Dog's life for City canines during the Raj

Much has changed of Bangalore over the past century-and-a-half, but not the dog’s life.

Back when the Raj put down all military challenges in the princely state of Mysore, it still had to contend with the menace stray dogs posed to the public.

As early as 1866 the British dealt with the problem in a variety of ways in the Cantonment area. One was to offer cash rewards to people who hel­ped in capturing and slau­ghtering the canine population.

A district gazette of March 21, 1866, published under the name of the Mysore Government, outlined the administrative measure. The gazette, a copy of which is with Deccan Herald, says: “Notice is hereby given that from Monday the 2nd April to 31st July 1866, a reward of 2 annas will be given for each bitch and 1 anna for each dog killed and brought to the Sur-Ameen’s Cutcherry.” The notice was signed by C A Benson, Officer, Cantonment Magistrate and Superintendent of Police.

While there is no record to indicate the number of bitches and curs that were taken to the “cutcherry” (a public administrative or judicial office, origin­ating from the Urdu word kac­h­eri), Benson’s notice was a clear indication that at a time when Bangalore’s human population was just over a lakh, the administration was overwhelmed by the number of stray canines. The City has since grown manifold with over 93 lakh people now inhabiting it and the stary dog population is estimated to be about 3,00,000.

This system of rewarding pe­ople for killing mongrels pre­vailed for some more time. And later the municipal authorities took responsibility of putting down these animals which would be captured and then killed with a blow to their heads or electrocuted.

The practice of killing dogs continued till December 2001 when the then Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BMP) introduced animal birth control (ABC), instead of electrocuting the canines.

Although there is no evidence to suggest whether or not there was a system of issuing licences to Bangalore’s people owning pets during the Raj, the gazette provides indications that some people did own dogs at pets and the British administration allowed inhabitants to keep stray dogs alive. “...Individuals desirous of preserving their dogs are requested to have them muzzled or tied up,” the gazettee says.

The BBMP has now not only restricted itself to killing only those dogs that have contracted rabies, it has also begun issuing licences to people owning dogs as pets.
The dog menace, though, has been one of the big worries for the Palike in recent years. With last year alone recording 24,125 dog bite cases and this year (until end of January) seeing 9,000 of them already, the BBMP has faced the wrath of the Karnataka High Court for failing to prevent this.