History of Mumbai
After the Partition of India on 15 August 1947, over 100,000 Sindhi refugees from the newly created Pakistan were relocated in the military camps five kilometres from Kalyan in the Maharashta Region. It was converted into a township in 1949, and named Ulhasnagar by the then Governor-General of India, C. Rajagopalachari. In April 1950, Greater Bombay District came into existence with the merger of Bombay Suburbs and Bombay City. It spanned an area of and inhabited 2,339,000 of people in 1951. The Municipal Corporation limits were extended up to Jogeshwari along the Western Railway and Bhandup along the Central Railway. This limit was further extended in February 1957 up to Dahisar along the Western Railway and Mulund on the Central Railway. In the 1955 "Lok Sabha" discussions, when Bombay State was being re-organised along linguistic lines into the states of Maharashtra and Gujarat. But the States Reorganisation Committee recommended a bi-lingual state for Maharashtra-Gujarat, with Bombay as its capital. However, the Samyukta Maharashtra movement opposed this, and insisted that Bombay native of Marathi be declared the capital of Maharashtra. The Indian Institute of Technology Bombay was established in 1958 at Powai, a northern suburb of Bombay. Following protests by the Samyukta Maharashtra movement in which 105 people were killed by police firing, Maharashtra State was formed with Bombay as its capital on 1 May 1960. Flora Fountain was renamed Hutatma Chowk ("Martyr's Square") as a memorial to the Samyukta Maharashtra movement.
Shivaji Park
Besides being a venue for gatherings of freedom fighters in British India, after independence in 1947, Shivaji Park was the focal point of the "Samyukta Maharashtra Chalval" (the struggle for a consolidated Maharashtra) that led to the present Maharashtra state being formed in 1960. During this period, the legendary writer, journalist, playwright, poet and social leader Acharya Prahlad Keshav Atre led this movement, addressing crowds of lakhs at this ground, earning him the title of "Lord of Shivaji Park". Shivaji Park has been integral to the political gatherings of the local party Shiv Sena, and has witnessed numerous other political rallies. In May 2010, the Bombay High Court declared the ground as a silence zone after residents filed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) in September 2009, complaining about the sound pollution in the area on account of the political rallies.