1982; Pacione 2006).
