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Gas lighting, part of a re-envisioning of cities as modern metropoles, was one of the first 'modern' technologies implemented in nineteenth century Bombay. The debates over the implementation of gas light to illuminate the streets of Bombay have largely been overlooked in the history and historiography of colonial Bombay. Yet, the illumination of Bombay's public streets with gas light was an important turning point in the transition of Bombay from a provincial outpost to a modern city. The article examines the related debates, presents the illumination of colonial Bombay with gas light as a metaphor for the emergence of the modern city and depicts how new processes regarding civic planning and development emerged from this gas light debate, which ultimately made the implementation of electrical light and other aspects of modern city life possible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines two celebrated cases of the conversion of Indian youths to Christianity by missionaries in Bombay: the case of Dhanjibhai Nauroji of 1839 and the case of Shripat Sheshadri of 1843. The cases were precedents in Indians challenging Christian conversion by way of the law courts, and highlight the adaptive responses of the Parsi and Hindu communities of Bombay and western India to Christian proselytism, and the attractions and challenges of the larger colonial environment to Indians' ability to regulate and safeguard their community and caste norms. The article argues that in response to Christian proselytism and colonial power and ideology, Indians utilized traditional and non-traditional mechanisms that ultimately led to challenges, accommodations, and reassessments of Indians' place under the ideological framework of colonialism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]