Bombay Time was one of the two official time zones established in

British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance in South Asia. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one form or another ...

in 1884. The

time zone A time zone is an area which observes a uniform standard time for legal, Commerce, commercial and social purposes. Time zones tend to follow the boundaries between Country, countries and their Administrative division, subdivisions instead of ...

was established during the

International Meridian Conference The International Meridian Conference was a conference held in October 1884 in Washington, D.C., in the United States, to determine a prime meridian for international use. The conference was held at the request of President of the United State ...

held at Washington, D.C. in the United States in 1884. It was then decided that India would have two time zones, Calcutta (now Kolkata), and Bombay (now Mumbai). Bombay Time was set at 4 hours and 51 minutes ahead of

Greenwich Mean Time Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) is the local mean time at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, Royal Observatory in Greenwich, London, counted from midnight. At different times in the past, it has been calculated in different ways, including being ...

(GMT). However, Bombay Time was difficult to convert to

Indian Standard Time Indian Standard Time (IST), sometimes also called India Standard Time, is the time zone observed throughout the Republic of India, with a time offset of UTC+05:30. India does not observe daylight saving time or other seasonal adjustments. I ...

(IST) after it was adopted on 1 January 1906 as the official time zone of India. With public sentiment against the government, prominent barrister Pherozeshah Mehta argued against the change. He managed to stall proceedings in the

Bombay Municipal Corporation The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), or the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM) is the governing civic body of Mumbai, the capital city of Maharashtra. Salman Khan Is Now Brand Ambassador of BMC from 2016. The BMC is India ...

for a few days by arguing that the government did not take the people into confidence. Faced with rising public resentment over the trial, the government shelved the conversion, and Bombay Time was maintained until 1955. The

Parsi The Parsis or Parsees () are a Zoroastrian ethnic group in the Indian subcontinent. They are descended from Persian refugees who migrated to the Indian subcontinent during and after the Arab-Islamic conquest of Iran in the 7th century, w ...

fire temples of Mumbai still use the Bombay Time as certain rituals of the community are calculated with reference to the position of the sun at local time. The time is displayed on large clocks located near the gates of the fire temples.{{cite web, url=https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/blogs/onmyplate/history-of-bombay-s-quest/ , title=History of Bombay's quest for time , work=The Economic Times , last=Doctor , first=Vikram , date=6 January 2010 , access-date=1 January 2023

References

Time zones Time in India Mumbai 1884 establishments in India 1955 disestablishments in India fr:Heure de Bombay

See also

References