Jal Naroji and Farming

One day in middle of 1935 Mr. Jal Naroji from a very wealthy Bombay family, and grandson of Dada Bhai Naroji a very prominent Congress leader, came to meet Jabir Ali in his Deonar house. Jal and Jabir had been at Cambridge together in the early years of the twentiteh century and were good friends. But after returning from Cambridge they had drifted apart, Jabir had moved to Burma and lived and worked there, whereas Jal had joined the firm of TATA where he was incharge of the Indian Hotels, of which the Taj Hotel of Bombay was the flagship. Jabir had recently come out of Jail for the last time. He had decided to give up active politics which involved frequent trips to the jail, becasue now he had a wife and a young son to support and care for. Jal Naroji was making a great effort to turn the Taj Hotel into one of the worlds best hotels, and he was succeding pretty nicely, but he had realized that one big hurdle in his path was to have first class vegetables and fruits, but they were difficult to get, especially in the quantity that the Taj Hotels wants.

He had realized that places like the Trombay island and other suburban districts of Bombay had acres and acres of land lying underutilized. He wondered why these lands were not utilized to grow top quality food, which would also give the land owners a steady income. Jabir Ali himself had been thinking on similar lines. Although retired from active politics he had a deep seated desire to do things that would help the country to move forward. Now Jal and Jabir had a long chat together, and the final result was a decision that Jal Naroji would purchase about 25 acres of land not far from Deonar and Jabir who had diploma from Cambridge in agriculture, and a Tripos in Natural sciences, would join Jal in developing this land into a really modern horticultural centre producing vegetables, fruits and even flowers for the urban market. It would be a model for other suburban land owners.

They started to search for land. Trombay island in those days had large open spaces, grasslands and meadows and 25 acres was not at all difficult to attain for someone like Jal Naroji who had the funds. It is interesting to note that lands in the Deonar area were sold at less than Rs. 500/- acre at that time. It is impossible to believe for anyone who comes into this area today. Trombay island has close to half a million inhabitants and sky scrapers by the dozen today. The land that Naroji purchased was at the foot of the Trombay hill and infact one part of it was almost a 100 ft. above the level of the surrounding country side. It was a sloping piece of land and to farm this land it was necessary to have many areas terraced. Jal Naroji’s farm was one of the first in this part of the country to start using farm machinery like tractors and bulldozers for terracing and preparing the land for cultivation.

The first requirement of a horticultural enterprise was irrigation water in large quantities. So, almost the first thing that was done for the development of the farm was to dig a well. There is no regular water table in this part of the country and a well would be successful if you were able to strike one of the underground streams of water flowing from the hills towards the creeks. This is the well that Jabir Ali was going to inspect when he had a fall, described in another entry here. Naroji himself was very passionate about this farm and came over to see what was happening almost every second day. This was how he happened to be at the well when Jabir Ali fell.