IN 1665, FOLLOWING the grand London wedding of Charles II to Portuguese princess Catherine of Braganza, Bombay (or Bom Bahia as they called it) was ceded to the British Crown as dowry. Three years later, the King transferred the islands to the East India Company (EIC).

In those days, Bombay was nothing like the city that it is today. It was a set of neglected islands that people in power didn’t mind parting from, nor celebrated acquiring. The famed English diarist Samuel Pepys, in an entry from September 1663, talks about “the knavery of the Portugall Viceroy, and the inconsiderableness of the place of Bombaim,” referring to it as “a poor little island.”

But little did the British know that these paltry little islands would become their new base in 1687.

IT WAS GERALD Aungier (governor of Bombay from 1669 to 1677) who led the process of developing the city. He had set up an Anglican mint, made detailed reclamation and causeway plans to link the city, and built the St Thomas Cathedral in Fort. He also promised legal rights and freedom of religion to all merchant communities who immigrated from across the country to Bombay, including the Gujaratis, Parsis, and Jews. The city grew financially and culturally during this time. Essentially, he had prepared the city to function as the Company’s new base.

So about a decade later, when the British base in Surat was facing troubles—its Tapi river was silting and Shivaji had attacked and plundered the city twice—the Company had somewhere to go.

Bombay was a blank slate that they could build up the way they saw fit.